Thursday, July 12, 2007

Grand National Rally (GNR) Days 4&5 of the Pre-Rally

More and more RV's are rolling in as well as vendors. The official opening of the GNR is Monday, but pre-festivities are already starting. RV's are lined up by states, ie our 7 club member RVs are parked on the Virginia lane. We have gone to breakfast over in town and folks are scheduling their RVs for service at the Winnebago Service Center daily. Jim put the truck in at the Dodge dealer here in town because sometimes it wouldn't go into neutral; and in order to tow the truck, it has to be in neutral. Well the dealer worked on it for 2 days and declared it fixed but when Jim got it he determined it still wasn't working right so the dealer took it back and after checking it out on the 3 day realized the problem was owner operator. Jim wasn't always putting his foot on the brake when he put it in neutral and so sometimes it worked (when his foot was on the brake); and sometimes it didn't (when his foot wasn't on the brake). As soon as the service guy told him what he thought his problem was; Jim remembered reading it in his manual and was totally embarrassed that he had wasted the dealers time on the problem. Poor Jim; don't you know our RV friends loved that problem. Tuesday we took a tour through the Winnebago factory. It was very interesting. It takes 3 days to complete an RV and then it goes through a series of tests before it is released for sale. It was amazing watching the assembly line. Both men and women have the same positions and the work looks really hard. I was amazed at watching the women cut tiles and nail walls together making it look easy and you know it was heavy and hard work. We found out these workers get paid $10 per hour and after 6 months they can earn as much as $12.50. We've been ending each evening with happy hour that goes on until 9:30pm. The nights are cool here; you actually need to wear a jacket by 8pm.

This evening we had a tailgate dinner cooked by one of our members and continued happy hour til 9:30pm again,. Today was also registration day for those campers that are already here in the campground; so we registered and have been busy going through our schedule of events planned Mon-Thur of next week. So far I have signed up for a quilting class; convection oven class and a rag rug class. Jim has been busy with his spit and wittle group determining what seminars they will be attending. There will be entertainment all day every day and a big show each evening so next week will get very busy. This weekend the little town of Forest City starts their Puckerbrush Festivities so we are looking forward to enjoying Puckerbrush days. Until next time.......

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