Motorhome Mecca

1/4/2020 - 1/5/2020 - San Antonio TX to Caldwell, TX (136 miles) one night at Brazil’s Valley RV Park $36
1/5/2020 - 1/6/2020 - Caldwell, TX to Carthage, TX (201 miles) one night at Carthage RV Campground $40
1/6/2020 - 1/8/2020 - Carthage, TX to Vicksburg, MI (217 miles) two nights at Ameristar RV Park, $32/night
1/8/2020 - 1/16/2020 - Vicksburg, MI to Red Bay, AL (278 miles) 8 nights at First Class RV Park for $150

Red Bay, Alabama is not what you’d call a destination.  But ever since 1972, when Bob Tiffin began manufacturing motor homes, owners have been coming to watch their RVs being built and get repairs.  Since then, they’ve built over 65,000 rigs.  Last year, Tiffin accounted for almost 8% of the motor home market.

We bought our Tiffin Allegro Open Road (a gasoline-powered RV) in 2018.  We were one of the last few who got to come hang out with the crew and watch it come together from the chassis, up.  It was amazing.  I thought I would be bored after the first day.  But each morning, we dragged ourselves to the production line at 5:30 am to take pictures, ask questions, and be a part of our build.  It looked like a carefully choreographed dance.  Each part had to be put in, in order, so the next could fit snuggly around it.  The plumbing, then the walls, the appliances, the fully-furnished slides, and finally the ceiling went on.  We marveled at the full access we had during the entire process.  We moved along the line as cranes ferried parts above us, and giant forklifts put parts in place.  We were even given a roll of green scotch tape, so we could mark things that didn’t look right, and headed off quite a few issues because we were there to question and get them fixed immediately.  We brought LOTS of candy, and shared personal stories with the workers that we got to know by name.  It was a great experience.  We even got to meet Bob Tiffin.

The reason this company has been so successful is because of this soft-spoken, kind, honorable man.   He was so in tune with his dealers and repair network, that he hand-wrote the names and numbers of the two best RV repair shops in San Antonio, which happened not to be the dealership. And he gave us his business card and told us to call if we ever needed anything.  That sounds hokey, but we have heard so many stories from Tiffin owners that confirm that he means it.  Like when two couples were traveling together.  One couple drove a Tiffin, the others didn’t.  The non-Tiffin owners broke down in a very remote area and could not get any help from their dealer or roadside assistance.  In desperation, the Tiffin owners suggested they call Bob.  Because of his connections and good reputation, he was able to get them the help they needed, and all he asked in return is that they consider buying a a Tiffin for their next RV.  That creates customers for life!

This tiny town in northwest Alabama has a multitude of businesses tied to the production of Tiffin Motorhomes.  Many people who work in the factory, paint shop or service center develop their skills there from 5:30 am to 2:30 pm, then run their own “after hours” after-market accessories shops.  And since Tiffin will not repair a rig over 10 years old, other shops in the area meet that need, too.

There are other businesses in Red Bay, like the Sunshine dog food factory, which you can smell all over town, and the Sunshine Manufactured Homes.  But, as Tiffin goes, so does much of the local economy.  Late in 2018, liability insurance did away with people being on the build line, so not fewer visitors come to Red Bay without an RV.  The result was that the Historic Red Bay Hotel closed down.  Which made me wonder, if the Tiffin family sells out to Winnebago, As rumors suggest, will they move the company?  Would all of these people lose their jobs?  I know as long as Bob is around, this won’t happen, but there are rumblings about his retirement.

Bill did a lot of research to guarantee that we got a quality RV we can call home.  I wish more companies had the same kind of commitment to quality and service as Tiffin. We are definitely Tiffinites, and As long as there is a Tiffin service center in Red Bay, AL, we will come back for our annual maintenance visit. Thanks, Bob!

Pecans and Deer

11/13/19 to 11/14/19 - Deming, NM to Van Horn, TX (226 miles) stayed one night at Mountain View RV Park

11/14/19 to 11/17/19 - Van Horn, TX to Ft. Stockton, TX (124 miles) 3 nights at Fort Stockton RV Park at $36/ night

11/17/19 to 11/21/19 - Ft. Stockton, TX to Junction, TX (185 miles) 4 nights at Pecan Valley RV  Park and Farm at $35/night

West Texas is vast and empty.  There is not much there but scrub brush, oil, and tumbleweeds.  But, it’s too vast to cross in one go in an RV.  So we broke up the drive and stayed at the Pecan Valley RV Park and Farm in Junction, Texas.  The north and south fork of the Llano river run through Junction, so this would be a great place to go tubing in the summer.  One of the RV parks on the river had been swept away in flood waters in 2018 and was still recovering.  The park we stayed at had a fork of the river running through it, but we were well up a hill from it.

The park was situated behind a commercial pecan grove and had many mature pecan trees scattered around the property.  The owners were happy to have us pick up as many pecans as we cared to gather.  If you’ve priced them in the store, you know how expensive they can be.  I was thrilled to do the work, so I’d have plenty for holiday baking.

Our neighbors were a group of family and friends from Louisiana who come every year to hunt on their lease.  They were well established in their spot and had a routine of hunting or picking up
/cracking pecans during the day, and attracting the local deer at sunset by scattering deer corn in the field next to their rig.  In the evening, 30 or more deer would shyly gather and feast.  It was an idyllic spot.

 

I scouted the place and chose the trees with the best pecans.  Even though they were small like most native trees, their shells were easy to crack.  The leaves had already fallen, so it took time to brush the leaves aside and focus on the nuggets underneath.  I spent a full afternoon hunched over, walking methodically up and down a hill, picking up pecans.  At one point, I felt the squirrels must be playing tricks, because pecans were dropping all around me.  One even hit me on the foot.  I picked up a good bagful by the time my back screamed for me to stop.

The next day, the neighbors offered their tool that looks like a slinky formed in a u-shape at the end of a stick and offered to help.  They even pointed out the paper-shell tree they’d been gathering from.  I didn’t mean to get so many, but by the end, I had almost a deer corn sackful of pecans.  I couldn’t wait to get them to my dad so he could crack them for me.

I hadn’t thought much of Junction before, but it’s certainly a place I could come back to, at least for a quick weekend getaway.  It’s just the kind of place that soothes the soul.  

More Desert

11/5/19 to 11/6/19 - Tuscon, AZ. To Bowie, AZ (115 miles) stayed one night at Mountain View RV Park for $17
11/6/19 to 11/13/19 - Bowie, AZ to Deming, NM (117 miles) stayed seven nights at Low-Hi RV Ranch for $114/week

Our Step Motor Died

One close-to-freezing morning as we were packing up to leave, we noticed the motor that controls the bottom two steps below the front door didn’t want to close.  Not good.  You can’t drive down the road with steps sticking three feet out into the next lane.  Bill was able to pull the pin to disengage the steps and we used zip ties to hold them shut for the day’s drive.  When we stopped for lunch at a rest area, we opened the door and heard the motor whining, so we cut the zip ties and tried for 30 minutes to get the pin back in so the steps would engage and close on their own.

We went several days with no issues, until we pulled into a Flying J for gas.  I opened the door to step out and heard the most awful grinding noise as the steps opened.  They worked one more time for Bill, then CAPUT!  Thankfully, this time they were closed, but the RV is TALL!  The first built-in step is about hip height, so we had to climb in to get to our destination in Deming.

We had heard stories about how often step motors died.  These are the same motors that control automatic windows in cars.  They’re readily available and inexpensive.  We had toyed with the idea of buying a spare when we were in Red Bay in June, but we didn’t think we’d need one so soon.  There was no one nearby who could install one, so Bill watched A LOT of YouTube videos, and fairly certain he could replace it on his own, contacted Tiffin, who Fedexed a new one.  Bill was so kind as to rig some steps with cinder blocks from our site so I could get in and out without hurting myself.  We extended our stay and settled in to wait.

Deming is a cute little historic town with some interesting history.  They have a Fred Harvey exhibit at the railroad depot turned visitor center and a great town museum.  I spent an afternoon learning about the military base that used to train soldiers to site locations for bombing and looking at the amazing pottery from the native Mimbres people of the region.  I love the geometric patterns in high contrast colors and the cartoony creatures that represented desert animals, like snakes, birds, goats and frogs.  Look!

Deming is also home to Rockhound State Park, a rare park where you can take away the jasper, quartz, geodes and thunder eggs that you find.  It’s easy to get lost if you get off of the trails, because your head is always down and you’re not looking where you’re going or where you’ve been.  We sacked a lunch and walked with picks and hammers looking for pretty stones most of one afternoon. Brendan loved this place when he was a kid, because he was really into rocks!

The RV Park we stayed at was called Low - HI RV Ranch.  It is the world headquarters for Loners on Wheels (the Low in Low - HI) an RV club for singles.  They have parks all over the country and allow couples in, too.  It was a great community in the middle of the desert.  They has mixers and Friday night socials and drove to Mexico to eat dinner every Tuesday.  The people were extremely friendly.  They suggested restaurants in town that we should try.

Now, New Mexican food is not TexMex.  Most notably, they have two sauces, red and green, that they put on everything.  Hatch, New Mexico is a town about thirty minutes away, known for the green hatch chili pepper. So I thought the green sauce would be hotter.  I ordered my meal with green and Bill got his with red.  The red sauce was way hotter.  Poor Bill had to scrape the sauce off his meal and work around this very spicy stuff.  I gave him half of my meal and tried to eat the red sauce-covered items, but even for me, it was HOT!

It took a week for the motor to arrive.  Bill had already taken out the old one, and had the new one installed in minutes!  He’s getting really handy:). We were on our way the next day, felling close to home and ready to reconnect and rest for a while.

New year, new road trip!

11/21 - 1/4/2020 - Junction, TX to San Antonio, TX (164 miles) stayed at TX 281 RV Park for 43 days, $350/mo plus 13 days at $11/night.

By the time we hit San Antonio for the holidays, I was done with blogging for the year.  But I still need to write about Deming, NM and Junction, TX, both really nice places to visit and ones I’d be happy to go back to.  I’ll get to those soon, but I wanted to say Happy New Year and look back at the past 6 months and almost 8000 miles.  We moved with purpose so we could visit family and friends before the cold weather set it.

Next year, we plan to take it slower.  We’ll head East for our annual maintenance visit at Red Bay, AL and then spend a month in Gulf Shores. I love the beach there, and we’re hoping it’s easier to get a reservation than FL.  We would like to spend some time in FL before we head north.  We want to spend a good amount of time in Washington, DC to see the Smithsonian, and go through Pennsylvania Dutch country on our way to see Brendan in Michigan.  I really want to go to Stockbridge, MA to enjoy the area where Norman Rockwell lived and worked and spend time in the Hudson Valley.  We’ll see how that goes.  Since we’re moving slower I’d like to get plugged into volunteer opportunities - maybe Habitat for Humanity or Red Cross.

We’re excited to get going and know that we are blessed to be RVing!