We just returned from a different kind of camping trip…we took RoVer Too about two hours East to the Elkhart County Fairgrounds in Elkhart, IN for the Grand Design National Rally. Grand Design is the manufacturer of RoVer Too (their Imagine XLS 23LDE model), along with many other models of RVs, and every year, there is a National “Rally” or gathering for the owners of their RVs. It’s in Elkhart since that’s where the company is located, and it’s where almost every RV in the country is manufactured.

This was the 11^th annual national rally, but our first one. There are also many regional rallies held around the country. There were more than 500 RVs there, and over 1,100 people in attendance (44% of whom were “newbies” like us – never been to a rally before). It was a fantastic experience, and I decided it was worth a blog post even though we weren’t traveling and doing “touristy” things…I’ll just cover the highlights!

• Our section (Area A) was limited to trailers up to 35’ in length, so it ended up being “Imagine Row” – about 20 Imagine trailers (and one Transcend, another Grand Design brand) all gathered together! There were lots of other Imagine trailers elsewhere, but we definitely had the highest concentration in our area!

• Our Area Hosts threw a “trailer trash” welcome party on Saturday night. Costumes were optional, so we decided to take it VERY literally and wear our finest Hefty bags covered with trash. It was particularly funny when another couple also chose this path (although they just wore stuffed trash bags…no actual trash visible!).

• As part of our registration, we could request up to three ‘service’ items to be completed on our trailer. Since we didn’t have any actual repairs that were needed (YAY!), we asked them to do a safety inspection. The techs arrived on Sunday and spent a couple hours going through things. And, we are so glad they did! They found that half of our brakes on the trailer were not working! The lines had somehow been cut! OMG! They’re all fixed now, at no charge, thanks to Grand Design. Phew!

• We got a nice swag bag when we arrived with lots of camping-related goodies in it, but the best item of all was a $100 certificate to spend on spare parts…so, on Monday, Mark and I headed to our appointment at the parts desk, and he had fun ordering a bunch of electrical and plumbing parts and pieces that he figures he’ll need someday. In the end, it cost us about $7.00, thanks to Grand Design!

• We attended a total of 14 seminars on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, covering a wide variety of topics. We both learned a lot, and it was so nice to be in rooms full of people who RV and have the same questions & challenges we have. My favorite seminar was led by two of Grand Design’s Service Response Techs in a women-only session designed to help us understand a lot of the stuff we don’t normally deal with, like slide & roof maintenance. They had so many good tips! Mark’s favorite seminar was related to a roofing system – it confirmed that we will invest in one next year to avoid leaks down the road.

• For entertainment, we had a casino night; each of us received $500 worth of fake “chips” to start the night. I had a slow start at Black Jack, but ended up ahead at the end of the evening. I used my fake winnings to buy tickets for a drawing which I did not win (there was no option to cash out!). There was also BINGO night; I haven’t played Bingo in years, so it was fun to use my purple dauber to mark off each number…again, we didn’t win anything, but we had fun!

• On Thursday afternoon, we had a factory tour at the Grand Design plant that manufactures some of the Imagine travel trailers. It was so interesting to see the process for these hand-built RVs…no robots or machines, no automated assembly lines, just lots of manual labor (which, unfortunately, tends to be why RVs have issues). We learned that the majority of their employees are Amish, so the work day goes from about 5am-1pm, allowing them plenty of daylight to tend their farms after work. They are paid ‘piece work’ – I didn’t think that existed anymore. Our tour guide works in sales at Grand Design; he previously worked for several other RV manufacturers, and also worked as a Quality Manager for Grand Design; he confirmed what we’ve been hearing all week…Grand Design is unique in the industry for their focus on quality and on the customer. We certainly believe it, based on our experience with our motorhome which was not manufactured by Grand Design vs. our travel trailer…so many more major issues with our motorhome.

• We met a family with NINE children who travel full-time in their RV. The Mom has been home-schooling for more than 15 years, and they’ve visited almost all of the National Parks in their travels. The kids were all very polite and helpful. My brain hurt just thinking about the logistics of traveling with nine children and living in the confined space of an RV. Wow!

I think it’s worth noting that the rally is NOT run by Grand Design. It is completely run by a core group of about 90 volunteers who spend an entire year planning the event and work really hard for the week of the rally. There is one Grand Design employee whose title is “Director of Rallies” who is very involved, and as far as we know, the only money Grand Design puts into it is the cost of the closing night dinner (all of our breakfasts & dinners were included) – which, by the way, was served by Grand Design employees so that all of the volunteers could enjoy it and not have to work. Really impressive! And so many of Grand Design’s employees were on-site all week, from technicians working on trailers to customer service employees taking orders for parts. The young woman we worked with on our parts order was so happy to be there dealing with people in person – she spends most of her days on the phone helping customers, and she loved being able to talk to people face-to-face. Of course, we saw her on Monday…I hope she was still feeling the same way on Thursday?!?!

The volunteers who run the event also have a goal of supporting charities, so there were several fundraising events throughout the week, and in the end, over $20,000 was raised…plus 600 pounds of leftover food from our meals was donated to a local food pantry and 40 units of blood were donated when a bloodmobile spent a few hours on-site. Amazing what can be accomplished when a group of people come together!

One of things we learned that really impressed us and summarizes the Grand Design philosophy…their mobile Service Response Techs, who travel the highways across the US, are instructed to stop and help ANY RV that needs help – regardless of brand – and do everything they can to get the owner back on the road safely. That just blows me away…very few companies would be willing to pay their employees to fix an issue with another company’s product. But that’s who Grand Design is, and that’s why they say “Grand Design For Life” – they’ve created a group of very satisfied, and very loyal, customers who will stay with the brand and recommend the brand. We count ourselves among those loyal customers based on our experiences so far!

We had a fantastic time – we met so many nice people from across the country who enjoy RVing like we do. We shared stories of the road, upgrades we’ve made to our trailers, tips and hints, and lots of laughs. It was our first rally, but probably not our last!