Saturday night, August 27

Day 4 at Oregon Motorcoach Service We were up and ready for Chance to get the coach and drive it into the service bay. He needed to tighten up the water line for the ice maker and the outside water dispenser. Darrell, the cabinet maker, had to attach the wood trim and give it the finished look. By 3pm the job was completed, Chance had retrieved all the food we had stored in their employee refrigerator and placed it inside our new refer, and the coach was moved out to its parking spot for the night.

Bob Vinson told me they had run out of the filters he needed for the Annual Service, so the filters would be delivered first thing in the morning. We walked into the coach and were absolutely astounded by the quality workmanship that we observed! It was a beautiful job of adding the wood trim, matching the cherry wood, and making it look like it had been installed at the factory. Both my wife and I are impressed with their work.

Day 5 found us ready for Dave, another Service Tech, taking our coach back inside for the Annual Service. He changed the oil, changed all four filters plus the hydraulic filters, and calling me out to look at a problem they had discovered. Two of the rear Bilstein shock absorbers were leaking, and one of the front passenger side shock mounts had broken and the shock is pushing against the metal floor. As long as I’m going to have to replace the two rear shocks, they suggested I replace all of them. These are the original Bilstein shocks that have over 150,000 miles on them. Bob asked if I had ever dealt with Kaiser Brake & Alignment and I assured him that I had. However, if OMS could do the work, I’d prefer to come back and have them replace the shocks and repair the broken shock mount. He had Chance look at the broken mount, estimated about three hours of work to re-weld the mount, and told me he couldn’t get me in until Sept. 14th. I told him to schedule me and I’d get the shocks off the internet and have them shipped to OMS. I found a dealer in El Cajon, CA that sells the shocks for $85.00 each and will phone them on Monday with an order.

So the bottom line of the refer replacement was17 hours of labor (not the 28 hours actually used) for a total of $1785.00 and $137.29 in parts. The total amount was more than I had budgeted, but there was some major modification that had to be done. The finished product makes it worth every penny we spent! I would definitely recommend Oregon Motorcoach Service for any work that needed to be done. They have some outstanding techs, a great customer lounge, and a customer service attitude that makes it easier to spend your hard-earned money for truly quality workmanship!

We were done by 10:30am and able to get on the road by 11:00. We had about 47 miles to drive to Albany and get there in time to greet the other Parking Crew members as they arrived. All the Parkers arrived on Friday and we were invited to join Jon Katin, one of our Parkers who lives in Albany, at his house for a brisket dinner. We carpooled to his house, socialized, ate, and had an initial meeting to welcome the new ones and explain my expectations for the Parking Crew. It’s a great group of volunteers and we had a wonderful dinner.

Saturday morning we met at 8am and started the measuring and marking. We got the main parking lot completed and had time to rest by 2pm. Some of us met and drove to Calapooia Brewing Co. for dinner. It was a productive day and a chance to get to know each other and their working limitations. Tomorrow we will finish measuring and marking and get prepared for the rush on Monday morning.

Sunday, Sept. 4

The Rally is over and was a successful gathering according to most attendees. We were able to finish all of our marking with little or no problem, and were up early Monday morning to greet the early arrivals. Since this was a factory-sponsored Rally, there was no additional fee for arriving early. Several friends had contacted me about the best time to arrive at the fairgrounds. I told all of them to be lined up at the entry gate by 6am. We even had a group of 21 coaches that were parked across the street at a campground and wanted to arrive together so they could park together. The Linn County Fairgrounds has only 50 electrical sites, and they were to be sold on a first come-first served basis. And that would be the reason for arriving early at the gate.

Monday morning at 6:30am, I drove my golf cart to the Check-In Gate to deliver a canopy and table for the ladies that would be working out there. At that time I counted 24 coaches in line and waiting. I had set out cones on Sunday night to create two lanes for the early arrivals. Both of those lanes were full and the coaches were beginning to get close to the street, which would cause a major traffic problem for us and the Albany police. The crew for the Check-In Gate arrived at their position about 8:45 and we set up the canopy and tables. At 9am sharp we started checking in the attendees and directing them to their parking spots. Remember, all of these folks had paid $300 to attend the Rally, and now the electric was extra. Our price for 50-amp hookups was $70, 30-amp was $50, and I had an additional thirteen 20-amp hookups that I could sell for $50. I had intended to hold the 20-amp sites strictly as a backup. But it didn’t take long for the electric hookups to be sold out. So, I decided to start selling the 20-amp and sold all of them! By 10:30 all of the electric sites had been sold and the coaches were parked.

We then concentrated on getting the rest of the coaches into their spots. Due to the efforts of an excellent Parking Crew, we continued to park coaches in the parking lot all the way to 4pm. At that point I decided to let the Parking Crew secure and rest. I stayed ready to park any late arrivals and help them get situated. We left a sign saying to remain at the Gate and they would be parked the next morning. We had eight golf carts that had arrived on Friday, so I moved them to the Service truck for the Service Technicians to use once they arrived in the morning. We kept two for our use.

Tuesday morning we were up early enough for some coffee and Costco muffins. We talked about the problems from the previous day and what we had in store for us. I reduced the crew since we had only 26 of the 147 coaches remaining. We went to the Check-In Gate and found one coach waiting. The remainder of the day went very slowly. At 3pm we started taking down the canopy, collecting the cones and traffic barricades, and securing the entry area. We still had two coaches that hadn’t shown, so I was ready to get them parked if they came in late. Linda Clarkson, who headed the Check-In Gate, counted her money and balanced and I turned it all in. We had two arrivals after 5pm, so I drove the cart out and got them parked in time to join the Social Hour. It consisted of an open bar and a lot of tasty finger foods in the area of the new display coaches. The food was sufficient to act as a dinner and gave us an indication of the quality of the catering for the next few days.

Wednesday and Thursday we had catered breakfast and dinner. Our breakfasts were fantastic with home-baked cinnamon sticks that were amazing! Dinners were just as good and the catering was outstanding! On Wednesday night the entertainment was a band that really played to the audience. It was a four-piece band that had a great variety of music and there were very few people that were getting up and leaving. It’s amazing to see all the “old fogies” that were up dancing to the music! On Thursday night the entertainment was a magician and his partner. He was a bit of a disappointment after the band, but his show was only an hour giving the attendees the opportunity to return to their coaches and gather in groups for socializing and Happy Hours. The food and entertainment gave us something to look forward to for next year.

On Wednesday night, we had the chance to hear the new CEO of Monaco RV, LLC, Bill Osborn. The Service Seminar was led by five Monaco service folks and answered a lot of questions, and the seminar with Mike Snell, VP of Sales, was very enlightening. He stated that his biggest selling job is working on his wife and convincing her to move to Indiana (closer to the headquarter offices of Navistar). Monaco, like all big companies, is changing and many things from the good ol’ days is disappearing. It’s a sad fact of the economy and the new business world. Roughly 450 people will be losing their jobs with Monaco in Coburg, but there will be about 450 new jobs in Indiana.

Friday morning was departure day for us. We had reservations for South Jetty Thousand Trails preserve in Florence, OR. It is a 107-mile drive and arriving on a Labor Day weekend. We wanted to depart early to as to arrive at an early hour in hopes of getting a good parking spot. We and the Clarksons wanted to park near each other and have a site that allows satellite reception. South Jetty has a limited number of sites that can get satellite, so we were concerned about that. We left about 9am and headed south. We stopped in Coburg long enough to dump our tanks and refuel. We arrived at South Jetty about 11am and found two sites that adjoined and had satellite reception. We were relieved to find the spots after driving through this park on gravel roads that weren’t designed for long, large coaches like ours. We have enjoyed the park so far and went into town yesterday to do some shopping at the local Bi-Mart, Grocery Outlet, and Fred Mayer stores. One of our other friends, Gene & Darlene McDonough, are in the park, but will leave on Monday morning. We’ve seen the coaches of some of the folks that were at the Rally and will probably visit with them later. As I look out the window, I see a lot of trailers and coaches that are leaving. Many of them are carrying sand toys and heading for the nearby dunes. On Monday there will be a mass exodus of the folks returning home for the work week. And we’ll have the park to ourselves!