The Great Georgia Thunderbird Road Rally! May 4-5

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

TbirdTim

UPDATE EMAIL ADDRESS
Planning ahead for our next official gathering of current and future Thunderbird owners in the metro Atlanta area and the State of Georgia, along with our neighboring States, we are currently looking toward the weekend of May 4-5. More details about the road rally will emerge over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for further information!
 

This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated. As an eBay Partner, and Amazon Associate I may be compensated if you make a purchase at no cost to you.

Sounds great...my 'Bird should be about a month old and ready to go.

I'll be glad to help in putting the event together. just let me know.

------------------
blue/blue/full blue/premium on order: 10 of 18
 
Tim;

Count me in. I'll be there (hopefully not Birdless this time). All you Birders out in Calif. you don't know how much one of these gatherings can be. Surely ya'll won't let a bunch of Ga. Rednecks show you up.

------------------
Courage - and shuffle the cards
 
The Great Georgia Thunderbird Road Rally!
May 4-5, 2002

(For owners of the 2002 Thunderbird and earlier-year Thunderbird’s)

May 4, 9:00-10:30 am
The Great Georgia Thunderbird Road Rally’s flock of Thunderbird’s is to gather at Chestatee Ford, located on GA400 approximately 6.5 miles north of the intersection of Hwy53, on the right-side of GA400 and at the 2nd traffic light north of that intersection.

This will be the initial meeting spot to begin our road rally. The local press has been contacted and may be there to interview us. Coffee and snacks will be served.

Everyone should plan ahead to fill up their fuel tanks prior to gathering the “flock”.

If anyone needs additional directions to Chestatee Ford, please call them at 770-535-7103

Our “flock” of Thunderbird’s WILL be taking off at 10:30am, so please be there on time.

May 4, 10:30 am
Leaving Chestatee Ford, we plan to drive north through Dahlonega, to Suches, then along the scenic, winding roads of the Smoky Mountains, to a nice viewpoint where the Appalachian Trail crosses. We plan to stop there for photos. Continuing along through the mountains, we plan to arrive at Brasstown Valley Resort for our lunch stop.

May 4, 12:30 pm
Lunch awaits us at Brasstown Valley Resort. Here they serve a very good buffet-style meal or items straight from the menu. The cost for the buffet is approximately $12.03 per person. An area will be reserved in the parking lot for our cars.

May 4, 2:00 pm
Leaving Brasstown Valley Resort, we plan to turn south to Lake Burton, where we will follow the lakeshore and stop for some great photo opportunities, with the lake as our backdrop.

May 4, 4:30 pm
Arriving at Unicoi Lodge, where we will check into our rooms for the night, we will have an area reserved for our cars. Here we can take time to rest or to explore the sights in the area on our own or with other members of the group. You can see a list of activities in the area at the website for the lodge at: www.unicoilodge.com

May 4, 6:00pm
See the update for the Saturday evening plans in a separate post below.

May 5, Breakfast
Breakfast at the Restaurant at Unicoi will be served for our group. A private area in the restaurant will be reserved for us. The menu and prices are available from the lodge ahead of time for anyone interested.

May 5, 10:00 am
Checkout time for our rooms at Unicoi Lodge.
We plan to gather the Thunderbird flock in the parking lot for the continuation of our journey.

May 5, 10:30 am
Leaving Unicoi Lodge, we will travel up to Georgia’s highest elevation at Brasstown Bald. There we plan to spend 1-2 hours exploring the mountain-top, their exhibits and movie. They have a large parking area that should easily be able to handle all of our cars in a single area of the parking lot. Lots of photo opportunities await us at this location, with or without the cars.

May 5, 1:00 pm
Leaving Brasstown Bald, we will head over to the scenic Richard Russell Parkway. From there we will then decide our final route back, either through Helen or another route back to GA400 and back home to our nests.


FOR THOSE PLANNING TO JOIN OUR THUNDERBIRD ROAD RALLY

1. Please make your room reservation at Unicoi Lodge. They have given us a group room rate which is good for any of the rooms that they offer, including their cabins, for a rate of $99.00, plus tax. Call them at 1-800-573-9659. Mention that you are part of the “Metro Atlanta Thunderbird Club” and our reservation number (79478). They will ask you for your arrival date, which is May 4. Make sure that you specify which type of room or cabin that you want to reserve.

2. Please send us an e-mail to MetroAtlantaThunderbirds@******* so that we will know that you have made your room reservation and also how many people will be joining you. Also a contact name and phone number would be greatly appreciated for any possible last-minute changes to the plans.


Please note:
This event is planned to take place rain or shine. Hardtops are optional, but softtops are encouraged if the weather permits. Make sure to bring your cameras and plenty of film.
Cell phones do not work in certain areas of the mountains, so we will provide 2-way radios for the front and rear cars to communicate with one another. The deadline for room reservations at Unicoi Lodge for the above mentioned rate is good until April 4. After that, our block of reserved rooms will be released. We only have 35 rooms blocked-off for us. The cabins at Unicoi lodge will go fast, so make your reservation early.

See everyone again, soon! There will be lots of new faces and cars to join with us for this great event!


-

-
 
It looks like we are going to be joining with the North Georgia ************************ for the road rally! Now it will be a real caravan of Thunderbirds!
 
I have a list of 20 people (10 Thunderbird's) so far that will be coming to the road rally. 10 of the 20 rooms that we had blocked-off for our event have now been taken by people planning to attend. This promises to be a much larger gathering than the "Pappasitos" gathering in January, along with quite a variety of Thunderbird's!
 
What a great weekend it should be!!!!!!!

Made our reservations today....Joel and Sonya....and hopefully one shiny new blue bird.

I am thinking of getting a seperate room for my Bird. I guess I will request non-smoking...no recall pun intended.

------------------
blue/blue/full blue/premium on order: 10 of 18
 
Just for anyone that might be planning to do the Georgia road rally, I now have a long list of people that will be joining us, especially now that the other Atlanta Thunderbird Clubs are joining us. I just checked with the lodge and the rooms have filled up so much that they only have 22 rooms (as of today, March 5) left in the ENTIRE lodge for May 4... so, if you are planning to go and have not yet made your reservation, do it soon or you may be staying somewhere else for that night.
 
I sure would like to join this event. My blue/blue, full blue is expected in three weeks. One problem is that I live in Sumter SC, a good four hours from Atlanta. This means I would have to arrive on Friday night plus I'd have a long drive home Sunday night.

I wonder if their may be similar events planned a little closer to home.
 
Well our first block of 20 rooms are now ALL taken at Unicoi Lodge! I have added 15 more rooms to our "Thunderbird Group" block of rooms for May 4. That's about all that they have left for the ENTIRE lodge for that evening.

It looks like we are up to 20+ Thunderbird's (40+ people) for our road rally as of this morning. It's going to be a GREAT event!!!
 
Well everyone, the road rally list continues to grow. We have someone from Sumter, South Carolina coming and someone from Gainesville, Florida driving up to join us on May 4-5! A large majority of the cars in the road rally will be 2002 Thunderbird's in all colors, but still no yellow one!
 
Tim;

I just got back from a Tech Session with the Vintage Tbirders and they discussed the Rally some. They may do a one day thing and use it for their May meeting. They had high praise for your handleing of the event and I of course had to brag on you some too. It was a very good session. We had a special guest there. Those Gearheads out there would know the name Sam Memolo (apologies for misspelling the last name). He was one of the two main guys on the TV shows Shade Tree Mechanic, Crank and Crome, and a new one thier coming out with that I didn't catch or remember the name (memory, the 1st thing to go). He is a great guy and very easy to talk to. It's always a blast when you can get together with people who share some of the same interests that you do. Especially Tbirds.

------------------
Courage - and shuffle the cards
 
As of tonight, I have another couple from South Carolina that will be joing us for the road rally. They are bringing their yellow 2002 Thunderbird. This will be the first official yellow Thunderbird in our group for the rally.

The road rally number now is at 46 people (23 Thunderbird's)!
 
I would like to also keep this post going, in addition to the newer one started today (listing all of the group gatherings) for specific news that relates to our upcoming road rally here in Georgia. That way I won't add unnecessary information for people to have to scroll through.

For those traveling from other States to attend "The Great Georgia Thunderbird Road Rally" and for those that want to arrive near the starting point for the road rally, some people are making reservations at the Holiday Inn in the quaint town of Dahlonega, Georgia for Friday, May 3.

This could be a great gathering place for those that have a long distance to travel to join us and a way to be together the evening before the road rally. The website for this hotel is:
http://www.sixcontinentshotels.com/hiexpress?_franchisee=DAHGA
 
Thanks to some really great work by DavidA on this forum, we are able to announce an absolutely wonderful Saturday evening event for the road rally. For those that are coming and for those that are thinking about it, perhaps this addition to our itinerery might persuade you. Don't wait much longer though, because the lodge only has 5 rooms remaining for us. We are at over 30 Thunderbird's now (mostly 2002 models). That's over 60 people!!! Any remaining lodge rooms will be released to the general public on April 4.

Here's the important update for our road rally's Saturday evening:

The Great Georgia Thunderbird Road Rally
… the fun continues

Saturday Evening, May 4, 2002

You are cordially invited to a special evening of dinner with other Thunderbird owners, among the cars of yesterday and today, with a special on-stage appearance by a surprise musical guest.

We are announcing a wonderful surprise for everyone involved in the road rally for Saturday night’s entertainment. Our entire group will be picked up by limousines at about 6:00pm on Saturday, May 4 and driven to the unique town Helen, Georgia to see a musical stage show production, including an appearance by a special surprise guest.

Prior to the stage show, we have been personally invited to view a personal collection of antique autos, trucks and buggies. There are over 250 vehicles of all types and styles, including a 2002 T-Bird on display for all of us to admire. We should all feel extremely special to be invited to this event by the owner of this car collection and to be taken by a fleet of his personal limousines to our events on this evening.

Since we will be having such a sumptuous lunch, dinner will be a simple Southern-style barbecue, with other foods like hotdogs and hamburgers available too. Time will be tight, the musical show starts at 8:00pm, so we will only have about 2 hours to see the displays and to eat. This should be a lot of fun for everyone. The cost is $12.00 per person, which includes admission to the car collection, the musical stage production and for the limousine rides. Food and drinks are extra. Beer and wine are available at this event. For those who drive, instead of taking the limousines from Unicoi Lodge, there will be extra security in place for the protection of our cars, while we are enjoying the evening’s events.

This event will replace the previously mentioned dinner at Unicoi Lodge’s restaurant for Saturday evening.
 
As of today, we have 35 Thunderbird's and about 70 people for the road rally... the latest addition comes this afternoon as I have located the lady here in Atlanta that has a write-up about her new Thunderbird in the latest "Time" magazine about convertibles. She made her reservation today. I have told her about this forum and you may see her on here soon.

We are now quickly seeking other lodge locations for those any other people that are added to our road rally.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top