From the Left
From the Right.And here is where it was built and rebuilt:
Blue Ox of Pender, NE, campground in the background, manufacturing facility to the left.For all the detail, here's what I wrote for the RVForum.net:
"The Navigator/PelicanLady/Mary Ann had read that Blue Ox, manufacturer of our Tow Bar (Aventa LX) and Base Plate, offered tours of their manufacturing facility in Pender, NE., and had an inexpensive or free campground on the factory grounds.
We were in that area ealier this week and I had some questions about maintenance of the tow bar - "How can a device with so many moving parts only call for annual lubing of the bars?", "We are at 35,000 miles of towing a 5500 pound car with this Tow Bar and there is some noticeable wear -- how long before parts needed to be replaced?--so we decided to go take the tour.
While we were discussing my maintenance questions with a Blue Ox employee, we were informed that for $25 Blue Ox would completely rebuild our Tow Bar and that we could stay at their campground free.
We went over to the campground (which, by the way, is first class in every way), got set up, and the Blue Ox folks came over and removed our tow bar and took it to the factory. Had we known about the service and called to make an appointment, the repairs could have been done in a couple of hours while we waited. As it was, there were others ahead of us and it would be the next morning before we could be worked in.
Around 9:30 the next morning, the Blue Ox folks were out at our site reinstalling the tow bar. I was really surprised to see that our well used tow bar now looked brand new. It turned out that aside from the normal washers and other wear parts, a couple of the major components were replaced under the Limited Lifetime Warranty. No additional charge!
As you can tell I was impressed!
I was even more impressed when we took the factory tour. Except for a few parts that Blue Ox cannot fabricate, primarily electrical stuff, all of their products are fabricated right there. The steel, in the form of various thickness sheets and rolled bars (from 3 local mills) comes in the door, and completed tow bars and other products go out the other end. All of the cutting, stamping, assembly, welding, etc. is done on site. As far as I could tell, Blue Ox products are 100% American made from American materials and I like that!
If you like doing business with a company that is here for the long run, and who doesn't, it appears that Blue Ox is surviving the recent RV downturn very well. They did have layoffs last year, but business has improved and they have rehired most of those laid off. They were all very busy making their various products today, but a number of line employees were able to stop what they were doing to answer our questions and describe what they were doing. Blue Ox has a stable workforce of very knowledgeable and experience employees who take a real pride in what they are doing.
Blue Ox sends up to 5 teams of employees to Rallies (FMCA, Good Sam, etc.) and every NASCAR race to provide these factory services to customers attending the rallies, so many of you may have gotten or could get the services there, but if you are in the area do yourself a favor and visit the factory and see all this first hand. I think you'll be glad you did!
Reading back over what I written, I have to admit that it sounds like it could have been written by a Blue Ox PR person, but I call them like I see them and when I see people doing something right and I get more than I expect, I do get enthusiastic. Yes, I did pay the maintenance fee -- $26.38, taxes included!
Don Nesbitt
Cary, NC "
After the factory tour mentioned above, MMG and I had lunch in the moho and then left for Kansas City. We decided on Kansas City because MMG wanted to shop at the supersized Cabela's there. I enjoy spending time at that Cabela's, too, but my real objective was to have dinner at the famous Arther Bryants BBQ restaurant that's within a mile of the Cabela's with a Famous Dave's across the street as a backup! As an added kicker, we could stay in the Cabela's parking lot overnight for free.
After we chugged down the road the 300 or so miles to get to Cabela's our first sign of impending doom was a temporary lighted sign that said, "Race Event Oct 1-4". Now, we knew that the Kansas Speedway was right across the street from Cabela's but had never thought that it would be a problem for us. NASCAR in Kansas? No way! Wrong! NASCAR races there 2 weekends a year and this is one of them! 100,000 spectators expected!
However, as we drove by the Famous Dave's we noticed that there was not a waiting line out the door, so maybe there is hope. As we pulled into the Cabela's truck and RV parking lot, there were numerous open slots, more hope, so we took one, detached the Tahoe and drove up to the Cabela's to check in with a manager (it's only polite) about staying over night.
She drove a spike through the heart of our plans. The parking lot is only open during store hours during race events because of "problems" they have had with race fans staying there in previous years. Cabela's management has told the local police to "tow or ticket" anyone parked in their lots when the store is not open!
So, here we are without a place to stay, Arther Bryants and Famous Dave's are down the tubes, Cabela's is too crowded with race fans to allow us to shop, so on to plan "B".
In a previous year we had stayed at a KOA about 40 miles east of Cabela's, so MMG called them as DDG tooled down the Interstate in their direction. The KOA manager let us know how lucky we were that they had a couple of spaces left for us. In addition to the normal weekend visitors to KC, and in addition to the Race Weekend, the Chiefs had a home game and there was a college game Saturday as well!
So we got into the campground and settled in sometime after 8 PM and just stayed home and ate leftovers!
We had just one observation about the scenery we traveled through today and that was that on the west side of the Missouri River the land is very hilly with few flatlands. On the east side, however, the land is flat for miles -- as if some giant had ironed it! All of it (both sides) is farmland and it is all planted to corn, soybeans, and other grain crops -- much of it still to be harvested.
We took pictures of everything we thought was worthy and here they are:
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More tomorrow!
Love to you all!
MMG and DDG
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