2013-10-20 Atlanta Good Sam Rally Final Day

On Sunday October 20, we did some last minute shopping at the Camping World store and at a vendor who sold microwave cooking supplies. We even took the opportunity to look at some of 5th wheels again but left the Rally without buying a replacement for the Titanium.

       

We couldn’t resist taking pictures of the trams and converted school buses that transported us back and forth to our rigs. Unfortunately they did not have sufficient transportation for peak times but that was really our only complaint about the Rally itself.

     

The early evening entertainment was by the Vogues – a group we had seen at the Syracuse rally in June. Once again, the crowd sang along and had a great time.

       

We are anxious to see where the 2014 rally / rallies will take place but doubt that we make the trip – unless the timing works well with our trip to Texas.



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2013-10-18 Atlanta Good Sam Rally Photos

We spent Monday night October 14 at Forsyth KOA which is south of Atlanta but one of the closest campgrounds to the Atlanta Motor Speedway which is in Hampton, GA.

Tuesday morning October 15, we checked into The Rally and got a great parking spot – on asphalt rather than grass which we had in Syracuse. The Speedway is huge – it must be quite the place during an actual race.

After we registered, and found the seminar rooms and tours of Atlanta pick-up spot, we headed out to explore the neighbouring town. We headed to Lovejoy, Georgia (yes the actual name of a town) where we found a Discount Tire which had a replacement trailer tire in stock.

For supper that night, we chose C.J. Hot Dogs – a small little place that serves mainly hot dogs with various combinations of toppings. Jane enjoyed her Chicago Dog while Paul tried the Mexican Dog. To end the day, we even made a quick trip to the outlet mall in the neighbouring town.



 

Friday October 18 we spent the day going to seminars and browsing through the exhibits. The highlight of the day for Paul on his 65th birthday, however, was the Beach Boys concert. We were seated in the speedway stands looking down at the stage so everyone had a good view. Since the crowd was filled with baby boomers, everyone sang along and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

               

For Jane, the Good Sam Culinary Experience seminars with Canadian Bob Blumer were the most fun so she attended both his pumpkin pizza making seminar and his weekend brunch seminar. http://therally.com/atlanta-ga-october-17-20-2013/bob-blumer-host-of-surreal-gourmet/

 

During the rally, we bought lunch at the various food trucks – the most interesting was Nana G`s chicken and waffles. This artery clogging dish was delicious – a bacon infused waffle topped with fried chicken strips and finished off with powdered sugar and maple syrup. It is a good thing that we split one or we would have never made it to the afternoon seminars.

           

Saturday evening’s concert was country star Vince Gill. The weather was beautiful again and we enjoyed watching the sun set from high up in the stands.


       

2013-10-15 Atlanta Good Sam Rally - Tours of CNN, Coca-Cola & Mansions

Wednesday October 16 we joined 2 bus loads of Good Sam Rally attendees to tour the CNN studios and The World of Coca Cola in downtown Atlanta. We thoroughly enjoyed both attractions but were less than satisfied with the way Tours of Atlanta organized the tours.

It was certainly fun to see the studios where CNN does much of their programming. It is a huge complex full of activity. Despite the heavy security, we got to see various news rooms.

Although we had a shortened tour in the World of Coca Cola, we saw the highlights such as the Coca Cola bear and many of the old signs, coke machines and other memorabilia. We enjoyed the samples from around the world in Taste It – all except the Italian flavour.



               

On Thursday October 17, Paul headed off to the technical seminars while Jane played tourist for the second day. She took what was advertised as an “Antebellum House Tour” which turned out to be tour of well-known Atlanta houses. There aren’t many antebellum houses left in Atlanta since most of them were burned during the Civil War by General Sherman. The day started at the L.P. Grant Mansion which was built in 1857 and is now being restored by the Atlanta Preservation Center.

The next stop was the Georgia Governor’s Mansion which was completed in 1967. This Greek Revival style mansion contains a lovely collection of 19th century furniture, paintings and porcelain. The dining room contains two Cabbage Patch dolls dressed like the current governor and his wife on the night of their election. Jane learned that Cabbage Patch kids were created in Cleveland, GA, a town not far from Atlanta.

The last stop on the tour was the Atlanta History Center where the group toured the Swan House, a mansion built in 1928. After the 45 minute ride back to the Rally, Jane joined Paul in the exhibit hall.




                     

2013-10-13 Broken Axle on I-81

Our first day of driving on our trek south to Atlanta Saturday October 12 was a beautiful sunny day with lovely fall colours as we headed through New York and Pennsylvania. We opted for a motel rather than a campground so that we could drive later in the evening. We needed one with a large parking lot and the one we chose – the Days Inn in Carlisle, PA fit the bill. In fact the parking lot was so big that we could have parked a whole fleet of Titaniums in it. There was a great diner next to the motel so we could stay hitched up and get an early start on Sunday morning.

Despite the clouds and intermittent rain, we made good time on Sunday as we headed south on I-81. Around 4 pm, Paul pulled over on the shoulder to investigate the smoke coming from the tire area of the Titanium. The cause was a broken trailer spring which damaged one of the tires. We waited over 3 hours for Good Sam RV repair to send a mobile crew to help us. As it got dark, we were getting less and less comfortable sitting on the narrow shoulder as the 18 wheelers went speeding by us. Once the repairman arrived, things improved since he was able to brace the spring in less than 20 minutes. He then took us to a Walmart about 10 miles south of where we had been stranded. He promised to be back before 9:00 am on Monday morning so we found a small BBQ restaurant for dinner and bought a few groceries at the Walmart. True to his word, he and a helper returned; found a new spring; made the repairs and had us on our way by 10:15 am. We knew that as long as we had no other mishaps, we would be able to check-in at The Rally on time on Tuesday morning.