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Where did Thanksgiving go?!?
I know we say it all the time but wow. Sometimes the speed with which things pass us by is mind-blowing.
You know what else is mind-blowing? MYSTERY BINS!
So, Thanksgiving.
We road-tripped to Salt Lake to partake in our Turkey Trot 5k family tradition. The road-trip was uneventful, as we like them:
…except for the typical “Life With James” nuttiness…
…but the 5k was just the opposite.
Grandgirl Punky, who’s turning 8 this week, has run this same 5k every year of her life. She was determined to beat last year’s PR of 35 minutes. AND! She wanted to beat the mayor. Everyone who finishes in front of the mayor gets a medal that says “I beat the mayor”. I mean come on. Life just cannot be completed without that medal.
Here’s the kicker though: The mayor gets a head start! The whole race becomes a hunt for the mayor. It’s awesome.
The mayor finishes in about 33 minutes so we knew it was going to be close. James and I both ran with Punky this year; determined to see her achieve her Beat the Mayor dream.
AND about 2 miles in, there he was!! Punky blew by the mayor and never looked back.
Her finish time this year was 31:50; 3rd place for the 8 and under category… not too bad! Little Eli (5 yrs) ran his best race, too; and came in around 43 minutes. Not a mayor-beater YET, but any year now it’ll happen for him. So, yay for family traditions!!!
THEN!
We hightailed it to the LA area for our REI Mobile Adventure event at the Arcadia store. Here’s a quick video of it by James; WATCH AND BE AMAZED!
I cannot imagine a more interesting mix of campers and vans, as you’ll see in the video. REI really did nail the variety of rigs that appeal to the outdoorsy crowd. The whole thing was quite a spectacle with a DJ, food truck, Santa and elves, a super cool tent set up with REI style accessories staged all around… there was a fun and festive feel unlike typical RV shows.
We had a great time and hope there’ll be more events like this one in the future!
Our next stop after leaving LA was Las Vegas for a bike ride.
So to summarize, we were hanging in Utah on Thanksgiving, California the next day, and then finished the holiday weekend in Nevada. Our lives are so crazily and wonderfully chaotic!
Next stop: Iowa! We’ll be leading a session at a dealer conference on the “non-traditional” RV buyer next week. We love stuff like that. We sort of see ourselves as liaisons for all of you non-traditionals… getting to act as your voice in how best dealerships can work with you when you want to make a purchase. Gone are the days when the sales guys knew more than the customers, and with that the whole dealer/customer interaction should change, too. That’s the gist of our session, more on that later.
Hope y’all had crazy wonderful holiday weekend adventures, too! Go exercise!
xoxo, Stef
REI is a great store, hard for us to stay out of it.
So feedback I would like you to send to the trade groups is service is lacking. Our sales representative worked with us for over a year before we ordered. We probably knew more about the features of each model because of the research we did, especially from TheFitRV site. Thank You! He never pressured us, ran down some questions he didn’t know and gave us a fair price when we decided to order our ERA 70-B.
What drives me crazy is the poor service after the sale. Called one day after driving off the lot to get some ticky-tacky things fixed and I had to wait 6 weeks for an appointment . And what’s worse is they didn’t do all the repairs correctly. On our second trip, toilet broke loose because the installer over-torqued the screws holding the flange and as a result cracked the flange in two spots. No-one including the factory would do an emergency fix (had to do it myself with parts from Home Depot). I’m very happy with both the design and components that Winnebago put into our RV, seriously 5 stars. I’m will do all any house-side repair myself from now on. If my dealer gave me stellar service, I would guarantee that our next purchase would be from the same dealer. Right now, my wife and I have zero loyalty to our dealership.
6 weeks, and right after purchasing!!! How frustrating. I wish I could tell you this is a rare occurrence, but it is not. And we completely agree, this must change. Really appreciate your feedback and we will definitely be sharing it.
Not being ‘merican I had to look up REI. I now think it’s just a store.
Oh gosh yes, glad you posted, lol. We actually have a surprisingly high number of European readers and we should keep that in mind when writing.
REI is a well known and loved chain of “stores” throughout the US. They appeal to outdoorsy and active types since everything they sell is based on outdoor pursuits.
REI is also big on their stewardship programs: getting people outside, protecting public lands, operating sustainably, etc.
It’s organized as a consumer’s cooperative and they give back 70% of their profits to the outdoor community. James and I are proud long-time members and see REI as much more than a store, as do many other fellow outdoorsy souls here in the states. Hope this helps explain it better!