Pre Rally Sightseeing

It is understandable why this is such a great place for a RV focused rally.   There are factory tours of many of the RV manufacturers, numerous companies that make and sell RV furniture, and others that can renovate your RV.  We are very interested in taking our our carpet and installing some type of laminate or tile.  There are several companies that we are planning on checking out while we are here.  

Our day started off with this beautiful sunrise.

Today we went to Shipshewana for some sightseeing and shopping.  This Amish community has many cheese and craft shops to visit, plus some excellent restaurants.  We stopped at an excellent cheese shop and came out with some great snacks to share later.  John could be found tasting all the free samples with a big smile on his face.  

We saw many lovely Amish farms and horse and buggies.  These buggies were parked at a Menard's store right along side the motor homes that were boon-docking prior to the rally. 

We had an excellent lunch at the Blue Gate Restaurant and drove out to a furniture manufacturer to look at reclining chairs.  Unfortunately, it was closed but we saw this lovely Amish farm complete with telephone booth (for business use only) along the way.

We then drove to the RV MH Hall of Fame to visit an amazing collection of old and new RV's,  It is dedicated per their website tot he following-" preserving history and honoroing the pioneers and individulas who have made a significant contribution to the RV and manufacturing industry.  

Our friend Carol and John

There is an amazing collection of old and new RV's that are very well displayed.  Here are are a few pictures of our favorites.  We would highly recommend this museum. Cost is $6/per adult and  $4 senior discount. 

Tent camper

My favorite, spacious and full of light

KOA Kampers

 It was a great start to what John calls our "retirement training".

Escapade 2010-Goshen Indiana

We have arrived at the Fairgrounds in Goshen Indiana for the Escapee Rally.  We are so excited and arrived a couple of days early.  The rally starts on Sunday and it will  last for five days.  We plan on attending their Boot Camp classes and also will take  a CPR certification class.  What fun it was to realize that we did not have to pack.  Nor, did we have to worry that something would be forgotten.  Have RV...can travel.

The fairgrounds are very nice and everything is very clean and tidy.  We brought our bikes to make it easier to get to all the classes, vendors, and entertainment. Our friend, Carol, met us here and we came into the fairgrounds together  It was so good to see her.  She has been full timing for some time now and really is enjoying the life style.  She attended the Gypsy Journal Rally a couple of weeks ago and stayed in the area to have some RV work done. 

We have an excellent  site and the parking crew did a great job getting everyone in today.  Our site has electricity and water and is more spacious than we had imagined.  We will be able to put out our awning and we have a "front yard"  looking over the east side.  We were very lucky to get such a nice site. 

Entering the fairgrounds

Our camping site

Earlier in the week John and our friend Al worked on the diesel engine.  It had ran a little rough last week and they thought it might be good to change the fuel filter. At the same time they noticed that the air filter really needed to be changed.  It was huge and appeared to be very dirty!  We noticed such a difference driving up today and our fuel consumption was much less than our trip last week.  Thanks again Al for helping us.