Back in Red Bay - Camp Allegro

We stopped in Bremen, GA for the night and went to bed fairly early for us.  We did watch "Hope Springs" with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones last night since there wasn't much on tv in the area.  It was a chick flick (my view) and Gerry was a little disappointed in the movie since it was rather sad.

Today was an early day for us and we were on the road before 10am with a 210 mile drive ahead of us.  It was an easy drive and we caught RT 78 out of Birmingham, AL and eventually picked up AL 19 for the last few miles.  Not much interesting to report on the drive other than some pretty scenery and a lot of red clay along side of the road.

When we arrived in Red Bay the streets were lined with people sitting on the curb, in chairs and just standing around.  Evidently there was a parade and we were part of it.  One group of young children made the pull sign for blowing the air horn and I obliged them.  They gave us a big cheer, but I was hesitant to do it again since the police frown on this practice in town.  The parade was for the Red Bay High School homecoming celebration and there was a football game scheduled for later this evening.

We arrived at the campground to find out it was full and so was the dry camping area.  I did find a spot to park after I took on some water and dumped the holding tanks.  Not exactly a prime location, but the price is right.  Free!   The RV dealer across the road had a couple sites with electric only right next to their garage for $20/night.  No thanks.  We may get a full hookup site by Monday and then there is a 4-5 day wait for the express service.  Anything major and there is a 4-5 WEEK wait.  Not for me.

They are calling for temps down around the high 30s at night in a couple days.  Hope we have electric by then or we will have to run the diesel burner for heat.  No big problem, but would prefer running the heat pumps on the MH for heat.

Now we sit and wait.  Hope to get some geocaching in while we are here, but there aren't many around that we didn't find during our last visit to Camp Allegro.

Momma told me there would be days/weeks like this.

Tiffin - Red Bay, AL Day 1 & Grant's Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANT

Our grandson Grant is celebrating his 12th birthday today and Larry Jr. & Jane will have a small celebration with him.  Later this month there will be a bigger celebration and we hope to be there for the event.  We will watch the fun, but not participate in the strenuous part of it.  Laser tag.  I would be "it" from the first second.  Hope you have a great day Grant and we will see you soon. 

We were put into a dry camping spot last night since the campground is full of others waiting for service.  There are some people just camping here and not waiting for service, but their numbers are few.  

The Tiffin service guy came by this morning and went over our job list.  There are a couple big items and a number of simple items that need to be repaired.  He said they have an express service and they assign two techs to work on the unit for three hours and go down the list in the order we want the jobs completed.  In addition, there are three tasks that Tiffin is doing on the units when they are in the shop which don't count toward the three hours.  Confusing?   Well, if we don't take the express service, we could be here until Memorial Day and I'd like to avoid that.

Even with the express service, it may be early next week before they can get us in for the repairs.  That gives new meaning to "Express" but it is what it is.  The slow pace of living in this neck of the woods most likely contributes to work being done in a timely manner.

One good thing about being in the campground is that you get to chat with other Allegro Bus owners and pick their brains on what to look for and expect.  I've already talked to a neighbor down the line and he's been a wealth of knowledge since he's owned three Tiffin products and is very tech oriented.  Now if I could just remember all these helpful hints and recall them when needed.  Looks like a notebook will be necessary to keep track of the hints.

We found out an easy way to remove the covers from the a/c intake vents and cleaned all the filters in the morning.  Pine Sol was used and now we have a fresh pine smell in the RV.  Makes me want to go camping! 

We got a call at 12:30 and they had a full hookup campsite waiting for us.  We are right on the old runway and sitting here with about $25 million worth of luxury motorhomes.  Whew, that is a lot of money.

We ate out at a local steakhouse in Red Bay this evening and had a nice meal.  I had the catfish filets and Gerry had shrimp.  Yes, I know it's a steakhouse, but we preferred the shrimp and fish.  The waitress said that about 70% of their business comes from Tiffin RV owners and they come from all over the country.  We ordered a Key Lime Pie for takeout and just finished it off.  It was great.

The first night we were here we parked very close to the warehouse at the Tiffin service area and couldn't get any tv reception over the air.  Since we moved, we have picked up over 10 stations, including CBS which has Gerry's favorite shows, NCIS, NCIS LA and Golden Boy.  What a relief for her. 

Two for the price of one & Tiffin Service Red Bay, AL

This blog will be for the last two days and during that time we traveled from Arlington, TX to Red Bay, AL.  Why, you may ask.  We need some work to be done on the kitchen slide out and want it to be performed at the Tiffin Factory in Red Bay, AL.  But, lets not get ahead of ourselves.

We had a great time visiting with Judy & Herb the last few days, but we adhere to the old saying:  "fish and visitors begin to smell after 3 days" and our time was up.  We left early Sunday morning and merged into the busy traffic on I-20 E from Arlington.  Right after we got on the interstate Gerry grabbed her camera and got this nice shot of the Texas flag.

 

  We had an uneventful drive to Vicksburg, MS

and crossed the Mississippi River and saw it at flood stage.  One of the casinos on the riverbank was close to having the grounds underwater.  It's the buildings on the photo above.  Thankfully, that wasn't the casino we were heading for.  We pulled into the Ameristar Casino RV park late in the afternoon.  The RV park was built 14 years ago and didn't take into consideration the size of RVs of today.  The sites were difficult to pull into and very narrow.  Our RV just barely fit on the pad and the car was off but very near the road.

We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed over to the casino to try and win our fortune.  I wish I could say we did, but after about an hour of losing constantly we thought it wasn't going to be our night and we returned to the RV.  The park and adjacent hotel provide free shuttle service to and from the casino.  The return trip was right to our front door rather than the office where we started our trek.

Monday morning saw us up bright and early once again for the 300+ mile drive to Red Bay, AL.  We decided to take the Natchez Parkway for a bit and got on it just west of Jackson, MS.  It didn't take long for us to think that over again.  The Parkway is very narrow and on-coming cars were pulling off to their right like they thought we were going to run over them.  The road also was very bouncy and we decided that 150 miles of that would kill us.  So, after about 30 miles we got off the Natchez Parkway and took I-55 north and then cut over in steps until we got to Red Bay around 5:30 pm.

Natchez Trace Parkway

Obelisk along side of I-55

MS State U in Starkville, MS

Check out the wheels on this car.

    We finally arrived in Red Bay after driving on progressively worse roads.  The last few miles were on narrow, country roads without any shoulder.  Thankfully it was only for a few miles.

We arrived at the Tiffin Factory and went to the campground office to find out they were full and we would be in a dry camping area.  No problem, we have a genset and get along fine without a hookup.  Wrong!.  The breaker on the genset had tripped and it took me a while to figure out what was wrong.  Once it was reset, we were back on the air.  We only get one tv channel, so I guess it will be movies and radio to entertain us.

The facility here is huge and there must be over 100 RVs here waiting for service.  In addition, there are around 50 RVs where the service is complete and waiting to be picked up.  Most Tiffin owners prefer to have the service work done here rather than at a dealer.  We may be here a long time waiting our turn and they don't work on the weekend.   Here are some of the RVs waiting for service.

  
A few years ago Tiffin RV bought an old airfield and the building on it to convert to their service center.  Many of the RVs are lined up along side of the old airport runway with just enough room to have your slide out.  They don't want to make it too comfortable for anyone so they don't hang around for long after the work is finished.  They assigned us a site right on the old runway and it's a level site.  It's marked by US in the center of the picture below.  The site further along the runway are sloped downhill and are closer together, so we lucked out. 

There are around 50 or more service bays and they all are full.  In addition, they are building more bays onto the end of the service building.  I think they could double them and still have a hard time keeping up with all the work.

We will know more about our fate tomorrow sometime when the technician comes out to our RV and runs down the list of things that need to be done.  Hopefully most of it will be covered under our extended warranty insurance and maybe some covered by Tiffin making some repairs for which they take responsibilty.  We shall see.

Now it's time to hit the hay since they could come by the RV as early as 7am.  I wonder if the sun is up then.

That was our last couple days, how were yours?