our latest trip

Good afternoon.

We've just returned from our latest trip. This was our longest, at 4 nights/3 days. This trip took us about 2 1/2 hours south to the Elkhart/ Middleberry KOA.
We arrived late on Friday after working most of the day. The campground was busy, and the sites were fairly close. Our pull-thru site was barely long enough for our mo-ho and car caddy, but we made it fit.
We set up, and fixed chicken kielbasa's for dinner with broccoli slaw. We retired with a movie.
Saturday, after our coffee walk, we headed out to the near-by town of Goshen for the Russian Festival. This was a small congregation of a Russian Orthodox church, but they put together a nice little festival where we dined on Russian chicken, kotleti, (meat patti) Cucumber salad and kasha, a type of Bulgar. Everything was tasty except the chicken was cooked in a covered pan so you had to peel off the yukky skin, which was probably better for us anyway. :-)

Then we watched the children do their Russian dances.
They were very cute. They also had baked goods and crafts. We found a loaf of Russian spice bread we had later that evening. A hearty dark bread with raisins and nuts and a strong ginger snap smell. It was very good!

Then it was off to Elkhart,(about 12 miles north) to see the RV Museum. A very large building housing old and new rvs and assorted rv related stuff. These pics of of the first known RV....
We spent a few hours checking everything out.


Fascinating the different types of rv's they had back then.
Back at he campground, we prepared our dinner of grilled pork steaks, baked potatoes and grilled zucchini. The campground stayed busy the entire time we were here. A lot of the rigs would stay only 1 night. They appeared to be people working there way from the east and north to the south and west. It was like a migration. There was a wide variety of rigs.

Sunday was to be a relaxing day as being in Amish country, a lot of places were closed, so we took our morning walk, fixed a nice breakfast of eggs, toast, and morning star farms sausage links. The we headed out to a shopping strip between Goshen and South Bend. We stopped at a Kohl's where I needed to get some new work slacks. I totally ruined a pair last week when I got some bleach on them. One of the hazards of working in a Salon with chemicals. :-)

After shopping, we stopped at a TGIF for a light lunch of spicy chicken avocado egg rolls and fried dill pickle strips. They were both yummy. We then headed to the small town of Middleberry, just a few miles from the campground for their autumn festival. Browsed the crafts and food, but didn't buy a thing. :-)Back at the campground we relaxed with cocktails and the Sunday paper.
The campsite had a paved patio and a standing grill. Craig thought it would be fun to cook with charcoal for a change so he went to the camp store and got a bag of briquettes and lighter fluid.
We cooked chicken thighs and legs on the grill, and Craig made a pasta salad to go with them. They were very good. That evening, we sat by a nice campfire. Monday morning, we left the campground early. This was the reason for our trip to this area. We were on our way to the small town of Napannee, about 40 miles from the campground. There, we were to take an RV factory tour. And not just any RV tour. This was Newmar, the company that built our motor home. I thought it would be interesting to see how it's done. After arriving and having a difficult time finding building 9, (I discovered they didn't number the building in a logical order, they numbered them as they were bought) we found the waiting area for the tour. They had quite a good size group. About 30. After a brief history of Newmar, we were off for the tour. Manufacturing motor homes is very different from cars. They build each piece to order. Either from a customer, or a dealer who wants a certain type for their sales lot. So depending on what's in the order line, depends on what you'll see being built during your tour. I was very disappointed we were unable to take any pics. They employ a large number of Amish. and they can not have their pictures taken due to their religion. Probably just as good, since they have awful looking hair-cuts, and those funny scraggly beards. :-)

The tour ended up lasting just over 2 hours and was fascinating! Instead of a conveyor belt type of production, the pre-built ford chassis comes in and the wheels are set on these large square pads. They must be an industrial version of the ones you use to push around furniture. When they were done at one station, they would, by hand, literally push it over to the next one. These are 20-40 thousand pound vehicles! At each 'station', a different group would do their part. We saw a unit go from a flat-bed chassis, then with walls, roof, wiring, carpet, cabinets and so on until it's done. They worked like pro's! :-)

It was really interesting to watch the progress. Right now, they're building 3 a day. Back before the recession, they were building 20 a day!
We even got to go through a few of the completed ones. Very nice!
After the tour, we headed back towards our campground, with a stop in Goshen for lunch, at a restaurant called Wings etc. I of course had their jumbo wings, and Craig had a buffalo chicken wrap. Both were very good. Them back to the campground to relax. We loaded the car for an early morning departure.
After breakfast and a nice lunch, we had a light dinner of turkey kielbasas. The evening was spent watching various shows on the discovery channel. it was nice havig cable for a change. :-)
Tuesday morning, we awoke to dense fog. Packed up the mo-ho, dumped, and we were on our ay. The fog hung around until we were near Lansing. we gassed up at $3.49 and arrived home safe. No incidents this trip. Another good trip! :-)