Thursday -- Third Day in Red Bay

Yesterday afternoon, we washed the motorhome and car. They have a big concrete pad at the campground for washing the rigs, and we used it. They make you take the car to a place in town!


Here we are parked at the front of the campground. We get a lot of comments about what an "Airstream" is doing in an Allegro campground? I usually tell them that it is an upgrade for the campground with all the Junque Allegros around. When you check in, they ask what kind of Allegro you have? If you don't have an Allegro, they list it as an SOB. I told that I had been called worse than that, but they explained it meant "Some Other Brand"!
We went back to the factory this morning, and several motorhomes in our chosen color scheme were back from the paint shop. Here are several pictures:

Wednesday -- Second Day in Red Bay

UPDATE: I got a card reader from the office, and here are the pics from yesterday.

No pictures today....... the cable from the camera to my computer seems to have failed.

Today, we went to the factory to look for a "Sunlit Sand" painted coach. We also called the production manager and asked about the production of a new model , 40QRP, which has a front kitchen like a Winnebago that we like. He told us that they had one in production, and that it was at the Belmont Paint area. We went to Belmont looking for it and the sunlit sand coach.

After chasing and finding the 40QRP, we found it, but turned out to be a 40QSP, which is the model we currently like!! It turns out that they are not ready to make the new model yet, and somebody changed the production order............ but never changed the data in the system!!

We did find the sunlit sand, and took pictures of it. It was in the paint booth, and we want to go back tomorrow and take pictures outside. We will post them whenever I get a new cable.

Here's another picture from the front with the slides in:
Here's a couple of the bathroom. Note that this model has what is called a 'Garden Tub', and our grandkids (when we take a trip with them and leave their Mom at home!!) can actually take a bath in the bottom of the shower:

Here's a closeup of the night stands added on the '08 models with a king size bed. In '07, if you got the king bed, you did not get a night stand.

Here are a couple of closeup pictures of the cornice (sp) boards and detail for the window treatment:

Here are some pictures that we took in the paint shop. The shop was very impressive. They have four (4) lines, with about 4--6 booths on each line. It appears that they put apply primer in the first booth, and then add stripes and full paint in sections as the Motorhome travels down the line. We actually first found our color scheme in a paint booth!!!

Tuesday -- First Day in Red Bay

We woke up a little late this morning, and went inside the office to register. When we arrived last night, there were only two sites open and both were far from the office and the WIFI attenna. At the office, I asked if we could be moved closer.......... and we got lucky. People left from a site right across from the office, and now I have WIFI in the motorhome. My printer is set up, and it is nice!! Full hookups and WIFI for $10 a night!!!

We did not take the tour today, but we managed to get passes that allowed us basically free roaming of the factory. We went to the finish line and went through the rigs looking for our preferred set up and colors......... to make sure it really was our "preferred"!

Here's a picture of the security office.....

Here are some random pictures showing the interior of our choice:

We also drove over to the paint factory in Belmont, MS (about 15 miles away) to look at exterior paint jobs. We did not find the one we like, but here are some shots. The security guy over at Belmont even loaned us his golf cart to drive around the area..... it was big. The first picture is a motorhome straight from the factory with no paint prep.

We found these three sitting together and away from the others. It shows some of our choices and our dislikes. We like one similar to the front one, but with dark red where the gold color is. Our second choice is the darker one in the back, but we think it is too dark! We definitely don't like the one with the major portion of white on the rear!! There are several views.

Memorial Day - Traveling....

We left the rest area at Shreveport, and headed west on I-20. When we crossed into Mississippi, we stopped at the welcome center, and took some pictures. The one above seemed appropriate for the day. The welcome center was nice. Here are some more photos:
When we left the welcome station, Patsy started questioning me about how we were going to get to Red Bay!! After a while, I realized the map in my head was wrong........ I had confused I-20 with highway 78 that runs across Mississippi, but further north! We had to cut a diagonal up to the NE corner of Mississippi. We looked at the map, and decided to catch the Natchez Trace at Jackson, MS. It was a pleasant drive, away from the Memorial Day traffic on the interstates, but the speed limit was 50mph, and it was a two lane highway with no shoulder.

Here are some pics..........

We finally made it to Red Bay at 8:30PM.......... a long day!!

Sunday ------ A Day of Travel

While we were camped at Stonewall, TX on Saturday night, it started raining about 3:00AM and never quit. At about 6:30AM, it began to diminish, so I got out of bed and got dressed. By 7:00AM, the rain stopped, so I went out and dumped the waste tanks, and Patsy and I got the car hooked up behind the motorhome. Since we were up, we decided to get on the road.

We drove all day, mostly on back roads at 65 mph. At 8:00PM, we were at the Texas / Louisianna border, so we pulled into the Texas Rest Area to use the WIFI. It is nice and cool, and we did a lot of driving, so we decided to spend the night here. I will catch up on the internet, and we will go to bed early.

We expect to get an early start tomorrow, and hopefully, be in the Red Bay campgound tomorrow night.

Later...........

South Central Texas Boomers Campout.....

On Friday afternoon, we checked into the Peach Country RV Park in Stonewall, TX to spend the weekend with the Boomers camping club. Thirty-five rigs attended this event, even though it was supposed to rain all weekend!! The weather turned out to be not as bad as predicted. Althought it was cloudy, it barely rained all day Saturday, plus it was nice and cool.

The day started out with a large buffet breakfast....


After breakfast, some of the people gathered up and went into Fredericksburg for a day of shopping and looking around. Nine of us stayed at the campground hall, and particpated in the 3rd annual Texas Hold'em Tournament. Here's a look at the table during a break, when half of them were eliminated. My chips are next to the Whataburger cup.......

Within the next hour, it was all over, and "I had all the chips"! Yep, I won the 2007 tournament!!

Before I post the next pictures, I need to explain about the 'mascot' for the club. It seems that on one of the first campouts of this club, the members were parked in a campground with another club whose members had the $500k plus rigs, and the rich folks made some disparging remarks about the 'trash' in the smaller rigs! Well, on a shopping trip later in the day, the leader of our club spotted some pink flamingos in a shop, and decided that they should be purchased and placed outside the 'trashy' rigs to properly compliment the owners.......... so they did, and the flamingo became the mascot. Therefore, everybody goes crazy with the pink birds and any likeness of them. Now the following pictures, including the poker trophy will make more sense.

Here is a picture of a pair of successful shoppers......

Here's a picture of me with all the chips, my trophy, and the set of cards & poker chips that was part of the prize, plus $67 cash!!

Saturday concluded with another buffet meal (lots of good food), and the presentation of the poker tournament winners (top three). The nice lady doing the talking in the following picture is Sandy Creekmore, AKA Madam Boomer. She is also modeling the glasses in the preceding picture.The guy giving me the trophy in the following picture is Don Allen. His wife, Pat, is the other model in the 'flamingo glasses' photo:

Although we have only been to about four campouts with this group, it seems that Sandy and Don put out a lot of their personal time and effort to make the events successful. Patsy and I are greatful for that........ we always have a lot of fun.


We left on Sunday morning, and are on our way to Red Bay, AL. More later

Fredericksburg via Lukenbach

On Thursday morning, we drove the CRV to San Marcos to do some shopping at the outlet mall. Since it was threatening to rain (a lot!!), we decided to get back to our Blanco State Park campsite, pack up and move on. The dam shown in the post for yesterday is just upstream of a low water crossing bridge, and we did not want to get caught on the wrong side of the bridge it a heavy rain came up.

We made a 'Passport America' reservation at the Fredericksburg RV Park, and decided to take the back roads to from Blanco to Fredricksburg which goes through Lukenbach, TX. Here are a few pictures at Lukenbach:

We arrived in Fredericksburg about 1:00pm and got our site. It was number 13 again!! It is a nice park with free WIFI and cable TV with mucho channels........ good for a raining evening.

Here's our "wet" site at the Fredericksburg RV park:

During Thursday night, Federicksburg got over 8 inches of rain. Here's some pics of downtown:

On the road again....................

On Wednesday, we began what will turn out to be about a 3 week road trip. Eventually, we will end up attending a reception for our daugher, Deanne, on June 8 in Little Rock, AR. After getting her MD and PHD in medicine from The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC, she began a 5 year medical residency in Little Rock as an ENT Surgeon. That five years is up on July 1, and she will be moving on to a private practice someplace.

Between now and June 8, we plan to camp with the South Texas Boomers in Stonewall, TX (about 10 miles East of Fredericksburg) for the weekend. They are having a Texas Hold'em tournament, and I plan to participate. On Sunday, we will leave Stonewall, and head for Red Bay, AL to visit the Tiffin Allegro plant. We want to see what the '08 Allegro Bus will look like. They are making them now, but won't have the brochures out for a couple of more months. We plan to be there about 3--5 days, and then we plan to visit either Nashville, TN or the casinos in Tunica, MS before heading to Little Rock.

We left Victoria a couple of days early to camp at the Blanco State Park in Blanco, TX, and to visit Fredericksburg. We also wanted to celebrate the birthday of one of Patsy's best friends, Char Garvelli, with her husband Joe, who live near Blanco. We wanted to find a nice restaurant, and we found the 'Silver "K" Restaurant' in Johnson City on the internet. It turned out to be a nice place with good food. Here's a couple of pictures at the restaurant:

As we rode around Johnson City, we found a sculpture on the side of the highway. It turned out to be an 'billboard' for a "Sculpture Ranch" five miles down the road. After dinner, we drove down the road and found the 'ranch'. There was a sign at the gate that stated that it closed at 6:00pm, and we were there at about 7:00pm. We drove in a little way, anyhow, and quickly determined that the best scuplture was the 'billboard'!! Here it is:

We spent the night in site 13 of the Blanco State Park. We purchased the $60 annual pass which saves us the $4 per person charge every time that we go into a park. We expect it will pay for itself this summer. The park was small, but very nice. Here is a picture of a dam on the Blanco river inside the park: