[z-family]

[Thor]

Hi Everyone

We just pulled in after a 3000km camping trip that included the factory rally - Awesome rally The kids had a great time and so did the parents. The 3000km drive was pretty uneventful until the final stretch home. Sandusky to home (about 6hrs leg) about 3hrs into the drive a piece of metal was on bouncing on the road and hit the underside of my truck. Bang! and trailer sway as I tried to turn to miss driving over it. I thought the metal went right thru my truck and took one of my trailer tires out. I manged to pull over safely and a rest area (1/2 mile done the road) and went to check my pants, truck and trailer. Pants ok, heart was beating faster than normal, truck ok - the metal object hit the frame rail just below the drivers seat, but the trailer wasn't so lucky. All tires ok but I now have about an 8" hole in the skirting just behind the rear wheel and before the storage door. The obeject must of bounced under everything and punched a hole right thru the metal skirting. I had to bent the metal back into place and inspect the rest of the trailer. I could not find anything else. (I will post pic of hole once I go thru all of my vacation pics). The rest of the trip was smooth sailing and customs was great. No line at all not even a single car

Thanks to Chris & Heather, they did a great job organizing the event.
Thanks to Keystone for opening up the factory and giving a peek at the 09's. They knew about Gilligan
Thanks to John - Site 167 ended being the common camp fire site. Sorry that you couldn't make it. I wish I could have seen you again.
Thanks to the Dometic rep. Recall taken care of and some cool gifts.

The rally started off very quickly with a water ballon fight which quickly turned into some good old fasion pranks. 35 beer cans tied to my truck. I will let you guess who can drink all those beers in the 1st night. Kids loved it....but somehow I think the bigger kids did as well.

The campfires where great and some outbackers never made it to bed until 4:00am (at least that is the rumour )
Potluck - always too much great food - I guess there can never be enough great food. - Thanks everyone


I will let more stroy out as other outbacker chime in.

As for mods - Z-family takes 1st place - I will say no more but will post a pic. I stopped several times to tried and find the equipment to make the mod myself but had no luck. Time to google.

Jerry

I did ask about rallies at cedar point. They gave me the names of 2 contact people. Event planner and group planner. I will contact them and email you the details.


....more later.

Safe travels for the rally goers that are still on the road.

Thor

[nonny]

Bill & Jen, Cae & I all arrived home safely. We stayed an extra night and enjoyed every minute of our time there. It was great to see Thor, Helen and family again after 2 years. It was wonderful to get together again with those we know and camp with regularly (z-family, H2O Sprayer) and fabulous to meet those new to us. Otherwise, ditto, ditto, ditto what the others said. What fun! We can't wait to do it again.

[Grunt0311]

We made it home from the rally safely yesterday. Let me just say, what a GREAT rally!!! In fact, every rally I have ever been to with my fellow Outbackers has been just awesome . Chris and Heather did a lot of work coordinating everything, and I really appreciate their effort. That is worth two thumbs up !

It was so nice to meet all of the other familys from here that I have never met, and great to see all the ones again that I have met before. Thanks again Mike for letting me use your air compressor to top of the tires on the trailer. And I think Baxter and Remmi were a hit with the kids. It seemed they all wanted to come by and throw Baxter's ball! Oh yeah, Jerry and I are taking challengers from whoever think they can stand a chance in Euchre . Mike was the winner in the poker tournament, but what an exciting finish!

Eby's Pines was a great campground. I will definately go back. It was very clean, and they went out of their way to make us all feel welcome. Keystone did a wonderful job of letting us know how much they appreciate our business. It is very clear that they monitor our site looking for ways to improve. They also were very receptive to listening to what suggestions we had for them. The tour was great, very informative. And the luncheon was wonderful too. I did keep an eye on who was cooking though to make sure it wasn't Gilligan .

And Thor, I am not sure who had the most exciting trip, you or Chris. I am sorry to hear about your trailer's new aerodynamic properties.

Thanks to everyone for a great time, and we will see you down the road!

Bill

[dammawpa]

We too are home safe and sound. It was our first and definitely not our last rally. What a great way to meet some fine folks. We stayed over Friday to visit some RV surplus storees and were nit disappointed. Just ask Dreamtimer and 153 SYR how they faired in those stores.
I too found the factory tour very informative and very much appreciated that they monitor our findings and gripes. I hope they take seriously our well thought out suggestion in regards to their '09 models. For those not at the rally, we missed you and you do need to visit the nearest Outback dealer to see the new models when they come.
Thanks as well to H20 Sprayer and his family for their hard work. Good food, good times and good company, what more could a fellow ask for?
Happy Trails to you, until we meet again.....

[Lady Di]

We arrived this afternoon around 5:30 PM.

We really enjoyed meeting everyone, and had a great time. Yes, we enjoyed the candy bar bingo, abd the potlucks were great too,

We hope there may be more able to attend the next one.

Thanks Keystone for your hospitality.

[kyoutback]

Ok, we had to back out of the rally and were very sad about that. But, I was sure my fellow outbackers would return with lots of great pictures of what I missed. All these people reporting that they made it back ok and had a great time but not a single picture yet. Come on people show me the great time I missed.

[outbackmac]

Home at last, But to be honest wish i was still at Ebby pines with the fine new friends of the Outback Family.


As for Thor Katie says she has plenty of water baloons with ur name on them. As for the beer cans my guess goes to ????.

One thing we did discover on this trip is that no matter how tight you think you secured things they can be moved. Thors grill

As for Bill and I we are the Undisputed Champions of the WORLD.

More to come on the rally

I second the thought for those still on the road get home safe.

[whodey]

We had a wonderful time. It was great meeting everyone. Eby's Pines was a great place, our kids loved it as well. The factory tour was very interesting. Seeing the process really lets you know what all goes into making them. Thanks Keystone for the hospitality and the lunch, really enjoyed it. I think it is pretty cool that Keystone really does value our opinion. I also feel privileged to be a part of the prototype process. Thanks to Dometic for the recall work, sensor and the cool gifts. Used the gifts at the After Factory Rally. Thumbs up to Chris & Heather on getting everything together, GREAT JOB!!! Hope to see everyone next year at Cedar Point (or somewhere). Will post pics as soon as I go through the 500+ the DW has taken.

Mike

PS - Thor, Sorry to hear about your mishap, glad to hear everyone (& pants) are ok. Logan keeps asking when he can go over to his friends house

[H2oSprayer]

Well, we have finally made it home this afternoon from one of our most memorable trips ever. It was great to see some old friends again and to meet some new friends. We didn't get off to a very good start to our trip however. Sunday morning arrived and we were very excited to get our longest duration trip of the summer started. I had just came off of a 24 hour shift at work and we were actually able to get on the way for our 3 hour drive an hour earlier then we had planned. We had just transitioned from I90 to I290, in Chicago, traveling in typical Chicago type traffic. All of the sudden, bang. The truck shook, it sounded like the front of the Outback was dragging on the tollway and the truck started to slide sideways. Lucky I was to keep control of the truck and get from the center lane over to the shoulder in one piece and without hitting any of the other vehicles that were near us. We must have scared the carp out of the people behind us, as one vehicles pulled up next to us to make sure we were oaky. As it turns out, we blew the rear drivers side tire on the Suburban. The tire failure was rather severe. It folded the part of the rear fender from the back of the tire to the bumper, up a few inches and placed a few other dents in the side of the truck from were the shredding rubber slapped the side of the truck. Luckily there was no damage to our Outback. We were counting our blessings that we were all okay. After sitting for a couple of minutes to calm my nerves, I was able to efficiently change to the spare tire and we were on our way to the next exit. I checked at a few of the local tire stores, but being the Sunday after the 4th of July, I was unable to locate a exceptable replacement. We continued on our way, rather uneventfully until we were approximately 30 miles from our destination. All of the sudden, bang. I said to myself, not again!! This time, the passenger side rear tire on the Suburban blew. This time, the traffic was surprisingly light and we were able to come to a stop without causing any other incidents. I'm not sure what the deal is, but two tires on the same trip? We had just had the tires rotated and we were told they were in good shape for our trip. I had made sure that the tire pressures were set prior to departing. Okay, so now what. Luckily I was able to use my GPS to find the nearest tire shops. After 6 calls I was able to find a tire service that had to call in a guy, to come to our rescue. After nearly two hours and having to hand over our first born, we were on our way. (Note to self, call insurance company about adding road service to our policy ASAP!) We arrived at the rally thrilled to see the pool calling our names. We made quick work of setting up camp and checking in with everyone and off to the pool we went. The pool was a bit on the cool side, but after the day that we had, it felt great.

Thanks to John for getting the rally started, it was our pleasure to continue with what you had started. As always, the potlucks were a huge success. Great food and a great time was had by all. Even the impromptu events, I believe they were referred to as "shanagins", were fun. This group was one of the funnest that we have camped with in a while. We can't wait till next year, maybe at Cedar Point?

We had a great time at Indiana Dunes and were fortunate to have extended our stay until today. For anyone in the Indiana/Illinois/Michigan area looking for a great camping area, this place must be added to the top of your list. Not only did they have a newly updated camping area and a great beach area, but they also had up to three interactive events each day. We had a great time on a hike to find the cactus, the kids enjoyed making the bracelets and had fun earning the stare park pin by doing things within the park. We will hopefully be able to make it back there this year.

Thor, I'm glad that things turned out, for the most part, okay. The skirting can be fixed, the pants on the other hand would have had to of been thrown out!!

Kudos to Chris at Eby's Pines for helping to make the rally a success. It was very nice to see her stopping by to see how things were going and if we needed anything.

A huge handshake and a pat on the back to Tim and all of his "elves" at Keystone. Although his schedule was rather full, Tim was able to squeeze in stopping by Eby's Pines a bit more that an hour before the potluck, to chit chat, answer questions and gave us a few tid bits of what to expect in the near future. Tim stayed (a bit longer then he intended to) and joined us for the potluck. I hope that your night was not too late Tim, and I hope that your daughter did well. The tour of the factory was great. It was interesting to see how these units are constructed. Who would of thought that they are made from the inside out, opposite of how a home is built? I'm not sure how much of their new ideas they want us to share prior to informing their dealers, but the exterior door directly into the bathroom on the 310 is a home run!! Now if only that model came in a 5th wheel (hint, hint!!) Tim was interested in continuing a Factory Rally in the future. What do you say John, you were unable to make this one, but how about another one in 2010?

BTW, Doug, how does one go about changing their screen name. We have one member that I will not name, that has a (as he puts it) plain screen name that needs to be changed. We have come up with a new name for him, "Magellan". I will let him chime in with that story!!

Until next time...this one's for you!!

[z-family]

[tdvffjohn]

I m game for 2010.

If anyone on else is, leave your comments here
http://www.outbacker...p...c=22952&hl=


John

This post has been edited by tdvffjohn: 16 July 2008 - 09:05 AM

[tdvffjohn]

Great pictures Thanks......... I am sooo bummed out yet.

[dammawpa]

z-family, on Jul 15 2008, 10:34 PM, said:

Well I finally got our pictures uploaded. Click here to view. Sorry about all the pool pics but we spent allot of time there. That stinks to hear about the damage on your TT Thor. Glad it wasn't worse.

Rob

Enjoyed the pictures. Make sure you color in Indiana on your map. It'll be even prettier.
Enjoyed meeting you and your family.
Sheila & Carl

[happycamper]

Great pics Z! I love the mid air jump shots.