First Week In Red Bay, AL

Red Bay, AL

Sorry for not posting in a few days, but we've been trying to get things organized in the rig for our service "appointment" at the Tiffin Motorhome Service Center beginning on Monday.  We are currently located in the Red Bay "self-serve" campground about 1/2 mile down the road from the Service Center.  When we arrived in Red Bay last Tuesday we drove over to the Service Center and found that the camping area was pretty full. We decided to stay for our first week at the self-service campground as the rate is either $20 per day (the same as the Tiffin Service Center) or $100 per week.  Since our appointment isn't until Monday 2/25 we didn't want to take up space over there (and also save a few bucks), so here we are.

On Wednesday at 7:00 AM we had an appointment with Custom RV, Inc. (Brannon Hutcheson) to install our SMI Air Force1 supplemental braking system into our Honda Fit. Brannon did the install of the AF1 on the rig last March when we were in Red Bay.  I thought that I could handle the install into the Fit, but after looking at the limited space under the hood I decided to let the pro do it.

 I believe that this was a good choice and in about 2 1/2 hours Brannon was finished.  We have had Brannon do several projects for us and his work is always accomplished in a professional and efficient manner. His phone number is 256-668-0973 if you need any work done.

After speaking to Mui and Erin about a recent upgrade they had done to their coach, we decided to have Trevor Nichols 662-279-4461  fabricate and install a dash cover, along with inside step covers and a cockpit carpet for us.  Nice price and very efficient work by Trevor.  We called him after lunch, he arrived to make a few measurements and completed the install before dinner.

On Wednesday evening we met up with Mui and Erin, along with their new friends Deb and Curt to try out a local pizza restaurant called Mr. J's Pizza.  The food was fine and the conversation we had with everyone  was excellent.  I've said it before, but meeting new friends is one of the nicest things about the fulltiming lifestyle.

Thursday was an open day for us, so we decided to go over to the Tiffin factory and take a tour of the motorhome construction process.  I'm not going to attempt to go into detail on my blog about the tour as Two to Travel's Phaetons Journeys blog does an outstanding job in describing the process, and her pictures are much better than mine. We've taken the tour several times in the past, but we always learn something new and we enjoy looking at the changes made in the new rigs each year.

It was time for annual maintenance on the rig, so we took it over to Chris Morrow's company Bay Diesel on Friday afternoon.  We've always had our routine maintenance done at Chris' shop and his guys do a very nice job in an efficient manner.  I had two guys working on the rig who performed a complete chassis lube, engine oil and filter change, primary and secondary fuel filter changes. They also added coolant extender to the cooling system and changed the air dryer filter for the air brake system.  The generator also had its' oil and filter changed and air filter checked (still in excellent condition).

On Saturday we did a bit more GeoCaching in the area.  Found five or six caches in short order.  Once we find out what our service appointment will entail we might try for some more caches up in Tishimingo State Park.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!