We have spent most of this last month in Iowa and have actually observed the corn fields growing at an impressive rate. We start this blog issue in Forest City where we had a service appointment for Max at the Winnebago factory. While we enjoyed their nice customer lounge, good wifi, and exploring the quaint town nearby, Max visited his birthplace and got a small collection of issues addressed.
From there we drove to Moscow, Iowa to visit the Herbert Hoover Presidential Museum and nearby HWH Corporation. We have discovered that these museums are really gems, so we are on a mission to eventually see them all. HWH is the manufacturer of Max's stabilizing/leveling jacks, so this was a great opportunity to have the system checked out and cleaned up by the experts.
Next on the path was a long July 4th weekend in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionsals) Tournament. As most of you can guess, Jeffrey was over the moon at this chance to see such great sand volleyball players competing -- and one if his favorites, Kerri Walsh Jennings, won the women's title with her partner. We also got a chance to visit the Miller Brewing factory and stroll along the riverwalk area where we got a picture with the famous "bronze Fonz" statue!
 |
| Maren and Jeffrey with the Bronze Fonz |
 |
| Sign at the Miller Brewing Company |
 |
| AVP Volleyball - Men |
 |
| AVP Volleyball - Women |
We then made our way back west to Forest City to attend the Winnebago club's annual Grand National Rally. It included days of educational seminars, a nice collection of product/service vendors, and many opportunities for socializing with fellow RVers. We even ran into RV friends we had met during our winter stay in Florida. What a small world! The theme of the rally was "Out of this World", so there was a hysterical collection of alien decorations everywhere and we even got a concert from Jefferson Starship on the final night. To our great delight, a "polar vortex" weather event reached us during our stay at the rally and our temperatures were a wonderful -- low/mid 70s during the day and low 50s at night.
 |
| Aerial view of the Grand National Rally with us on the left |
 |
| Maren with friends Ken and Wendy at the concert |
 |
| Jefferson Starship |
This was also a second chance to get any final service items addressed, so we added awnings to our biggest side windows (which will be a huge help when we hit the heat in Texas) and had a water leak from 2 of our roof A/C units re-visited. This leak only occurred in heavy heavy rain so it was difficult to reproduce on demand -- but luckily we had several big rains this month so we knew it wasn't fixed entirely yet. It turned out to be a very rare internal seal failure that the Winnebago service team had never seen on any coach before, but with our tenaciousness and the A/C manufacturers help, they triumphed in the end and we are truly fixed now. There is definitely an advantage to our "engineering backgrounds" in a situation like this as we are getting more and more proficient at helping to research and diagnose issues. Unfortunately we don't think the service teams truly appreciate this and no doubt consider us technical "pests" -- makes the victory all the sweeter that we were right!
We will now begin a meandering trek southbound to Austin, Texas. Low and behold -- we can catch 4 more presidential museums before we even hit the Texas state line!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you aren't notified by email when we post new blog updates but would like to be in the future, please click this link:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Nfel34nwmpCGfpXeJxCqZoy6_uJOCru7KTk01pDMicI/viewform
