This morning Dortha and Mark checked out of the Allegro
Campground after getting their work completed yesterday. It was great to see them for a few days, and
after hugs and handshakes we wished them safe travels and promised to see them
“down the road”. Sylvia and Glenn
decided they would visit their son near Huntsville this weekend, so we were
left on our own today. We thought about
visiting our friend Carol who lives near Birmingham, but decided we’d save that
visit until another day.
Instead, we made a 50 mile drive over to Corinth,
Mississippi to do some more historical exploring. Today’s visit covered the Civil War
battlefield at Corinth, as well as some of the town’s historical sites.
Corinth, founded in 1853, was first named Cross City because
of the confluence of two main rail lines, the Mobile & Ohio, and the
Memphis & Charleston. During the
Civil War, Corinth became a very important strategic location for both sides of
the conflict. In the spring of 1862, the
Confederate Army prepared for their surprise attack on Shiloh while camped at
Corinth. Following the battle of Shiloh,
the Union Army occupied Corinth. At that
time, Corinth was also a major location for the many wounded and ill soldiers
on both sides.
We toured the museum housed in the old railroad station. In the museum are collections relating to the
history of Corinth as well as the Civil War.
One of the rooms in the museum is dedicated to Coca-Cola. In 1906 a franchise bottling plant was opened
in Corinth.
We picked up a CD at the museum that guided us around town
to several important homes that were used as headquarters for Civil War
Generals.
We took a break from exploring to have a lunch at the oldest
family-owned drugstore and soda fountain in Mississippi. It was originally started by a returning
Civil War veteran, Dr. Borroum, and is still run by his descendants.
After lunch we continued our tour around town, ending up at
the Corinth Battlefield and Civil War Interpretative Center. There are a couple of very notable things
about this center, first, as we walked up the sidewalk to the door of the
center, we noticed these bronzed artifacts embedded in the sidewalk and
surrounding grass.
Then, in the
courtyard is this water feature:
Each of
the granite blocks along the waterway is engraved with the name of a battle location or
significant event in the war.
At each
end of the pool are these engraved obelisks:
We looked at the exhibits and watched the videos about both
the Battles of Shiloh and Corinth, which, according to some scholars, indicated
a turning point in the conflict, although the war lasted 2 and a half more
years afterward. Even though we didn’t
get to complete our planned journey to Gettysburg and Bull Run this summer, I’ve
gained a much deeper and broader understanding of this pivotal conflict in our
history. Growing up in the West as I
did, the history of the Civil War was not something that struck a chord with me
like it did so many of my friends who grew up in the South. I feel like I’m just now catching up with so
much understanding and knowledge.
After our visit to the Interpretative Center, we dropped our tour CD back off at the museum and headed back to the campground for a quiet evening.
I feel the need to respond to one more comment
about waiting for service here at the Tiffin Facility, so bear with me. I don’t plan to elaborate past this, I really
think in previous posts I’ve expressed our thoughts and opinions pretty
thoroughly and you’re all probably tired of reading about it – you can skip the
rest of this post and I promise you won’t hurt my feelings! Chuck
and Anneke commented that “there must be a better way “ to provide service. To me, “better” is a relative term. I’ll be the first to say that the Tiffin
experience is not for everyone. We do
know people who have been generally fed up with the way Tiffin handles this
service facility and unhappy with the quality of the service and/or product. But again, let me emphasize that the way Jim
and I do things here is our choice. Tiffin is a family run organization in a
small town in Northern Alabama, not a big manufacturing conglomerate with a board
of directors. I don’t have exact statistics about how many rigs come and go
every week, but at any given time, there are always close to 100 rigs in the
campground, plus 50 -60 rigs that owners bring and leave for service. Tiffin makes a few appointments for each day;
the rest of us are walk-ins. There are 3
levels of service here. First is the 2-hour
on site service, which is new since our last visit. If you opt for that, a crew comes to your rig
at the campground and makes the fixes you need, as long as they aren’t
major. The next level is the 3-hour
express bay. Many items can be handled
at that level, and people are typically here for a few days and, providing no
other issues are found, those folks are on their way. Finally, for more extensive needs, there are
the regular bays. When we check in to
the campground, we’re asked if we have a service appointment. Since we are walk-ins, we fill out paperwork
that includes a list of repairs we think we need. There is a man who comes to our rig to
discuss the list and we determine together the level of service needed. Norris always asks us what our timeline
is. If there are pressing reasons to be
out of here within a certain timeframe, they do make an attempt to fit people in. Usually, like now, we’re not pressed for time
so can wait our turn. We’ve come here about once a year since we
bought this coach in 2008. Nearly every
issue we’ve had has been related to some kind of manufacturing issue. At the time our
coach was built, Tiffin was building 13 rigs a day, probably too many for this
facility. Some of the materials they used
have proven to be less than acceptable, so Tiffin is covering the repairs, even
though we’re long out of warranty. We
choose to come here, like many other people, because we’re treated the way
customers ought to be treated everywhere, but usually aren’t. I talk to people here every day that tell me
the same thing. Yes, it’s kind of a pain
to wait a couple of weeks to get service, but once we get into a bay, we feel
we’re treated fairly, every issue we bring up is looked at, and fixed. We’re not rushed in and rushed out; we’re
treated with respect. Yes indeed, we can
and do call Bob Tiffin on occasion, and he listens to us and responds to our
issues. We’ve expressed our opinions and
concerns, and we’ve also thanked him for providing the level of customer
service that he does. The last time Jim
talked to him, he mentioned some friends of ours who had a Fleetwood motorhome,
and waited for a long time for “Mr. Fleetwood” to call them back. Bob got a good chuckle at that. Even though we make comments about having to
wait around here, we really don’t mind all that much. It’s absolutely worth it to us, but remember,
that’s just us.
