The Winnebago-Itasca Travelers (WIT) Club is sponsoring its 42nd Grand National Rally this week in Forest City, home of the Winnebago Industries. The event is wrapping up with all-day activities on Friday. Above: A group of people enjoy the festivities.|The Winnebago-Itasca Travelers (WIT) Club is sponsoring its 42nd Grand National Rally this week in Forest City, home of the Winnebago Industries. The event is wrapping up with all-day activities on Friday. WIT, which has a membership of over 12,000 members, is open to anyone who owns a Winnebago Industries motor home.
“Get your banjo, floppy straw hat and join over 2,000 attendees for the biggest Hillbilly Jamboree this side of the Mayberry,” said WIT General Manager Doug Formanek.
Click here to view photos of the event.
The Grand National Rally is an annual gathering of Winnebago Industries produced products, that gathered 1050 Coaches this year and approximately 2100 people. For members only, the rally runs for six days, with pre-rally activities and parking available.
The rally consists of some seventy-five seminars ranging from product information on motor homes, vendor products, to craft classes. Vendors are located in a large air-conditioned facillity. There are Merchant and Craft rows available, and entertainment throughtout the week during the day and top professional acts in in a 3,000-seat amphitheater in the evenings.
This years theme for the rally is “Hillbilly Jamboree”. Folks were having some down home fun with the many activities that were going on Thursday. There was the Happy Camper Cookoff that started at 10:30 am, the Hillbilly Moonshine Run at 1:00 pm (the driver is blindfolded and the partner uses a harness ONLY to direct the driver which way to go through an obstacle course, without knocking over the cones, no speaking), entertainment by Milk and Honey plus a comedy act by Tina and Lena throughout the day and Joe Diffie in the Amphitheater in the evening.
The WIT Youth were having fun as they took turns on the Eurobungy Jumper and Inflatable Climbing Wall between noon and four. A special thanks went out to a couple who have supervised the WIT GNR Youth Program for over twenty years, Chuck and Cindy Hamilton. This will be their last year.
To help people get around, Miller and Sons, from Brill, provided golf carts. The area is so vast, that the golf carts come in very handy. Especially when there was free ice cream being giving away. The line was long, but worth it.
And how could you go to the WIT Rally and not notice the beautiful Winnebagos/Itasca Homes? There were newer models as well as older ones. There was one from 1969. Some of the people live in these homes year around. They travel from rally to rally and stay in touch with their family and friends by cell phone, email and texting. These retired baby boomers have fun traveling and meeting new people. There were people from Missouri, New York, Florida, Canada and many other states. The Coaches are grouped together by states or special interest groups to ensure a good and comfortable time for all.
Videos:
