Well, I make it to the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa. I discovered a small, friendly city of people bringing their RVs for repairs and upgrades. There are back-in sites available with 50 amp service. Nearby, there is the Winnebago Rally Grounds that has water and multiple dump stations.

Forest City is quite isolated. Minneapolis is two hours north and Des Moines is two hours south. The big thing for visitors to do here is a tour of the Winnebago factory. I am going to try and go on the tour sometime this week. Supposedly, this is the largest RV factory in the U.S. It is sort of funny that this small town in rural Iowa has had such a large impact on the RV industry.

As soon as I pulled in and unhooked the Jeep, I was greeted by several people already parked. One gentleman from Seattle got out and helped guide me into my site as I backed up the motorhome. Along with several other people, this is my first trip to Winnebago. Others bring their rigs here yearly for various items rather than work with local dealers.

We meet our service technicians every morning at 7:00 am with our rig’s ready to be driven and we get them back at 3:00 pm and the technicians is supposed to tell us what they accomplished that day. The low was 37 degrees this morning, so it was nippy and dark waiting outside for the Customer Service doors to open at 7:00 am.

At 3:30 pm, all the RVers gather around and have a happy hour to talk about the latest information about their coach repairs, where they are going next, and where they have been. Forest City is a very small town and sometimes groups of RVers go to various restaurants together.

One couple has a motorhome that was struck by lightning and they keep discovering different things that were damaged. They have been here several weeks having work done. One guy loves coming to Forest City yearly. He thinks Winnebago does great work. He was telling me some of his favorite RV locations and Vernal, Utah (where I was born) is one of his favorite places. He was surprised when I told him I was born there. He gave me names of a number of places he really likes to take his RV in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. He thought California and Colorado were not very RV friendly. It was fun comparing notes on places we have visited.

Winnebago has an area with WIFI and coffee where we wait while our coaches are being worked on. Groups of people are discussing where they like to take their RVs for winter. One group likes to go to Florida and another group likes to go to Arizona. It is fun to listen to their perspectives.