Alabama and home . . .

We left Little Rock about midday and decided to make it an easy travel day as we are not really in a hurry to finish this trip.  We did make it to Red Bay, Alabama in the late afternoon and decided to take the tour of the Tiffin manufacturing facility in the morning.

These are roof insulation panels that are being cut to fit with a CNC machine

They are building aluminum side frames on the table on the left

Motor homes are built from the floor up.  The appliances are placed into position and hooked up prior to the sides being put on.  This makes it very easy to check everything is connected properly

This is a roof panel (after it is has been mostly built) being transported to another workstation where the satellite, air conditioners and other antennas are attached

Here you can see the washer and dryer at the rear of this coach and the refrigerator amidship already installed

The slide out has not been installed but they are busy on the interior tidying things up

This is the one piece semi-finished roof cap with the a/c units being installed.  There was a pallet of in-motion satellites sitting next to this table . . . too big for my pockets.

Some workers installing ceiling fixtures and wood mouldings on the ceiling after the one-piece roof has been placed into position

Still doing some final fitting before the slides are attached

Cabinets arrive from the cabinet shops and are assembled prior to being placed into position inside the coach

This is the wiring area, where the wire looms are being build.  There is about three miles of wire in each coach.  Wire is drawn from the drums by the workers where it is automatically cut to length, and printed as to what model coach the wire is for and what exactly it is to be used for.  As you can see, all of the wires are yellow, making it more economical than using multi colored wires.  I did check and the identification is very clear and they are marked every couple of feet or so.

Wires are strung on these peg board templates based on the coach

After the wires are all placed into position, they are wound together and banded with black corrugated tubes.

The finished products roll off the line at a rate of 12 completed units per week.  It takes 12 weeks to build a coach, from the chassis up.  This is a Zepher, Tiffin’s most luxurious model, a line of Phaetons and Allegros and the new, Class C  “Wayfairer” coach

After leaving Tiffin, we meandered down the road, staying off of the Interstates as much as possible.  Our next stop was at Natural Bridge, between Red Bay and Birmingham.  This is a park that we have driven past many times but never really thought about stopping (it was about 30 miles off of the interstate).  After stopping for directions  at a gas station, we found the entrance to the private park and went cautiously down the narrow road to the parking area.  It was not designed for large coaches pulling tow vehicles so we did the un-hitch routine, turned the coach around and re-hitched before starting the one mile walk to the arch.  This water feature is at the picnic area.  The water is a blue color due to minerals that are being washed downstream.

The arch itself is actually two arches that are about 200 million years old and still in the formation stage.  It is the longest rock arch east of the Rockies.

The arch itself is granite over sandstone.  Nature has washed away the sandstone over the millions of years leaving the arch suspended.  You can see the second, smaller arch in these shots

Nature still at work . . these is water flowing over and through the arches and you will get wet if you decided to walk the path under the arch

Cathy on the path at the back of the arch.

Looking straight up, you see these neat formations on the rock surface, where large pieces have cleaved away over time.

After leaving Natural Arch, we continued on side roads to the town of Talladega, established 1835.

This small town is a few miles off of the interstate and most drive past it on the way to Birmingham or the Speedway without ever stopping.  We parked near the town square and spent some time walking around, looking at the buildings and businesses.  Not a lot going on here (no race) but I would think this would be pretty busy twice yearly . .

We walked to the Davey Allison Memorial Park / Texaco Walk of Fame. Davey was killed in a crash while landing his helicopter at Talladega Motor Speedway in 1993. There were bronze plaques arranged in a large oval, shaded by trees and grassy in the center.  Notable NASCAR drivers are memorialized individually but we did not find Georgia’s “Buckshot Jones” (00).  Cathy did make it to the “Winners Circle” though.

This is the municipal building, in the center of the town square.  There were four cars parked to the right of this building, in spaces marked “Waiting for Driving Test”.  After looking at the young-uns waiting for their driving tests,  we decided to get out-of-town . . quickly.

We missed most of the afternoon traffic going through Atlanta and parked the coach in the driveway.  We have pretty much un-packed and all that is left is washing the Arizona red mud off the coach.