Sweet Tear Alabama First Gathering

[willik]

Come one, Come all!

Ok, gang... I've got the basic plans for our first gathering...



Additional ideas/activities are not only welcomed, but encouraged!!!!

I'll be camping Thursday night as well. Hopefully it will be Chilly for the chili...

[joey_ingram]

I hope I can make it.I may have my kids that weekend,I don't know yet. JOEY

[TomW]

I will mark the event on my schedule. Glad someone is starting a gathering in Central - North Alabama.

[willik]

My children (2 girls) are of the 4 legged variety and always camp with me, but the 2 legged kind are welcomed as well. Bring their bikes with you when you come -- Oak Mountain has a BMX track... it's cool.

[willik]

Tom,

Most of the tear owners I've come across are in the nothern part of 'Bama, but I've seen a couple from down near the gulf. I'm really wanting to have about 3 gatherings a year... one in the north, one in the south and one in the middle -- varying east to west. I also try to go to the neighboring state gatherings. Georgia just had one at Fort Mountain in June... that's where I caught the bug and decided we needed to doing stuff close to home as well.

I look forward to meeting you.

Karen

[CPlater]

Got this one marked on my calendar. I'm not sure if I'll have one built by then but it would be great for the Molly dog and me to come down and see a few tears up close and personal.

[willik]

Looking forward to meeting you and Molly.

[dobbur23]

Oak mountain is definitely a great place to camp. That is only about an hour North of us so we will definitely try to make it if work permits. Glad to see some Alabama happenings.

Sidenote: On the Alabama tearjerkers logo did it really have to have the rebel flag on it? Just doesn't have the best reputation when traveling the U.S. and alot of people in Alabama just make it worse. I mean I totally understand the historical part of it but unfortunately alot of ignorant people have marred that.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for putting the effort into setting up the gathering also.

[KevinS]

This one might be doable for me.

[willik]

We'd love to see you there.

I went by the campground today. The folks are super nice. The girl on the phone when I booked my reservation and the girl at the shop today both were excited about our coming. The girl today wants to get a tear. She also said they would work with us to hopefully keep us all together. We'll probably be on the back row in section B. I'll post the map when I figure out how to show the whole thing in a readable version with the size limits on uploads.

[pjsauls]

There's great hiking and 2 large lakes to fish there. We enjoyed Oak Mountain when we lived in Leeds nearby.

It would be a good trip; we'll have to take a careful look as the time gets closer.

J. Sauls

[TinKicker]

Man! I just found this, and I'm really glad it's happening, but I've got two strikes against my making it.
1) The camper is still just a red Harbor Freight trailer in my garage.
2) It will still be a red Harbor Freight trailer by the party date.
Anybody against my wife and I (and maybe the kids) coming over for a meet and greet? (Secret motive here: even though Terra's "onboard" the teardrop project, it would be AWESOME to have her inspect some up close for inspiration and motivation. )
By the way, why not the Alabama flag instead of the rebel flag for the logo? I don't care either way, but like someone else said, there are those...

[willik]

Anybody against my wife and I (and maybe the kids) coming over for a meet and greet? (Secret motive here: even though Terra's "onboard" the teardrop project, it would be AWESOME to have her inspect some up close for inspiration and motivation. )

Please Please come!!! We will have something group wise on Friday and Saturday nights and I would love to meet y'all. As this is our first gathering, will do some organizational stuff, so I really do hope folks who can't stay the weekend or are in midst of a build will still make it out for the fellowships.

And you are 100% right... a gathering is a great way to get her hooked... she'll meet nice folks and see options that you will then have to deliver in her build <g>

By the way, why not the Alabama flag instead of the rebel flag for the logo? I don't care either way, but like someone else said, there are those...

For TJ logos, the designing process is to notify the TJ artist of the elements you want then he puts that together. When he showed it to me I returned 3 changes he made the other 2 changes -- I had asked for a 'heart that covered most of the state since we were the heart of dixie' -- I, too, questioned how it would be perceived thinking I would prefer a solid red heart, there was a bit of a heated debate amongst some TJ members and it came back that 95% of TJ group who thought it was worth commenting on thought it was good with the battle flag (note: not the stars & bars). Since the colors really pop, I didn't insist.

[TinKicker]

Well, Terra and I have talked it over, and we have vowed to come, Hell or high water. Regrettably, we probably won't make it until Sunday because of my work schedule, so we'll miss out on the group stuff, but hey...paychecks are nice to have. Hard to build teardrops without 'em!
I've painted Terra a little more reluctant than she really is...now. Used to she just didn't know what it was all about. She thought you couldn't really camp unless you had a Winnebago or something big. But I bought a copy of Douglas Heister's Teardrops and Tiny Trailers book last week, and we sat and browsed it together. She's seen all my designs I've made with Sketchup over the last year, but the book really brought them to life for her. She's as fired up as I am (she's always been my biggest fan!) and she's just as excited about getting "out there" now as I am.
You know, you can look at blueprints and diagrams all day, but until you see a neat little teardrop with whitewall tires and a colorful kitchen, you just can't feel the love.
Our first project isn't a by-the-book tear (it's the little trailer in my album), but it's engineered to get us out and camping a lot faster than we could if I built a true teardrop. We figure it'll make a good first run to occupy us while I work on the "real" camper. Shoot, we've always tent camped, so anything will be a big improvement on a lot of points.
I'll be looking for that schedule and map of the campground you spoke of. Later on!

[willik]

I look forward to meeting y'all.