Updated 5/2/09

Oklahoma & Texas Panhandle

Welcome to everyone interested in joining the National Corvette Caravan from the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle region! Here is the information you need to get started. If you have questions, please e-mail us at okcaravan2009@yahoo.com.

The Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma are at the center of one of the largest caravans to Bowling Green! Our fun begins in Adrian, Texas, when Corvettes from Amarillo and surrounding areas have a 8 a.m. breakfast at the "Midpoint Café" on Monday, August 31st. This historic restaurant is located at the midpoint of Route 66. At breakfast, we'll greet the mighty 200+ caravan from Southern California, headed by Captain Hib Halverson. From there, our combined group will head east on I-40 to a late lunch in Elk City, Oklahoma. We'll stop for a visit with the good folks in Elk City at the National Route 66 Museum. From there, we'll head into Oklahoma City, where we'll join the great Central Texas group for the evening. You can bet there will be good food and great conversation at dinner and in the parking lot of the Clarion Hotel (I-40 and Meridian) that night

On September 1st, you will be able to choose between two groups that travel slightly different routes. The group Tuna and I will lead leaves early (think 6:30 a.m.!) in order to cruise Historic Route 66. The Route 66 group will take a little longer with stops at the Route 66 Interpretative Center in Chandler, Oklahoma and a lunch stop in Carrie Underwood's home town of Checotah, OK. The second group, lead by the Central Texas Captain Linda Walker, will depart at 8:30, travel I-40 with a lunch stop along the way. The two caravans will meet in Van Buren, Arkansas and join with the Arkansas caravan. The combined SoCal/OK/TX Panhandle/Central Tx and Arkansas Caravans will overnight in Little Rock.

For those of you in Tulsa, northeastern Oklahoma or southeastern Kansas, we will also have a start point in the Tulsa area. Our local leaders, Terri Liles tliles@centerramortgage.com and Terri Green, terri.l.green.i2rq@statefarm.com are handling this for us. Their plan is to have a kick off party on Monday night, then a 10 a.m. departure Tuesday morning from the Bixby area (151st and Memorial). For more information, please contact either of the local leaders. Their group will drive south to Checotah and join the Route 66 group for lunch.

Oklahoma caravanners have another option as well. The Arizona-New Mexico caravan comes through Oklahoma on September 1st and departs Oklahoma City on September 2nd. For more detail on any this caravan, check the Arizona page on this web site.

We can help with hotel reservations along the Caravan route and in Bowling Green, through Gorilla Travel, a sponsor of the SoCal Caravan. Hotel booking instructions are at the end of this message. Also, the Bowling Green Convention and Visitors Bureau (BGCVB) has told us that they will be able to assist participants in finding hotel space in Bowling Green. The BGCVB website is www.visitbgky.com/caravan. Our contact there is Duncan Hines, duncan@visitbgky.com.

Once you've made the decision to join us, be sure to register for the National Corvette Museum's 15th Anniversary Celebration and Grand Re-opening of the museum! Registration for that event is open now.

Finally, support your Caravan by purchasing official Caravan merchandise. Registered Caravan participants can order caravan merchandise from the NCM's store, but you can only purchase Caravan flags and clings from a Captain. The flags clip to the side windows or can be placed on alternate poles for windshield frame mounting. The clings are 6" x 6" and are made to be placed on the inside of a window. The flags are $15.00 each and the clings are $10.00 each. See pictures below. We'll also have windshield banners later this year.

Caravan Flag   Static Cling

We periodically send out welcoming email to all Oklahoma and TX Panhandle participants using the email addresses listed with the registration information, so please keep that information updated.

Alton "Tuna" Dobbins
Susan Dobbins
Oklahoma Captains
okcaravan2009@yahoo.com


Hotel Booking instructions:

Gorilla Travel Network (Ron Cohen) is now booking rooms for the Southern California, Oklahoma/Texas Panhandle and Arkansas/West Tennessee Caravan participants. Gorilla Travel has rooms available for the following dates and places:

    28 August - Ontario, CA
    29 August - Flagstaff, AZ
    30 August - Tucumcari, NM
    31 August - Oklahoma City, OK
    1 September - Little Rock, AR
    2-5 September - Bowling Green, KY and Nashville, TN

There are 2 ways to contact Gorilla Travel - via email or toll free phone. Gorilla Travel email is: gorillatravel@aol.com. Phone is: 888-811-APES (2737). Gorilla Travel will need the following information:

1. Your name and contact information including phone number, address and email
2. Number of rooms desired
3. Cities you want those rooms
4. Dates you want those rooms
5. Number of people in each room
6. Special requests (handicap, Internet, etc.)
7. Caravan section and Corvette Club affiliation (if any)
8. Credit Card information. After sending the above info by email, please call Gorilla Travel at the number above and provide this information.

Additionally, no credit cards will be charged at the time the reservations are made. Providing your credit card will simply guarantee the rooms requested. Your card will be charged only when you check out or if you cancel after the deadline set forth in the cancellation policy.

Cancellation Policy: The last day to cancel any hotel reservation made by Gorilla Travel Network for the 2009 Corvette Caravan without possible charge is Friday, May 22, 2009. Hotel reservation cancellations after that date may be subject to charge to the credit card used to guarantee the reservation. Whether the card gets charged wil depend on the hotel's ability to resell the cancelled room. If it can be resold, there will not be a charge. If not, the guaranteeing card will be charged.

All beds will be single Kings or Queens. Alternatives may be available but you must include that in your email/phone request. All rooms are non-smoking. Rooms in Nashville will be at the Opryland Hotel.

If your email to Gorilla Travel has all the correct info, you'll get back from Ron Cohen, an email acknowledging the receipt of your information along with confirmation that you have a room. What you won't get is an assignment to a specific physical room in a hotel or motel. You will get that at a later date, probably late next Spring. The reason we're holding off on assigning specific rooms is we don't yet know how many Caravaners we will have and to assign physical rooms we need to have a better understanding of that than we do now.

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