We are in Red Bay, Alabama, visiting the Tiffin Motor Home factory in hopes of having some needed work completed on our coach. We have an appointment (for today) but we’ve already been told our appointment is “actually for ‘some time on the 14th’ “, as opposed to oh-dark-thirty, so I am instead updating you on what we’ve found here in Red Bay thus far.

1.  Everybody in town either IS a Tiffin or WORKS FOR (or has worked for) some Tiffin. There is the Tiffin appliance store. The Tiffin hardware store. The Tiffin-owned campground we’re staying in. The Tiffin factory, of course. Tina, who served us at Ezzel’s barbque, was recently laid off from the factory….she used to do paint detailing…and she’s just waiting for the Tiffin biz to pick back up so she can go back again.

2.  There is no pickleball, of course, but surprisingly there apparently are no tennis courts, either. Thus it will be harder for us to find a place to stage a pickleball rendezvous as we often can use otherwise unused tennis courts for the purpose. Irene and I went out yesterday evening, late, and were dinking a pickleball back and forth to each other on the one available stretch of concrete (used during the day for coach-washing, I believe) and, naturally, two pickleball players we had previously met in Palm Creek came out to say “hey” and ask us if there is a court nearby…so I suspect we will have to mock something up while we are here. We ARE carrying a net, luckily.

3.  There are more Allegro Buses here than I knew had even been built. There are at least 100 of them and I’m probably underestimating it, because wherever I walk a dog on this massive property I turn a corner and there, stashed away like red-headed stepchildren, are yet another group of Allegro Buses. For the uninitiated, at Tiffin the Allegro Bus is the top coach exclusive of the 45-foot Zepher, and it’s the model we have as well. I focus on that model because we own one but the Phaetons, Allegros, Allegro Bays and Zephers are in great and almost equal abundance as well.

4.   People here have lots of dogs. Every other coach has at least one dog. However, the real issue here will be the friggin’ dog owners in the house behind the park and, unfortunatly, directly behind our coach. They leave their mutts out in the pen 24/7 and, unhappily, one of them barked for hours last night. And hours. And…well, you get it. Thankfully I’m back drinking caffeine so at this moment I’m still with it….but I’m gonna be fading before the day is over, I know. I hope I don’t scale the damn fence and take my own version of direct action…I, like the Republicans, am trying to be kinder and gentler.

5.  It’s a long way to anything from here. Red Bay itself has its own charms but we should run through them by noon, and thereafter it’s 50 miles to everything. More on this later.