The Rally in Tally!

I'll start this entry off with a disclaimer, if I met ya and forget to mention you in this entry, it wasn't intentional as we were in meet people overload for the time we were there :)

The backstory:   GMC Motorhomes International is a group of mostly GMC owners that have been getting together since the 1980s when the coaches were still pretty young.  In any event they have two big rallies or conventions a year and this year's spring one was in easy striking distance in Tallahassee, FL.   I took a couple of vacation days and it worked out with Naya's school spring break so we were a go.

As you probably saw in the last entry, we had some fresh repairs of the ball joint, a bent bogie arm from our eclipse trip, and a few bushings in the front end needed fixing.   Got all that done and got my sister to drive me out to Okeechobee to pick it up a couple Saturdays ago.  I thought about a quick entry in the blog, but figured I'd just mention it here.   Uneventful although as my sis lives off 441 in Lake Worth, we took that and the old US 98 diagonal (now a state road as they moved 98 and 441 onto a divided highway about 10-15 years ago).  It's a nice ride through the sugar cane with little traffic.

The Rally ran from Friday through the following Wednesday, but I couldn't take that much time off of work right now and with Lucy's classes and Naya's school we made the most of the 3 days we had.   We packed up and rolled out on Thursday afternoon around 4:45PM and made it to Chilligan's Island (what my buddy Seacliff calls his backyard bar) by 8:30PM.  Food and drinks were consumed and we had a nice evening.   As he had to work the next morning and we were less than halfway, we had an 8AM departure scheduled.   I woke up before my 6:45 alarm and got up.  Around 7:15 I ventured outside and saw the first of two problems....the driver's rear tire was flat as it could be.   I freaked as we were blocking Seacliff's car in, so I had oh 45 min to solve this issue.....   I sprung into action grapping the air compressor and the extension cord and getting it hooked up. 

I had never used it to pump up the tires, only the airbags.  I found with the holes in the wheel were so small I couldn't get the inflator chuck to lock down.   I finally figured out to run it through the wheel one hole over and bring it in sideways.   I took about 20 min at least to pump it up.

I actually had to turn it off for 10 min to let the compressor cool off.  Before I even got that far, I saw another problem I couldn't immediately address (or so I thought).   I mentioned the bent bogie arm.  How I found out it was bent, was I wore out one of the new tires at 5000 miles on the outside.  As it wasn't a show stopper, at the time I threw the old spare on there as it had 99% tread, but was due to age out.   Running a 100 miles at a time, I wasn''t super worried about it as the sidewalls looked good and when I put it on it was only 6 years old.   Well now the bogie was fixed and the tire still looked good by was 7.5 and with another brand new 2 yr old spare, I decided to flip them for the ride to Tally (440 mi one way). 

So prior to leaving I took care of that.  This wheel was so snug I had to use a pry bar to get it to come off.  I'm assuming I loosened the dust cap in the process as, you guessed it, it was gone Friday morning in Lakeland.  At the time I was concentrating on the flat so I didn't notice that the bearing and race were exposed.   

I got the tire pumped up and we weighed anchor right on time at 7:55 AM heading to a local tire shop 2 miles away.  Got there easy enough and they were very gracious and got us sorted out in 30 min or so.

I couldn't see it before we moved but the offender was pretty obvious in the tire.

3.5 inch long piece of steel we picked up (probably on Hwy 60).  Looked like the steel they use in a grid they put down and pour concrete over.

Took a minute to check on things while they were easy to get to.  All systems looked good ( the white spots on the drum are aluminum polish as I did a quick and dirty with a powerball on the rims before we left).

Levy Tire in downtown Lakeland.  Give them your business, they were fast, friendly, and had a collection of Highwayman art in the lobby. I should have taken some pics, there were some nice ones!

The Stuffy Patrol of Molly, Tommy, and Hugo were keeping an eye on the guys in the tire shop.  Of course Lucy waited until we were ready to leave to decide to go to the bathroom.....

Back on the road we rolled north through the Green Swamp on 471 and hit I-75.  20 miles of that and off on US 27 for the rest of the ride to Tally.  I prefer staying off the interstates in the coach when possible as with the coach going slower, it really doesn't take a whole lot longer if at all.

We took the ride pretty leisurely and rolled into Tally around 2:15PM.  I added it up and figured it would take us 8.5 hours on Monday on the way back.  I did it in 7.25hrs (partly as I got caught up in fast traffic through Orlando on the turnpike and my GPS said I hit 85).

We got checked in and hooked up....

You can see Naya setting up the table.  I opted for the pop up out front vs. the side as to be more sociable and not crowd out neighbors.  We parked tight because we were asked and also,  there was one pedestal of power for each 4 coaches..  Our spot was nice as we had partial shade from a big oak for most of the day.  I was surprised a bit as the coaches were spread all over the place so it didn't look very crowded, but there were 140 attendees (although I don't know the total coach count but it was over 50).

Once we were all settled in, I fixed the flat on Naya's bike tire and we headed over to the main hall to check things out.   There were vendor tables, and merch booth, popcorn, a puzzle table, and few other things going on.  At 5PM there was the official welcome meeting and most everyone was there already.  They had a catered BBQ dinner which was really good.   Afterwards we headed back over to the coaches, made a drink and made the rounds meeting some new and interesting folks from all over.

There were people from California, the Netherlands (they left their coach at home), Canada, and all points in between.  I was amazed at the diversity and honestly it was too much to drink in all at once....

Normally, I slam everything into one very long winded post, but I'll stop here and let you enjoy it.  I will add Days 2, 3, and 4 in the next couple of days.....


Happy motoring!