Roba Road Trip

The Roba Road Trip started at the farm on a 2 degree morning in the dark.  With Farmer John at the wheel, seven of us piled into the van for our 10 hour drive to THE CORN PARTY.  We arrived at our hotel, the Embassy Suites of Raleigh/Durham, in sunny North Carolina to a lovely late afternoon of mild temperatures.  Within minutes we started meeting friends and business associates from Georgia, Texas, California, Utah, Michigan … and, well you get it, from everywhere.

You are now thinking “WHAT is a corn party?”.  Well, it’s a conference of laughter and learning for hundreds of folks from across the USA who just happen to all have a CORN MAZE.  We are happy to be some of those folks; John and Sue Roba, Jennifer Roba and her fiance Jim, and Gene, Liz and Patti, the management team of Roba Family Farms.  After an evening of great food and social greetings, it was early to bed as we had a very busy next day planned.

A hearty breakfast, and we board the luxury buses for our tour.  Our first stop … Duke University.  It is hard to imagine that you could keep our crowd quiet, but a reverent hush fell over the group as we entered the storied, elegant beauty of the historic Duke chapel.  Our visit was brief, and our guide, Wayne, of Tobacco Road Tours, continued his lesson on how Duke, Raleigh, and the Corn party attendees all shared a common interest, agriculture.  Our tour was full of informative stops … Maple View Agricultural Center, an educational dairy where we had hay rides and homemade ice cream, and fun stops, too … the Marbles Kids Museum, and downtown Raleigh to Big Ed’s for lunch.  Then, back to the hotel with lots of work to do.  The Roba team had a late night meeting scheduled to plan a major new project, online ticketing.

Yes, ONLINE TICKETING comes to Roba Family Farms.  You will enjoy the convenience of purchasing your campfire sites and your individual and group tickets online starting this season.  We are very excited (and we know you will be, too) about this additional service that we can now offer our customers.

Corn Party Day #3: A full day of classroom learning of both functional (The Power of Partnerships) and frivolous (Parties that Pop) topics, all designed to bring our customers the most fun they can find at a farm.  At the end of the day, a group of us met for some fun as we discussed … yes, business.  It is great fun to be in a fun business.

Day #4: Back on the buses for farm tours throughout the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill areas of North Carolina.  To maximize our time together, the Corn party attendees conducted sessions of sharing in between stops.  The night ended at a well known Haunted House attraction, and a Christmas Light Show hayride that journeyed through the Carolina countryside.

Farmer John back at the wheel and we’re heading north, our heads full of new ideas and plans for the coming year.  We brainstorm these ideas inside out and upside down until thoughts become the plans that become the magic that creates the memories that keeps you, our treasured farm visitors, coming back time after time, year after year to Roba Family Farms.