Cherokee Landing to Red Bay, AL.

Monday morning and the weather is warm right off the bat. But we are leaving this campground and heading to Red Bay, Alabama. Red Bay is where the manufacturer of our Tiffin motor home is. We hope to take a factory tour and have them install some additional items we want on our lovely home. We arrived early in the morning.....about 9:30 and were able to get the last campsite that Tiffin had available. Wow, Tiffin had 42 motor homes pull in over the week-end. Here in lovely Red Bay you can purchase and have installed just about any item you would ever think you might want on your RV, and they will install it for you. We found out that yes, they do repair work. So we got in line for warranty work, repair work and lastly items we want to buy and have installed. This is very time consuming. At least we are in line, just have to wait our turn to have everything written up. This works pretty much like when you take your auto in for repair.....it is all on a first come first service basis. So if you have one of the first motorhomes or one of the last they built.....all customers are treated alike.

We went to the company store and priced things out....where and what do we do to purchase and have them installed? Just getting the lay of the campground system is something. Finally it was 5:00 PM and all the workers have gone home. We still haven't seen Norris who listens to all the sob stories, writes up the orders and tells you how long before they will be able to get to you (he only had 42 different people to work with on Monday). When we arrived we were given a number by the campground host and that is the order they take you.

Tuesday arrived and we wanted to take the factory tour....but Norris hasn't seen us yet. Tom found Norris and he told us he would be able to see us after lunch. We then went for the 10:00 tour. We arrived back at the campground, and Norris got to us. It will be about 2 weeks before they can work on our rig. We have a couple of options. 1. stay here and wait till they can take us or, 2. drive home in the RV, come back in two weeks time cause they hold our number in line for us, 3. Leave the motorhome here, take the toad and go home and return whenever all the work is done.

We want to have a basement slide installed. Oh dear, if we leave, (option 3) what do we do with all the items in the basement? We could find a storage shed and that would solve that problem. Tom is trying to be helpful and manage the area in the basement instead. For him to reach the drivers side basement he needed the slide pulled in. He closed the door....came around to the other side and closed that basement door then came inside to pull the slide in. Well, guess what? When he closed the second door, it must have caused air pressure in the compartment and the first door popped open. When the slide started to come in.....crunch, crunch, crunch, bam!!!!! Stop!! We went outside to find the bottom of the slide with major damage as well as the door that had popped open. Gad zooks, another repair. This one is really serious. Tuesday is not a nice day for us. It is late and workers have left, gone for the day. We have to wait until Wednesday to get another estimate for this repair. What more can happen?

New found friends drove around the corner in their toad. They were going into town and grab a bite to eat....would we like to come? Sure, we needed to get away, so off we go to a really good, really cheap Mexican restaurant (the waiter didn't speak English). After a fabulous dinner we needed to find the local grocery...a Piggley Wiggley to purchase a styrofoam cooler. We had deceided we will leave the motor home and drive back home to Estero. Wait, we can't leave yet. We have to find Charlene and have her schedule someone to give us an estimate on our latest mishap. So, it looks like we won't get to head for home until at least Thursday morning. Welcome to the world of hurry up and wait. We seemed to be getting pretty good at that.

Wednesday morning, Charlene had Brad, the Estimator come check out our latest damage. He shook his head, mumbled something and went to get the other Estimator. Before long, there were 2 Estimators, the Service Area manager, 2 Engineers and Van Tiffin, the owners son looking at our injured RV. Not to worry ...... they decided this should never have happened. It is a major Engineering design flaw!! Tiffin Motorhomes will do the repairs at their cost and modify the RV so it can not happen again. In fact, they are changing all units on the production line because of this problem. Van said, " Thank goodness it happened here in Red Bay, we can take care of the problem permanently".

Thursday, 7:00 AM, Norris led Tom to the parking area for rigs to be worked on at the other end of the runway. 7:20 AM CST we hit the road for Estero. Totally uneventful trip home. We pulled into our driveway at 11:00 PM, EST ... tired, but home, after 3 1/2 months on the road.

Friday morning, Tom remembered why he didn't want to be in Southwest Florida in August, sunny, 95 and humid. Time for a second shower after taking Charley for her morning walk.