January 17, 2001, Wednesday- an easy trip up the 175 miles along the interstate to Tampa, checked into the Encore Park one exit past the Flying J, Camping World and Lazy Day exit. Hopefully tomorrow our American Coach folks can look at the washer/dryer and get us up and running.

Hank gave us a tour of Lazy Days, the largest RV dealer in the world. They will sell over 1200 rigs this month. That's a lot of product to push. You want lunch? They serve over 3000 free lunches a day. Peak season- over 200 salesman to help(?) you? Service bays….over 190 bays. Highline coachs….lots…..but service bays for the bigger rigs….only 6. Now I see why folks complain about getting good service. The rally park space includes a free coach wash…nice touch. The manager from the cabinet department, a separate division described the almost unlimited work that they can do inside one's coach. (On Saturday night the President of Lazy Days told the audience that they were breaking ground for a brand new 50 bay highline service area with its own customer lounge and service advisors).

January 18, 2001, Thursday- moved over to the rally area at Lazy Days….a small but full service area. Nice dining facility for over 600, a room full of computers hooked up to AOL, a room of phone ports for laptops, TV lounge, and a screened hot tub and pool area. Very civilized. Toured some of the new coaches today and so far, ours has more pluses then the new ones. We seem to have much more storage space, both inside and in the basement. One 45' rig with a tandem axel had four storage bays on the curbside. One was filled with a BIG TV, one with a BBQ and freezer, and one with an aqua hot water heating system. Storage, in only one bay. We have four available for storage. Same differences on the inside.

Got to see a lot of folks we've met over the year's, and a few new ones. Unfortunately the American Coach people didn't get to diagnose our washer/dryer repairs. So, that will have to be next week back in Naples.

January 19, 2001, Friday- Got the Fleetwood experts to come over today to check the washer/dryer…..naturally it worked fine today. It's like Hobbes, when he sees the Vet…..he is fine. When he walks outside…."the Limper" (at least that was his action three weeks ago in Naples). Sooooooo, we did three water loads during the day and all worked fine. Tomorrow we'll try it with clothes and run the dryer……

After attending an Owner's Q&A session with the tech guys, we gravitated over to the Tampa RV show, billed as the largest in the world. First in the door, inside, under the covered area, were six Prevost rigs with tags between 950 and 1.4 million. Some were soooooo civilized that the owners wouldn't have to strain themselves at any time. To open or close a pocket door for the restroom or the privacy doors in the center area, one merely has to push a button and a smooth, power motor takes over. Raising or lowering the shades or front window covers only requires finding the correct remote controller or wall keypad. TV you say? A 42 inch flat screen hinges down from the ceiling and covers the front windows.

 

MILLION DOLLAR COACHES!	STAIRS INTO THE BASEMENT

At the vendor area we passed the Summit Plastics display where they sell the clear lexan bras for the front end of the coach. I asked the salesman how the shield would hold up on a trip to Alaska, and he handed me a hammer. Hit the full sized display as hard as you want and see if you can leave a mark or break it. So I wound up, took a step and gave a "wallop". Bang! A noise so great that hundreds of passerby's were startled by the loud noise. The shield….no damage at all.

Passed by an RV park with a booth from Valdez, Alaska. The woman said that on her trip from Alaska, that she had packed some padding behind her coach's vinyl bra. After the trip she found that the dust, which is everywhere, permeated behind the padding, and the rubbing had removed most of her front-end paint. Her thought, get the acrylic type shield because the dust and rocks will flow through the open space and not rub the paint. Sounded like a sure sale for the first vendor.

Next, passed a booth from a fishing RV park outside of Anchorage, and the woman said she goes up from Colorado to Alaska with just her vinyl bra and never has a problem. This didn't sound right, so we pushed a little further and determined that she went up in March when the roads were still frozen and there was still snow everywhere. Bottom line….no rocks, no dust and no traffic at that time of year. So, dealer one has a customer for installation tomorrow morning.

The Lupton Caterers have done a great job of the dinners and breakfasts served in the Rally Hall. Tonight's was a steak dinner with all of the trimmings, including mushrooms and onions and wonderful salads. First class!

January 20, 2001, Saturday- two important dates in history. A new president was inaugurated today, and it was Dad's birthday. He would have been 87 today. We miss him.

The Decatur tweakers from American Coach came today and did a few little odds and ends, and noted those that weren't doable in the field. They will finish those at our next pass through Indiana. Susan did three washes this morning and the machine worked fine. Left it on when we went out to the show, and again it stopped in the dry cycle….must be overheating. Wouldn't' restart until Sunday morning.

A group of us headed back to the big Tampa RV rally where we spoke to several more folks about the Alaskan adventure, both vendors and Rv'ers that had made the trip, or trips, before.

We toured a new conversion company's Prevost H345 coach today. This one had a staircase going from behind the driver's seat to the basement. Does a $70,000 stereo system (at manufacturer's cost) sound exorbitant? How about brass trim instead of grout between floor tiles? Is a drop down 42" flat screen TV ostentatious? I wonder where it ends.

Another coach, a Newell, had 3 room slides and has a 4 slide model on the production line.

After we returned from the show, our new clear lexan type coach armor was installed. Now our gorgeous front end doesn't have to be hidden behind a behind a black bra.

 

OUR NEW CLEAR LEXAN COACH ARMOR

Dinner and dancing to a doo whop band.

January 21, 2001, Sunday- all good things must end, so we bid farewell to our old and new American Coach friends, and headed back to Naples. It was cold however this morning with ice on the car and coach windows. The temps are supposed to be back in the 70's by mid week. Let's hope!

Dinner with Jerry and Lois at their new home. The improvements are 95% finished and the place looks great. On Thursday another load of furniture arrives, bringing that statistic to 99%. Definitely taking shape!