Red Bay - Again

Well, despite the fact that I had a confirmed appointment for Monday morning, there was no bay available. the body of work was taking longer than they anticipated. As a result, we sat on our hands all day Monday. Tuesday morning was the same story. Then at 9:30 am, I got the call to head over to Bay 10, which I did post haste! Our tech was Chad Young, and as it turns out, we won the lotto! He was terrific and finished all but the mechanical and cabinet work by Wednesday afternoon. Then they sent us off to mechanical to look at the air ride problem - which turned out to not be a problem after all (whew!). By Friday afternoon, the cabinet work was complete and we were checked out of the service bay, completely satisfied.

With all that having been said, we did other things in Red Bay while the coach was being worked on. First, we met a great couple parked next to us - John and Sheila Smart. They are dual citizens - Canada and the U.S. - are full-time RVers, and have been since 2007. We also made contact with Roger and Pat, friends we met in Florida. They were in Red Bay to watch the build of their new 43 foot Allegro Bus. There is a story here! Their Bus began construction a week or so ago, but when it got to the cabinet stage, they found that the wrong cabinets were being installed. The only solution was to make a trade with another Bus going onto the line later. A trade was made, and Roger and Pat sat on their hands for a week or so waiting for the new Bus to hit the line - which it did on Friday. They will now be here for another two weeks until the Bus is finished. We know how thrilled they are despite the foul-up!

On Tuesday, I stayed pretty close to the coach to make sure all the issues were being dealt with (which they were). After that, we took care of other issues. I went to the plant and checked out some details that I had been wondering about and picked up some longer tire valve extensions for the inner rear duals. As usual, no charge. We also went to HHH Electronics and had them come over and change out all our halogen lights and replace them with LEDs. This will result in a 90 percent reduction in power consumption for lighting purposes. And Chris Berry finished up our new cabinet addition, much to our liking. Chris, as usual, did a terrific job at a really good price.

Every day at lunch time, Suz and I would head over to Jack's for so Suzanne could have the hamburger that she loves. We would have Dixie with us, so we would go to the Water Park in town and eat at the picnic area. In the evenings, we went either to Mr. J's for pizza (with John and Sheila), the mexican restaurant, Swamp John's (only once) for catfish, and finally on Friday night we joined John, Sheila, Roger and Pat and headed out to the Rattlesnake Saloon for beer and burgers (the picture, starting with Suzanne is Roger, Pat, Sheila and John). The Rattlesnake Saloon is a unique place set in a cave at a dude ranch. As always, we had a great time with very nice people.

On Friday, we headed over the Russellville to the Super WalMart for supplies and a fresh infusion of cash (love the $100 cash back option). Today (Saturday) we took the coach out to Ricky Johnson's to get a wash and wax. Ricky is a warranty coordinator in the service area at Tiffin and runs an after hours wash and wax operation at his home outside Red Bay. He does a great job at a reasonable price. This afternoon, we will relax and watch some college football with the neighbors, and hope the wind does not pick up and give our newly polished coach a dust bath. We will probably all go out somewhere for dinner tonight.

I should add that the weather in Red Bay has been spectacular. Beautiful sunny days in the low 80s and clear nights in the mid to low 50s. They tell me that October and November are the two best months of the year in this part of the country. Tomorrow (Sunday) we break camp and head over to Pine Mountain, GA for the Tiffin RV Network rally. We are really looking forward to this as it will give us a chance to see many friends and share thoughts about our Tiffin motorhomes.

While social life in Red Bay is "limited" (so to speak), we have enjoyed our stay. All our problems were taken care of (at no charge) and we met some new friends. Red Bay is not so bad after you get use to the routine - I guess. Until the next posting, Cheers!

John, Suz and Dixie the Wonderdog

Galax Week 3, then on to Red Bay

The wall building on the high side of the lot continued on Saturday with Rojas leading the way. Unfortunately, he decided to keep the wall level and not follow the down sloping contour of the driveway as I had wanted. Thus, early Sunday morning (in a heavy fog that could easily have passed for rain), I took a portion of the wall apart and rebuilt it the way I wanted, then I began the big wall on the low side of the lot. It is the most difficult as it has numerous curves and changes elevation several times. The wall building continued on Monday (again in the fog) and on Tuesday. Rojas finished the high side wall and I finally finished the low side wall.

That done, we began spreading the heavier soil in the beds, and ordered three and one-half loads of good topsoil for the top of the beds. By the time we were done on late Wednesday afternoon, my back was in spasms and I never wanted to see a shovel, or wall stone again! But the job was done and it looks pretty good (if I do say so myself!) As it turned out, we had about 100 wall stones left over, what a dilemma! But I called Lowe's and they said they had a truck in the area and would be glad to pick them up and give me a full refund. Now that's service! The truck arrived within a half hour and the extra stones were on their way back to Lowe's - no charge.

The last aspect of the landscaping was the arrival Tuesday evening of our landscaper, Charles Barnhardt and his wife Margaret. Charles and Margaret measured the beds and we discussed the types of plants that we wanted - then Charles told us which plants he would advise we use - a somewhat different list of plants. Oh well, Charles is the expert. Then he and his wife left to design the plan. It will take two weeks for Charles to finish the design, send us the final drawings and then get all the plant material together, so the final grade work and planting will have to be done after we leave. But Charles is very reliable and his workers are very meticulous. We have seen their work and it is impressive.

But enough about the wall and landscaping. We also had time to install a small trailer hitch on the HHR (thanks to our friend Jim Paschall) - it's sooo cute! - and visit our friends Holly and Rachael at Macado's on a few occasions. As we have said before, Macado's is a great place, with very reasonable bar prices and food (albeit mostly enormous sandwiches and a limited line of pasta and salads) is that is excellent!

On Saturday night we visited a small, out-of-the-way place called the Saddle Mountain Cafe (you could almost hear the music from Deliverance) for "barbecue," which in this neck of the woods means a plate full of pulled pork, macaroni salad and deep fried okra (or in Suzanne's case, a grilled cheese sandwich - no pulled pork and okra for her!). The price was right and the portions were large to say the least. And the "barbecue" was not bad. Unfortunately, I had to wash it all down with a diet Dr. Pepper - oh, well.

On Thursday evening, we joined our great neighbors for another round of bowling - 20 of us this time. With my back spasms, my game was slightly worse than awful, but we had fun. I have a (rather blurry) picture of Suzanne on the lane. You will notice her unique style - sometimes the ball goes backwards! But she loves it and we'll work on her technique back in Florida from time-to-time.

After bowling, we visited another "family" restaurant, Brown's in Sparta. I had chicken and dumplings and Suzanne had - you guessed it - a grilled cheese sandwich! The food was good, but with Dr. Pepper?

Friday, we cleaned up the site, went to Macado's for dinner and said goodbye to our new friends. We were sorry to leave, but have to get to Red Bay to have the coach serviced - lots of small issues. So, Saturday morning we headed West to Chattanooga on our way to Red Bay. We stopped for the night at the Chattanooga North KOA - not recommended - and had a good dinner - with drinks for a change - at The Outback Steakhouse! Sunday morning, we were on the road by 8:00 am (7:00 am central time) and rolled into Red Bay at noon (central time). we got one of the last open spots in the campground and gave them our list of issues to be dealt with. We got the coach situated, then it was off to Jack's -Suzanne's favorite burger joint - for lunch.

This afternoon, we will watch the football games and get ready to have the coach in the service bay by 7:00 am. As you can imagine, Suzanne will still be in bed! Until the next post, Cheers!

John, Suz and Dixie the Wonderdog