2-3 Weeks in Red Bay, Alabama

One of four rows of RV's waiting for service.
Not the most scenic but serves the purpose.

We spent all of Tuesday, October 2nd breaking our first made cardinal RV rule.... do not drive over 150-200 miles per day.  We drove over 500 miles on Tuesday in order to get to the Allegro Campground in Red Bay, Alabama early on Wednesday.  Red Bay, population  3,300, is home of the Tiffin Motor Home Manufacturin, and all roads (actually none directly) lead to Red Bay when your Tiffin is still under warranty or you need work done.   This is quite an operation.  The campground is actually a giant parking lot accommodating about 150 RV's with full hook up all the way to dry camping.

Dry camping means you better come in with your tanks empty 'cause there's no dump station.  We were lucky to get water and electric hook up when we pulled in.  On Friday we were moved to a full hook up.  Good thing...  the belly of the Whale was almost full.

We had an appointment on Thursday.  Before we knew it, a technician wanted to check out three areas of the Whale that had become problems - the cap rails on the roof, the floor in the water bay area (where all the hook-ups are) and the floor in driver's front slide out.  Behind door number three we won a new floor in the driver's side slide-out.  That wasn't even on our list!  The company is checking every RV that comes in for service and will fix whichever one or all of these problems whether the RV is still under warranty or not.  We have other warranty items as well.  Our stay will be lengthy.

The company has about 50 work bays.  You can either make an appoint months in advance, or you can just drop in for "Express Service."  Getting an appointment is about as easy as winning the Lotto, but if you call seconds after midnight on the date given to schedule three months away, you might get lucky.  Some folks who drove in for "Express Service" have been waiting for a week or two to get in.  Tiffins don't have any more issues than any other large piece of machinery.  The overload comes from folks wanting their coaches fixed by the technicians who know the coach in and out.  These guys are really good!  People are willing to wait.

There's also this whole underground of technicians who do custom modifications after hours and on the week-end with the company's blessing.  While we have been parked here, we have already seen some of the modifications others have had done (show and tell), and we are ordering changes also.  The work is done by those who work for Tiffin.  They are reasonable, and the work is well done.

The other great thing about being here for 2-3 weeks is we get to explore the area.  Red Bay, at first glance, is not the vacation spot of America, but that's  not what we're after anyway.  Both Jerry and I want to experience whatever location we are in as part of the journey.  More about Red Bay, Alabama tomorrow...