Monday, July 23, 2007

The Rally

Several months ago, we signed up to attend the Good Sam Rally in Redmond, OR. Having never been to a rally before, we opted to stay off-site, so that we could orient ourselves, and have some peace in the evenings.

So what is a rally? It's a giant RV show, with new rigs, accessories, RV goodies of all kinds, evening entertainment, as well as onsite camping if you want it. They are usually held at fairgrounds due to the logistics and magnitude of it all. It's also a place where RV'ers spend money!

Since we have been exploring switching to a Class A motorhome, it also provided us with instant access to almost every brand of motorhome on the market. Donna and I had lots of fun checking out all of the rigs. There were even a few $1.3 - 1.5M coaches to look at. In our opinion, they are too glitzy, so they don't appeal to us. We did take several rigs out for test drives, including: Beaver (Patriot Thunder), Mandalay (Mandalay), Monaco (Diplomate), and Country Coach (Inspire 360 Founders Edition). All of these rigs were at least 40'. We zeroed in on two, the Mandalay and the Country Coach. After much discussion, we decided that we would be continuing this lifestyle for quite a while. So, we are going to change our rig out!

Our final decision was based on two factors: 1) quality and reputation of the company, and 2) how we were treated. The Country Coach is, in our mind, far superior to anything else we saw. All of the people at Beaudry RV (Brian especially!) treated us with respect, patiently answered our questions, drove us around the rally in golfcarts, and made it an easy experience. Now, if we can just win the lotto...

You can check out the floor plan at:
http://www.countrycoach.com/model.cfm?brand=fnd&my=08
It's a 43' 4-slide rig (big, and yes, it's got a tag axle). We did not like any of the interior/exterior color combinations on display at the rally, so we factory ordered one. As this rig is a 2008 model year, and a limited edition to boot, the color and options we chose have not yet been built. We learned that our rig will be the first of this color combo. We are scheduled to take possession at the factory in Junction, OR, in mid-September.

We were wondering where we would head after the rally. Not anymore - we're driving about 180 miles over to the OR coast to take a factory tour! It should be an interesting camping experience, as CC has an attached RV park. Hmmm, a 5th wheel in there with the CC's. I'm sure we'll have some explaining to do!

By the way, next years rally will be in Georgia, in March. Fits right in with our winter plans, since we're scheduled to be in Florida in January and February. I'll have to think about going again, it costs us too much money!!!

2 comments:

  1. Very cool! Can't wait to see you driving up in that!

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  2. I think it will fit down your driveway just fine!

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