Our much delayed 2020 Turkey Tour Rally finally happened! It was 1 year and 3 weeks late - the year was due to Covid-19 and the 3 weeks was due to me not getting my stuff together for our traditional “weekend before Thanksgiving” start. I meant to have it the week after Thanksgiving weekend, but I had told a few people 12/11 and committed to that weekend. Ironically, none of the people I told were able to make the event.
The weather forecast for rally night was looking grim; I went to pick up the Turkey signs, and while sitting on Debbi’s couch the evening before, the weather came on - possible flooding, possible tornados. She said “look on the bright side, it says large hail is unlikely.” I figured we would be lucky to get 10 cars... well 14 showed up and the horrible weather more or less stayed away. The rain didn’t get bad until most of the cars finished.
The route was great! Participants were treated to a Christmas light show in some very rural areas. There were a lot of dirt roads, documented by my formally white Tahoe. There was some grumbling by the finishing teams, but 10 teams finished at the checkpoint and the winner was within 2.5 minutes of the actual time. Stefan and Tyler deserved the win. The parent/child competitions were both won by the children, with Jessica and Cassie beating Bill and Debby, and Kristin beating Gary and Donna. Speaking of the sisters, Jessica and Cassie were dethroned this year, after winning both the 2018 and 2019 Turkey Tours. I am sure they will be back and mean business next event.
Many teams found all the “turkey” signs, which means that we need to hide some much better next year. Huge thanks for Don and Mark’s pre-running feedback! Although you couldn’t make it rally night, your help was very much appreciated. Also, thank you to Debbi, who handled registration without question, one less thing for the rally masters to be concerned about. I’d personally like to thank Barbara for sticking with me and with the planning and cleanup of this rally, I couldn’t have done it without you. And thanks to Amore for letting us crash the bar/restaurant just before their closing time.
The most dedicated ralliest award is a toss-up with Gary and Donna who finished after over 4 hours on the road. The other team in the running would be Donna and AnnMarie, who after texting me for clarification of 1 road, finished the rally the next day, just to see what they missed. Always good practice to run the rally a week or two later if you didn’t finish, or did and want to see the homes along the way.
Thanks again to everyone for braving the weather and coming to make this event a success. We should run a full schedule next year, so we will see you in the Spring for the Bunny Run Rally. If you have thought about writing a rally let us know. We would love some fresh input and we can help you with the planning; it is actually very satisfying.
Your rallymasters,
Jesse and Barbara.