Well, I was cleaning up the spelling errors and  grammar errors in the Split Rock post and decided that I guess I should do a post about the Aliner Rally. I always seem to be about a week or so behind my videos with the blog posts. And I guess if I was efficient and smart, I would do the blog post first so I know how I wanted to edit the video. Unfortunately I usually do the video first because that way I still remember the pattern and order the videos were taken in. But anyways I guess I will have to try better to get things out at least together if not the blog before the video.

So this blog is about my video covering the July 2017 Aliner rally ! I believe as I understand it,  it was the first time in 3 or 4 years there was a rally near the factory. In the past, I have been told, that there is usually a factory rep at the national rally. However I have missed the last 3 national rallies. So that information is just on hearsay evidence. The factory was sold in 2012, or there abouts,  I believe. And it looks like the new owners are putting some money into the operation. That is always a good sign for the products we buy today. Of course the RV industry is in a 50 year frenzy and as baby boomers retire a lot of them buy RVs. I’m not sure what will happen in another 10 or 20 years when the baby boomers are beyond retirement and their children have better things to do on hand held devices and technology than RVs. In fact I suppose it’s entirely possible nobody will want to travel anywhere because you can see it all on your wristwatch or cell phone. E gads, doesn’t that sound like a terrible way to live. Hopefully I will be gone from this earth by then.

So this rally was a regional rally, organized and executed by the Northeast region of the Aliner’s Owners Club. And it may be just my opinion, but it would appear that the Northeast region has the absolutely best regional directors. Though at times they’re very hard to get a hold of because they spend all their time traveling and camping. Damn these retirees. But from the 5 rallies I have attended, the normal routine for a rally in our region is for it to go from Thursday to Sunday. And a lot of people do arrive on Friday because there are people who still work in the world, or don’t want to use vacation for a rally. But typically Thursday or Friday when people arrive, there is a registration table to stop at to pick up information about the rally schedule and local attractions that might interest the participants. Most of the local attraction information comes from the Chamber of Commerce or the state tourist authority, sometimes it’s from someone who knows the area really well.  🙂

The actual rally schedule usually goes something like this: Friday night potluck dinner where there is more food than any hundred people could eat. You never have to worry about bringing food to the potluck because apparently there are a lot of people who love to bring a lot food to a potluck. But your best camping recipe is always a great thing to share at the potluck. Then Saturday morning around 10 or 11 o’clock there is a DYI- (Do-It-Yourself) kind of question-and-answer seminar where people bring up questions about their campers or problems that they’re having and the group tries to answer any newbie questions. Campers are much more complicated than most people think, and there is a lot to learn to maintain and enjoy them fully.  After all, as I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these are houses undergoing earthquakes every day.

Now the do-it-yourself seminar can run over it’s time limit quite easily. But to force it to stop and move on to another activity, the afternoon usually has what we call an “Open House”. This is where anyone who wants to show off their trailer just latches open the door as an invitation for people to come and look at their trailer. Anyone who wants to stay private and not show off all the dog hair in their trailer can keep their door closed and locked (as I often do). But it’s a great way to check out all the different modifications people have done and all the different layouts. You quickly learn that most of the people that are the happiest with their trailers seem to have bought them just so they could modify them. Adding extra storage, lifting mechanisms, full size beds permanently, showers, kitchens, ham radio shacks, entertainment centers, or just about anything you can think of that will fit in an 8 x 12 box. Then Saturday night on many of our rallies there is a catered dinner at a small or no cost to the attendance. Occasionally the catered dinner is Friday night and the potluck is Saturday night. This means as your visiting various trailers for the open house you often get incredible smells of cooking meals that will be at the potluck. I consider that a big advantage of the Saturday night potluck and Saturday afternoon open house.

This particular rally was a little different because the Aliner factory people wanted to treat us to a catered dinner Saturday night and we didn’t really have a potluck dinner because so many people came into camp on Friday night. Also many people stayed over Sunday night because the Aliner factory tour was Sunday and for many of the Northeast region people who come from Massachusetts New Hampshire Connecticut Vermont it would have been a long haul for them to leave the tour at one or 3 o’clock and get home at a reasonable hour. So we had the great Aliner factory tour Sunday. There were actually 3 tours at 9 o’clock, 11 o’clock, and 1 o’clock. I know it was a lot of work for the Aliner factory people and I think it is was most appreciated ! I think that sending them a card or a thank you on their website or other show of appreciation is called for. I’m sure Dave Micheals has already planned something, but it wouldn’t hurt the rest of us to send a note !

Just a few notes on the factory tour because I think the video showed most of what really happened. Though the building is extremely small and the factory is pretty compact the tour did take almost a full 2 hours. One of the members in my group pointed out that this was supposed to be a factory tour and not a do-it-yourself repair seminar. I counted during the first 20 minutes at least 50 questions about how to fix this or that on the trailer, or why they don’t do this or that differently. Our hosts were extremely cordial in answering the questions they could and reiterating that the trailers are designed to be extremely lightweight and very functional which restricts some of the materials they use and the designs. We also saw some of the new stuff that they’re doing such as the new “Ascape” trailer which is very much like an R-Pod. And that trailer came with (I believe) about 40 watts of solar. Which tells me in the next year or so they’ll have solar on the regular Aliner which would be absolutely fantastic.

So I think that covers most of that video, if you have any more questions or comments please leave them either here or on the video. Comments in either place will get to me just as fast and I always reply to both.

Thanks for stopping by, get out and go camping.
Rick, Caesar, Dakota.