An eventful week in Red Bay

We've had an interesting week here in Red Bay, Alabama, the home of Tiffin Motor Homes.  We planned our annual visit here to get some warranty issues resolved, to get some custom work done, and to get the annual engine/chassis service.  So far two out of the three have been successfully achieved -- the details . . . . .
We arrived here Sunday afternoon in the middle of a pretty significant rainstorm, and got a partial hook-up site.  Upon arriving, we realized that the motorhome pulling in just ahead of us was Oscar and Penny's -- friends that we had met this summer in Custer, SD.  They are long-time friends of my brother Tom in the Boulder, CO area, and they looked us up this summer in the Black Hills as they were starting out on a summer trip to the Canadian Maritime provinces.  They are on their way back, and were stopping in to get a whole list of repair items taken care of. We spent Monday visiting with them and hearing about their eventful trip. 
Although we had our custom work scheduled at the end of our stay here, we called Brannon at Custom RV, and he indicated that he could get us in early as he had some schedule changes.  We went out his way on Tuesday afternoon, and in less than two hours, he had installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom, and put in a modified driver's shift panel in the cockpit.  We made arrangement to see him in a week or so to get a couple of lights re-located, and headed back to the campground.  We also made contact with our cabinet man, Chris, to have him do a few small changes when he had the chance -- wow, everything is falling into place. . . .
On Wednesday we went out to Bay Diesel to get our 24 month chassis/engine service, and all went well there too.  We got all of our items taken care of, and were pleasantly surprised to have Freightliner (our chassis manufacturer) cover the cost for a new exhaust pipe tip -- the stock one had become corroded and rusted -- and, although it sounds like an incidental item, the replacement would have cost over $300!  Life continues to be good . . . .
Thursday was our scheduled appointment day at the Tiffin Service Center.  Almost all of our items were carry-over items from our warranty service last year, and after checking with the floor supervisor, it was reconfirmed that they would all be covered by TMH under warranty -- just what we wanted to hear.  Given the work that would be necessary in several different service departments, it looked like we would be out of here in about a week. . . . . .
We drove back to our site at the end of the day pleased with the way that the week had gone, little realizing that Murphy was about to rear his head.  We stopped at our site, took the coach out of gear and put on the parking brake, and pushed the buttons to activate the leveling jacks -- they began to extend and level the coach, but after a minute or so, both the rear jacks suddenly sheared and collapsed.  The resulting drop of the coach on the rear suspension (after the air had been let out of the air bags) caused quite a jolt, spilling all of our hanging clothes off the rod in the closet across the rear of the motorhome, moving the nearby washing machine around an inch or two, and buckling the paneling on the bedroom wall.  We got the Tiffin techs out to look at the situation, and they helped us get things back in order, both mechanically and personally.  They assured us that they had spare jacks in stock to replace the damaged ones, and that all would be OK.  We were a bit shaken up, but realized that this was absolutely the best place for a failure of this type to happen.  We're right on the cusp of our warranty period for the jacks, so it appears -- at this point -- that we can get things fixed without breaking the bank.  We may have to spend a day or two longer here than we anticipated, but that's no big deal -- we hope.
On Friday we spent all day burning off our propane tank in preparation for Monday's repair of the tank float system which measures the level of propane in the tank, and Monday we'll go to the welding shop to get the tank and the jack repair done.  Still left to do is the cabinet work, and some work at the paint shop, as well as our remaining custom items with Chris and Brannon -- so we're thinking that we'll be here through most of next week.
We'll do a post next week with pictures of the repairs (the replacement of the jacks should be a good one) and the new items.  All in all, we can't complain -- life is still good (but the weather could be better here -- lots of rain and clouds) and everyone in the shop will be happy Monday, as Alabama beat Ole Miss this weekend, and the boss's grandson (Leigh Tiffin) kicked a near-record 5 field goals in getting the job done.

St. Louis and onward

After leaving our friends and the beautiful fall colors in Wausau, WI, we headed south through Wisconsin and Illinois in the general direction of St. Louis.  We're taking our time and trying to limit our daily mileage to less than 250 miles, and alternating our stays between Wal Marts and campgrounds.  We've not traveled through this part of the country, so we're trying to go a bit slower and smell a few of the roses.
We'd skirted the St. Louis area before on the west side, but had never stopped to see any sights.  This time we took the time to go into the city and tour the Gateway Arch and the associated museum.  We stayed at a park on the Illinois side of the river which was about 40 miles out of town, and took a day to drive in and wander around a little.  Here are some pictures of our visit on a beautiful fall day --

A couple of shots of the arch as we approached it










These are the little pods that you ride in -- with a supposed capacity of 5 people (but they all better be pretty small or very friendly people).  You crowd into these things for 4 1/2 minutes while the train of them crawl up the inside framework of the arch.  An interesting way (and probably the only one) to get to the top.


Some of the views of the St. Louis area from the viewing area at the top of the arch -- 630 feet up:

                                 







The mighty Mississippi











Looking straight down from the window









Busch Stadium - home of the St. Louis Cardinals









Downtown St. Louis looking West











They also had a great museum at the site and two theaters which showed several outstanding documentary films -- one about Louis and Clark and the other about the building of the arch.  We'd recommend the whole park -- its called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and is run by the NPS.
We'd wanted to take a bit more time, but there were a couple of weather fronts chasing us, and we'd decided to take another more easterly route, which would allow us to stop for a few days and visit Mammoth Cave in Kentucky before heading to Alabama.  We got ahead of the front, spent a leisurely night at a Wal Mart in Owensboro, KY and then rolled into Cave City on Wednesday.  We'd located a park (map) with very attractive rates -- and highly rated -- that was just outside Mammoth Cave, and would allow us to stay several days and explore the area.  We had a great 4 1/2 hour tour of the cave yesterday, and although it rained a bit last night, the sun is back out this morning and we're getting ready to get out and explore the Bowling Green, KY area today -- the Corvette Museum looks like it might be interesting.
We're only a couple of hundred miles from Red Bay, so we'll head out of here on Sunday and get to the Tiffin factory a day or two ahead of time and see if we can get things started early there.  We're having a couple of custom items done to the coach (new shift panel and a bedroom ceiling fan), along with some holdover warranty items and the 2 year engine/chassis service -- all at three different places -- so we'll probably be there for at least 10 days.