Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Winnebago Grand National Rally
(This entry is posted late due to recent lack of internet access -- it covers July 14 to July 20.)
On Saturday (July 14) we made a fairly short drive from Branson to Forest City, Iowa, the home of Winnebago Industries and the site of the Winnebago owners club’s annual Grand National Rally (GNR). Although the GNR does not officially start until Sunday, we were probably among the last tenth to arrive of the 1400 plus coaches attending the rally, since some people arrived as early as the 5th of July.
The official rally opening ceremony was not held until late Sunday afternoon, so we spent most of the afternoon Saturday and most of the day on Sunday reading and visiting with a couple of our neighbors and a couple of folks we met on last year’s Atlantic Canada caravan.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we participated in a number of rally activities. I attended several hour-long seminars held by Winnebago, Freightliner (the chassis manufacturer), Caterpillar (the engine manufacturer), Allison Transmission, and others. Carol and I went on a one-hour tour of the motorhome plant, where 40 motorhomes a day roll off the assembly line. Each one takes about a day and a half to build. We also visited a number of vendor booths, looked at the new model year motor homes on display by local dealers, visited the craft competition, and watched some entertainment. There is continuous entertainment every day from 10 to 4 in an entertainment tent, in addition to three major shows scheduled for evenings in an outdoor amphitheater.
Monday afternoon we attended a “first timers” social hour sponsored by the Florida Winnie-Gator club and Tuesday afternoon we attended a Florida state dinner followed by a kick-off meeting our group (10 couples from last year’s Canada caravan) that is going to travel together through Minnesota for two weeks after the rally.
Monday night’s scheduled entertainment was cancelled due to severe thunderstorms and Wednesday night’s entertainment was rescheduled to Thursday morning for the same reason.
On Thursday morning we had a 9:30 appointment for service at the Winnebago service center across from the rally grounds. We ended up an hour and half late due to mud at the rally grounds. We got stuck. We called Good Sam Emergency Road Service which dispatched a truck from Mason City, about an hour away. It then took about 20 minutes for our rescuer to winch the motorhome about 50 yards until we reached solid ground.
The Winnebago service center worked on our coach on both Thursday and Friday. We had two service technicians – one who has been on the job for about 2 months and one who, at 44 years with Winnebago, is the most senior employee in the company. They fixed three of the four service issues, and diagnosed the fourth problem, but did not have the part to fix it. Rather than return to Forest City for the fix, we will have the work completed at a Winnebago dealer somewhere en route.
Although we did not hear about it until later, on Thursday the service center totaled a 40 foot motorhome when it fell off of a lift and landed on its side. Rumor has it that the fall did about half the damage, the other half being done when they used a forklift to right the coach.
On Thursday night we saw the highlight show of the rally – the “Lost in the 50s” troupe from Branson, Missouri.
After our service work was finished on Friday, we headed for Minneapolis, where we are scheduled to rendezvous with the rest of our informal tour group at the Mall of America at about noon on Saturday.
Despite my earlier promise, there are no photos from the GNR. We will definitely have photos on the next post after the first week or so of our Minnesota trip.
On Saturday (July 14) we made a fairly short drive from Branson to Forest City, Iowa, the home of Winnebago Industries and the site of the Winnebago owners club’s annual Grand National Rally (GNR). Although the GNR does not officially start until Sunday, we were probably among the last tenth to arrive of the 1400 plus coaches attending the rally, since some people arrived as early as the 5th of July.
The official rally opening ceremony was not held until late Sunday afternoon, so we spent most of the afternoon Saturday and most of the day on Sunday reading and visiting with a couple of our neighbors and a couple of folks we met on last year’s Atlantic Canada caravan.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we participated in a number of rally activities. I attended several hour-long seminars held by Winnebago, Freightliner (the chassis manufacturer), Caterpillar (the engine manufacturer), Allison Transmission, and others. Carol and I went on a one-hour tour of the motorhome plant, where 40 motorhomes a day roll off the assembly line. Each one takes about a day and a half to build. We also visited a number of vendor booths, looked at the new model year motor homes on display by local dealers, visited the craft competition, and watched some entertainment. There is continuous entertainment every day from 10 to 4 in an entertainment tent, in addition to three major shows scheduled for evenings in an outdoor amphitheater.
Monday afternoon we attended a “first timers” social hour sponsored by the Florida Winnie-Gator club and Tuesday afternoon we attended a Florida state dinner followed by a kick-off meeting our group (10 couples from last year’s Canada caravan) that is going to travel together through Minnesota for two weeks after the rally.
Monday night’s scheduled entertainment was cancelled due to severe thunderstorms and Wednesday night’s entertainment was rescheduled to Thursday morning for the same reason.
On Thursday morning we had a 9:30 appointment for service at the Winnebago service center across from the rally grounds. We ended up an hour and half late due to mud at the rally grounds. We got stuck. We called Good Sam Emergency Road Service which dispatched a truck from Mason City, about an hour away. It then took about 20 minutes for our rescuer to winch the motorhome about 50 yards until we reached solid ground.
The Winnebago service center worked on our coach on both Thursday and Friday. We had two service technicians – one who has been on the job for about 2 months and one who, at 44 years with Winnebago, is the most senior employee in the company. They fixed three of the four service issues, and diagnosed the fourth problem, but did not have the part to fix it. Rather than return to Forest City for the fix, we will have the work completed at a Winnebago dealer somewhere en route.
Although we did not hear about it until later, on Thursday the service center totaled a 40 foot motorhome when it fell off of a lift and landed on its side. Rumor has it that the fall did about half the damage, the other half being done when they used a forklift to right the coach.
On Thursday night we saw the highlight show of the rally – the “Lost in the 50s” troupe from Branson, Missouri.
After our service work was finished on Friday, we headed for Minneapolis, where we are scheduled to rendezvous with the rest of our informal tour group at the Mall of America at about noon on Saturday.
Despite my earlier promise, there are no photos from the GNR. We will definitely have photos on the next post after the first week or so of our Minnesota trip.
