Sunday, September 07, 2008

On To the Rally

We drove to Lima and settled in at the Ottawa Metro Park. It is a city/county park with spacious sites and E/W for only $15 for us old coots. We did a recharge....filled and emptied tanks, vacuumed, defrosted and most of all took long HOT showers at their very immaculate restroom. Howard, my friend, stopped by and we had a nice visit.
Another important chore was to burn our paperwork that may give out our identity if put it the wrong hands. We have to be careful these days.

Drove to Goshen, IN where we checked in early at the fairgrounds campground. Our rally doesn't start until Monday and early birds were to come on Sunday but when I called the office, they said we could come in today and be parked where the rally will park. Were we ever glad we came in because by dinner time the campground looked full. We got our mail and read magazines all afternoon. We may get spoiled by full hookups but I don't think so.

Sunday we did laundry. Most of the people there were from Mexico. The rv industry along with the farming industry have brought them to this region.
Afterwards we went to Bob's cousin's.

Ray is in the center. His mother Doris is next to him. His sister Betty is behind Bob and his wife is next to her.
We had a great visit, chicken dinner and then we played Phase 5 along with lots of catching up and visiting.

We went shopping on Monday. First we went to Brontrager's RV Surplus in White Pigeon, MI. Found a few items but was really disappointed in their stock. Went to Shipshewanna and found an upholsterer who quickly repaired a tear in one of our dinette cushion. He even added a strip of foam to it and gave us another strip for the one that was home. No charge but we insisted he take some money. We then went to Yoder's. It is a big building that has a center aisle. On one side is a huge store that sells clothing, yard goods and shoes and household goods. On the other side was a full grocery store and a big hardware store. They have parking for the Amish buggies. We then went to the Blue Gate restaurant. Checked back at the rv before heading to Elkhart RV Surplus Store.

Tuesday was up early where we boarded a bus and took an all day tour. We started at Notra Dame in South Bend for a couple of hour tour.
We saw the stadium,
"Touchdown Jesus",
the basilica
and the grotto in addition to the entire campus. The bookstore was huge.

We then went to the Studebaker Museum.
This is the wagon the Studebaker family came to IN in. I recalled going across the country in a 1950 Studebaker like this from Watertown, NY to LA, on to Tampa, FL before returning to NY. All in about 5 weeks. This is the last Studebaker.

After that tour we headed for South Bend Chocolate Factory. We toured the plant, sampled & made a chocolate spoon.

2 comments:

Barbara and Ron said...

What rally are you at? Are you going to tour any RV factories there?

owner said...

At the Discovery Rally this week and the Gypsy Journal Rally next week. And yes, Bob took a tour of the Discovery plant.