Today, we got another late start, but Tony got us breakfast and we got ready and headed out. Lake effect snow was falling, but the wind was still blowing so not much was sticking to anything.
Our first stop was to visit Martin Marketing, the company that creates the personalized shirts, hats, flags and other printed and embroidered pieces for the Heartland Owners Club. We stopped in to visit about the upcoming Rally, and also so I could try on a light jacket that I was wanting to buy. We had a nice visit with them, and I placed my order.
Martin Marketing
We then headed to lunch, at Luigi's Pizza, recommended by the locals. We had a great pizza, but the service was a little slow. Our waitress got a large party, and got very busy. We didn't hold it against her though, we weren't in a hurry. We had half of the pizza left over, so we decided to take it back to the hotel room fridge before we did other running around.
14" pizza from Luigi's
After dropping off the pizza, we headed over to RV Parts Nation, an RVparts and surplus store. Remember that Monday we had ordered speakers? Well, Heartland had already seen the broken speaker, and since they had to remove them anyway, they said they would replace them with new. We decided in good faith we needed to purchase the speakers from RVParts Nation, since they had ordered them for us. I am not worried, we'll find them a good home. We spoke with the owner and learned a great deal about their business.
Next on the agenda was a tour of the Heartland Factory, at 3pm. We headed over and parked, walked into the corporate office and waited for our tour guide. It was Dave Willis, the Regional Rep for our area, whom we had met last month at the Dallas RV show! We also met Bryan Walczak, who is the GM over Big Country, Gateway and ElkRidge. Unfortunately we received some mis-information that we could not take pictures on the tour, so we didn't ask if we could and thus, didn't take any. The tour was quite impressive, lots of things going on all over -- and it was quitting time, so I can only imagine what it is like when everyone is working. We saw Bighorns and Landmarks being built.
After the tour, I had made arrangements to meet with Coley Brady, Director of Sales for Heartland. We had met him before at the North American Rally in Gillette,WY, but now, as the Editor of the Heartland Highlights Newsletter, I was on official business. Tony and I had a nice visit with him, and Steve Lidy, the Marketing Director, and then Coley introduced us to Chris Hermon, the President of Heartland RV. It was a brief introduction, but glad I got to shake his hand.
Coaches awaiting final release
Corporate headquarters for Heartland RVs
After all the official business was done, we headed back to the hotel for dinner. Tonight was chili-dogs! We both crashed pretty early today, it was a long and busy day.
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