The Verdict on our Slide-out

Monday morning at the factory—the noises start at 6 AM when the factory workers arrive to start their day. We were thrilled to get a knock on the door and see Nevin (Ken’s brother and great technician). We breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we were in good hands. We walked through our punch list and showed Nevin our crippled slide.

Our crippled slide- note the angle!

His reaction—“no problem”! While he’d never seen anything quite like it, he told us that it would probably straighten out without damage to the frame. When he returned about noon, he told us that they’d probably start work the next morning and “would we like him to pull our slide out?”. While I was away at the grocery store, he used a separate controller and our slide was out and we had our motorhome back! I came back to a fully extended slide- something that we haven’t had for 3 weeks!

Even better—the next day when they took our coach in for repairs, they couldn’t find anything wrong. The slide and the jacks were operating perfectly. So, there was no repair bill for $1000’s of dollars and no permanent damage to our slide. Nevin’s diagnosis- the lock arm on the slider deployed before the slide came into the motorhome—the motor kept pulling with the slide arm on the outside of the coach and the slide bent up), But, since we had a major malfunction of the slide and the probable culprit was the circuit board (once again, lightning does strike twice—in our case 5 or 6 times), we asked them to replace the circuit board.

With our bill paid and our minds put to rest, we headed to bed early for our 10 hour drive to Memphis the next morning. About 2AM, we awoke to the sound of an buzz. We got up and found that the Pressure Pro (tire monitoring system) was on and beeping. We unplugged it and heard another beeping sound. John got the flashlight, headed out to the outside compartment with the transfer switch (yes, the one that was just replaced 3 months ago- our 4th one so far). Sure enough, the smoke alarm was sounding because the wires had, once again, started to melt. Depressed beyond belief, John unplugged the electrical and we got a few more hours of sleep before going back to the factory techs with our problem. Another day of sitting and waiting while they replaced the transfer switch. (This time, they put in a metal box vs. the plastic one we had before. They think it's possible that it was installed improperly ---from Day 1--that the wires were not properly cut back and each time it was re-installed, they were using the same corroded wires. Not sure if I understand it completely, but we're feeling better about a factory install of a brand new metal box.

We spent the day in the Customer Lounge talking to other Newmar owners. How strange they are! One couple would take their lunch to the railroad station every day and count the cars! (They bring their own lunch- don't trust eating in restaurants. Oh, they also collect old Army jeeps.) The other couple regaled us with tales of their son- who works for a mattress company- and is the guy who delivers the new mattress and takes away the old one. They told absolutely gross stories about the mattresses with bedbugs and the one that had been used for the delivery of a baby. Yuck! (And, of course, everyone in the lounge agreed that this bed bug thing is coming from immigrants and from China.) They didn't finish up with our coach until about 1:30- so we decided to spend the night and have another night at the "Hideaway". We got the inside scoop on the state of the motorhome industry. Newmar's factory staff has gone from 1200 to 400 people! The town, which basically lives on the two motorhome plants, is filled with "For Sale" signs and alot of people have just had to walk away from their mortgages and leave for other cities to find jobs.

The Long, Long Day

The longest day—13 hours on the road. We got what we thought was a very early start, getting on the road at 6AM while the rest of New Jersey slept. Most of the day was spent on I-80…long stretches of nothing….New Jersey, Pennsylvania (what a very LONG state), Ohio and finally getting to Indiana. It was a race to the factory as we watched the sun slowly sinking and our available light dwindling. We thought that the trek west might work in our favor, but by 7:30 the sun had pretty much disappeared. We lucked out with the only pull-through left in the parking lot, so there was no crazy “back-in’s in the dark” to deal with. While I got the motorhome set up, John drove over to the “Hideaway” (the “Hunter’s Hideway”) and got two blue cheese/olive burgers to go. Wine, burgers and we crashed.

Sunday in Nappanee used to be tolerable—when the local grocery store, Martins, carried the NY Times and the Chicago Tribune. No more- the demise of the newspaper in our country has hit Nappanee and John brought home the “Elkhart Truth”. The only good thing about being in Nappanee—no prayers or fast beating hearts when you start up the motorhome. You actually hope that anything that could go wrong will go wrong while you’re there.

Is there ever a time with no Motorhome maintenance?

It's another day in paradise....NOT!!!! We left Cleveland on Sunday planning a one day stop in Elkhart, Indiana to get a few minor things fixed. It was only a 4 1/2 hour drive, but it seemed forever. Guess it's just being rusty after our 2 month stint in Cleveland. The first day on the road after a long stay is so difficult. The hours drag by and, of course, with a destination of Elkhart, there wasn't really much to look forward to. We arrived just before a huge rainstorm--by minutes--and John came in to hold the dog while I put the slides out. Well, I was chatting and not paying attention--and forgot that I had stuffed one of our fabric wine bags into the slider lock arm (it had been making horrible creaking noises--so this seemed to muffle the irritating sounds while we were driving). As I looked up and yelled, "F(&*", I saw the wine bag being sucked into the slider lock arm. I raced to stop it, but it was stuck and the slide arm wouldn't budge. The good news--we were at a repair facility--but we still don't have any idea of how much this little boo-boo is going to cost. So, it's now Tuesday and we were supposed to be on the road to Minneapolis---but after getting the slide arms un-budged, the new transfer switch put in, new sensors on the tanks, our headlights "polished", we made the mistake of talking to the techs and they were talking about the seals on the roof of the coach...and of course, we asked them to take a look at ours. Wouldn't you know, they found a broken antenna, cracks in the A/C covers and seals needing attending. So, we're here for another day in lovely Elkhart.

Back in the land of motorhomes and mega-churches

After a relaxing weekend in St Louis, we were on our way to Indiana for our annual pilgrimage to the land of motorhome repair. We stopped at Reyco Granning to try to get a diagnosis of our sheared bolt incident only to be told “not our problem. We don’t make the bolt”.

The $2,000 Bolt

That sent us off to Spartan and Newmar. Can’t get the words of that 70’s song out of my head – “Indiana wants me, Lord I can’t go back there”.

John wanted his “birthday burger” at the Hunter’s Hideaway in Nappanee. Nothing like a 1/3 pound burger covered with green olives and blue cheese crumbles. Our favorite waitress, Miriam, was there anxious to serve us the few airline-sized bottles of chardonnay that they had in their back refrigerator.

Miriam at the Hunters Hideaway

With 3 big screen TV’s playing, we ate our dinner watching CNN, ESPN and the Hunting Channel. Watching men with high powered rifles and scopes killing animals really enhanced the dining experience.

We were scheduled to be in Decatur, Indiana for some carpet repair and grout cleaning/sealing on John’s birthday.

The highlight of our day- a trip to Huntington, IN to see Dan Quayle Center and Vice Presidential Museum. Yes, the man who gave us an alternate spelling for potato….(remember “potatoe”)…. has a museum and “Learning Center”.

The museum-- whose slogan is “Second to One”—is in an old Christian Science Church and tells the story of all of our Vice Presidents- from John Adams to Joe Biden. Each VP has his own display with political cartoons, letters and memorabilia. Spiro Agnew even has his own board game, doll, hard hat and trash basket.

Spiro Agnew's Exhibit

While Dan contributed 400 boxes of personal papers, Dick Cheney has said that he would “think about it”…

Part of the museum is dedicated to Dan Quayle memorabilia- Marilyn’s inaugural gown, the “Danny sweater” he wore as a child—even his dog-chewed law degree with photos of his dog, Barnaby.

Dan's Childhood Sweater...

Dan's dog-eared law degree--and the dog who chewed it

We wanted to visit Nick’s Kitchen – Dan’s favorite restaurant. In 1988, Dan stood on a chair in the restaurant and started his campaign during the Bush-Quayle election.

Nick's Kitchen in downtown Huntington

We intended to get the famous “Quayle Burger”- but found that we were at the birthplace of the pork tenderloin sandwich. In 1904, Nick Freinstein started selling them from a pushcart before opening his restaurant, Nick’s Kitchen, in 1908. Legend has it that his brother Jake, had too much whiskey one winter night and passed out drunk in the snow. The fingers on both hands were frostbitten and had to be amputated. Nick put Jake to work at his restaurant pounding out tenderloin with his stumps. Today, the meat is run through a meat cuber twice, marinated for 24hours in buttermilk, eggs and flour, then dredged in crunchy cracker crumbs, deep fried, and served on an extra-large five-inch bun. The meat extends at least 3 or 4 inches beyond the bun.

Breaded Tenderloin Sandwich and Sugar Cream Pie ...Mmmm!
Nick’s is also known for their “Sugar Cream Pie” –a cream pie made with sugar, milk and whipping cream (the official state pie of Indiana!) A birthday surprise for John!

Couldn’t leave Huntington without a drive-by their other claim to fame—the “Privy Collection”. Hy Goldenberg and his wife Lorry started collecting privies (out-houses) in 1960. After Hy died, Lorry donated their collection to the Huntington County Historical Museum.

"The Privy Museum"
On the road home–cow houses

And the Markle, Indiana happy face water tower.

New Carpeting!

With new carpeting being installed, we were officially homeless. With all of our furniture unbolted from the floor, we had to pack our bags and move into the local “Baymont Inn and Suites” in Decatur. (Note- the “Suites” part isn’t really a true “suite”—all you get is a bigger bathroom and a Jacuzzi tub). But, they did have free breakfast and wireless internet, so we managed to stay sane for the 3 day ordeal. At the end of the day, we’d check on the progress. It’s hard to imagine the amount of work involved in replacing carpeting in this tiny space. It was a bit like walking into one of those HGTV shows where everything is completely gutted. Newmar doesn’t make it easy either. Rather than install the carpeting after the cabinetry is in, they take the easy way (for them) and install the carpeting first- then install all of the sofas/cabinetry on top.

We did learn an awful lot about carpet and tile care from the folks at Habegger. First, we realized that you really want to have someone who’s done this kind of work before to deal with any carpet replacement in a motorhome. But we also learned that for carpet care:
1. An annual cleaning is absolutely essential. And, it should be a hot water heat extraction cleaning process- not a dry cleaning. It actually re-sets the fibers in the carpet.
2. Once cleaned, it’s best to let it dry for at least 24 hours before walking on it (a little difficult when you’re full-time)
3. Find a reputable cleaner- the chain cleaners may not be your best bet.
4. With any carpet cleaning- even spot cleaning, the most important thing Is to make sure you remove all of the cleaner from the carpet. The residue, if left on the carpet, becomes a dirt magnet.
5. When you remove your shoes at the door and walk on the carpet in bare feet, you’re probably doing more harm. The oils on your feet are worse than the dirt from your shoes!
6. The best thing to do is leave your shoes at the door and wear socks or slippers. (Oh, are we going to become those horribly obnoxious people with a box of slippers at the door for our guests?) Well, at least for a while we are!
7. One of the absolute worst surfaces is asphalt – it will leave a residue on carpet and tile that actually causes a chemical reaction.

After 3 days, we came back to a brand new motorhome. It truly looks better than it did when we bought it new! The folks at Habegger did a great job. Of course, once we got the new carpet in, it was begging for a new area rug. And, wouldn’t you know, they had a beautiful oriental in their showroom. One of the major problems with our small space has been finding the right size oriental – they’re either too big or too small. With Habegger’s facilities, they were able to size the rug to “just right”.

Motorhome Madness!

We had planned to spend just a few days doing some basic maintenance, but the list seemed to grow daily. The missing button on the sofa meant a trip to Villa in Elkhart. A call from Spartan (the chassis manufacturer) required a trip to Charlotte, Michigan for a “recall on the recall from last year”. (Although, they never call them “recalls” anymore- they simply request that you come in at your earliest convenience – suggesting that- ‘for your safety’- sooner rather than later is better.) A visit to Monroeville to get our steering wheel aligned. And then, to pacify my “grout fetish” (as John calls it), we drove to Decatur to get our grout cleaned, re-stained and sealed. With a full day out of the motorhome again- we scoped out all the changes in Decatur (new Super WalMart, new restaurant downtown), had lunch at Arnold’s (a real 50’s drive-in complete with cute little waitresses on roller skates serving you at your car—ala the old A&W’s) and still had time on our hands.

Hanging around Habegger’s Abbey Floors while they finished the grout work, we decided to look at carpeting. With the grout now looking SO good, the carpet was looking SO bad. When we found out that the carpeting that we loved was actually in stock, we were signing on for 3 more days – this time really out of our motorhome. Replacing carpet in a motorhome is not an easy task. All of the sofas/cabinetry needs to be unbolted from the floor and removed. Needless to say, this was not going to be an inexpensive upgrade. With labor costs of $1200 and 3 days out of the motorhome, you want to make sure that you get a good quality carpet – so on top of the horrendous labor charges, you’ve got a whopping bill for the mere 366 SF of space we occupy.

With our 3 day carpet install scheduled, we had an insane day on Thursday starting in Monroeville at 7:30 A.M. for our steering wheel alignment. From there, we beat feet back to Nappanee to get the dash A/C repaired. We got there at 10:30 and weren’t out until 2:30 – holding our breath that they’d get the work done that day- since they’re on a 4 day work week and any delay would have meant a Friday-Sunday stay in Nappanee. Chloe did have a great time playing with her two new Maltese friends. Amazingly, two other Newmar owners were there with their Maltese puppies, Odie and Bijou. The 3 hour play date made for a quiet dog on the ride to Charlotte, Michigan that afternoon. We got into Charlotte about 6:30 and were in bed by 9. We were absolutely exhausted – and facing another day out of the motorhome on Friday.

8-8-08 – an “auspicious day” according to the Chinese, who were kicking off the Summer Olympics today. We, on the other hand, were driving around Charlotte at 7 A.M. realizing that by 7:30, we had seen it all. The motorhome crowd at the Spartan factory was fairly sparse, but the military business was going great guns (no pun intended). They make the military armored personnel carriers here in Charlotte. As we parked our VW Jetta in the parking lot, we realized that we were the only non-American car in the lot. There was nothing but Fords and Chevrolet’s for miles.

Nappanee, Indiana "Embrace the Pace"

We arrived in Nappanee for our factory service on Sunday night after a very long drive from Minneapolis. Normally, the parking lot is jam packed with motorhomes arriving for Monday A.M. service. In the past, we’d even seen heated conversations with people vying for the same spot. We pulled in at 7 P.M. to find the lot virtually empty. We knew that things were tough at Newmar (and the entire motorhome industry) since we were getting in for factory service during the summer- typically only warranty work is done during the summer months. Non-warranty work was relegated to those brave souls willing to come to Indiana from November to March. But, this year, they were taking anyone willing to make the trip with $4.50 diesel prices.

The next morning we got the standard 6 A.M. knock on the door and after running through our list, we were homeless on the streets of Nappanee. There’s nothing quite like facing the prospect of 8 hours with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Before the lovely Chloe entered our life, we’d head to the “County Table” for a leisurely breakfast. There’s nothing like a huge egg, sausage and toast breakfast to get you ready for a day in the “Big Nap” (where, of course, there are no Naps!). This year, it was the McDonald’s drive through for an Egg McMuffin. So, by 7 A.M., we had had our fill of coffee and a full breakfast. Only 7 more hours to go! John reminded me that we constantly talk about how time flies as we get older –except in Nappanee, the only place where the hours seem endless and the days never end.

We took a drive north to Elkhart (home of the RV Hall of Fame). Heading north on Highway 19, you pass through Wakarusa. This little town used to have two active motorhome manufacturers – Travel Supreme and one of the Monaco factories. Both have been closed - even the Camping World store had closed. Back in Nappanee, we got a sense of how bad things really are. The production line for Newmar is down to 3 days a week. The maintenance group took a 12% pay cut a few months ago. This month, they took another 10% cut in pay and had their work week cut to 4 days. The guys were talking about the challenges of trying to make it with 40% less in their paychecks.

With the entire region centered on the motorhome industry, not only are the mainline manufacturers hurting- all of the suppliers are facing layoffs and possible closings. After our maintenance work at Newmar, we took the coach to Villa, the supplier of the sofas and chairs. We had a button that had come off of our sofa and they offered to replace it. We drove into a factory the size of a football field and were met by 5 workers. The plant was barely operating. The offices were dark, there were a few Mexican workers assembling furniture. We had two guys working on our sofa for an hour – at no charge.

We did get a chance to visit our favorite hangout in Nappanee (one of the only places in town), the Hunters Hideaway. We missed our favorite waitress, Miriam, but did get to have one of their amazing “olive burgers”. And, as usual, we drank their entire supply of white wine (a total of 4 airline size bottles of Sutter Home Chardonnay). White wine isn’t the drink of choice for these beer drinking, cigarette smoking factory workers. With another 6 A.M. start in the morning, we headed to bed early on Monday night. At 11:00, we jerked out of bed to the sound of tornado sirens everywhere. We quickly threw on some clothes, grabbed the dog and ran to the front of the motorhome. People around us were running from their coaches to the little visitor lobby next to us. We knew that it wasn’t a tornado shelter – and we didn’t have time to try to find the closest church (the local churches open up their basements as tornado shelters). In John’s FMCA seminar, they said that the best thing to do is to turn your driver and passenger chairs around- away from the huge glass windshield and, as John yelled to me – “Strap yourself in and hold onto the dog”. Visions of Dorothy and Toto flashed in my mind – John, Chloe and me in the eye of the tornado whirling around strapped to our motorhome chairs. The fact that we were sitting in the middle of farm fields surrounded by motorhomes (the closest thing to the typical trailer park that tornados seem to seek out)- didn’t provide much comfort. The sky was frightening- pitch black with constant bolts of jagged lightening. The lightening wasn’t just single bolts to the ground, but multiple bolts joining together and lighting the sky like fireworks. With the weather radio blasting tornado warnings for Elkhart county, police cars regularly driving through the parking lot, and the thunder and lightening, we spent a tense hour strapped into our chairs, peering into the skies around us. At last, the warning was over and we headed to bed—only 5 hours till the alarm. The next day, the news reported major tornado touchdowns just northwest of us. (Poster by W.w.Denslow)

The Kruse Auction

We headed to Gerry and Sandy’s house- and "Camp Runamuck". Gerry has full hook-ups in his driveway and it was wonderful to have our own private campsite. Gerry and Sandy had set up camp at the Kruse Auction in Auburn for the week. So, we got set up and drove over to meet up with them, take a tour of the auction grounds and get some greasy food stall gyros.

The Kruse Auction was quite an event. 100’s of motorhomes and 1000’s of people and cars everywhere. We watched a bit of the auction(s). In one large building, they had two auctions going simultaneously, moving cars through in 10-15 minutes. Outside, there were hundreds of vendors- selling car parts and accessories, a giant flea market (selling mostly junk) and food vendors (ala the Minnesota State Fair, without the stick).

Gerry was parked next to some TGO residents (in Prevosts) and we shared information about the status of Hurricane Frances. Good news- our house made it through Frances without damage (only a piece of siding blew off-and one of our neighbors put it back up). We may have lost one of our bottlebrush shrubs and had to throw everything out of the refrigerator (after being without power for days, we had Bunny- our house-sitter, clear it out). We were feeling very lucky -and hope that our luck will hold out for Ivan.

Putting Humpty Dumpty back together in Indiana

Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Nappanee to find the full hook-up parking spaces all taken. So, we went to “lot 2” – John calls it the ‘asshole box’. No sewer hook-up, but it’s concrete! We got ready for our factory experience- getting a good nights’ rest before our 6:00 am start.

To keep busy during the week (and to stay sane), we took motorhome factory tours. Charlie and Gloria were at the American factory picking up their coach, so we met them for a tour of the Royale factory. We tried to egg Charlie into upgrading to “metal”. We followed the Royale tour with a tour of the American factory the following day and Travel Supreme tour on Friday.

At night, we settled into our parking lot site and watched the new: visionless Republicans, a hurricane coming to spend the weekend, and nothing to do in Indiana except eat comfort food while mechanics put humpty-dumpty together again. International news is on offer from the New York Times, the BBC, and NWI (Canada's News World International), but the stories being presented are distressing beyond belief. It's truly depressing to watch the coverage of the convention, followed by what is going on in the rest of the world.

We've decided that we're no longer part of this country--it's truly strange to feel so alienated from your fellow citizens. We were at breakfast the other morning listening to the old white guys at the next table talking about the convention and how great Bush is, how the lousy liberals are finally "getting theirs"...... We have never seen this country so divided and so angry. Even reading the NY Times is depressing.

The service team did a yeoman’s job and actually got through our punch list in one week. We went to our favorite dive bar in Nappanee and conveniently forgot to eat dinner while drinking massive amounts of cheap, white wine. Hangover city!

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

Exhausted, we left on Sunday and headed north to Indiana. We only made it as far as Natchez, MS the first day and we just couldn’t drive any further. We stopped at our favorite campgrounds right on the Mississippi River and promptly took a nap. It made our 2 day trip into a 3 day trip, but after a weekend of Cajun fun, it was the only solution.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon in Nappanee, expecting a 3 day visit. It turned into a two week stop. The factory starts work at 6:00 am—so the service team arrives at 6:00 to fetch the coach. At that point, we were ‘homeless’ until they delivered the coach back to us between 3:30-5:00. So, with nothing else to do, we ate- hearty middle America food. The only place open at 6:00 AM was an Amish bakery/restaurant specializing in things like waffles, blueberry pancakes, fresh bread. Their claim to fame is the annual baking of an apple pie over 2 metres in diameter. After our carb free life in Florida, we started packing in the carbs every day (not to mention the wine every night). John said that he was going to self-combust from boredom.


The first few days back at the coach were fairly depressing. On Day 1, we had a huge rainstorm and once again had a ceiling leak. They had to remove the ceiling panels to get to the leak. So, we were faced with a huge wooden stick in the middle of the living room holding up the ceiling panels. The service team had put red stripes on it so that we wouldn’t walk into it accidentally. We added a “Welcome to Miller’s Barbershop” sign in it and got some laughs from the guys.

The bad news was that we had so many things to be fixed on a brand new coach. The good news was that the service team dedicated to the Essex was spectacular. Ken Miller (one of the many Miller’s at Newmar) was a “jack-Amish” and a godsend to us. He not only was technically competent, but listened and got things done.

In the process of trying to fix the squeaks and creaks in the front of the coach, Nevin (Ken’s brother and one of the Essex service team members) broke the front windshield. Rather than face a night in a hotel (the windshield needed time to cure), we took Gerry and Sandy up on their offer to stay with them and check out their new house. Gerry was busy with the Kruse Auction and took us out for the day to see the auction and check out the classic cars. John drove one of Gerry’s “classic” cars over to the auction- a old 60’s convertible, baby blue—and, according to John, one of the worst driving cars ever.

After a two day respite, we headed back to Nappanee and had our "technical walk-through" on Saturday (our anniversary- what a memorable day- learning all about the heating, plumbing and mechanical aspects of our motorhome- not very romantic.) Then after a full day of a walk-through, with mush for brains, we decided to go out for an anniversary dinner. There we were in northern Indiana- where the best restaurant in town is a bakery and their big claim to fame is Amish style cooking. We had heard from some of the other motorhome owners about a place called Essenhaus. In the pouring rain and freezing cold, we ventured out some 30 miles to Essenhaus. John went in first and when I walked up to the door of the restaurant, all I saw was his face pushed against the glass in a look of sheer horror. We walked in - to a 45 minute waiting line of people and horrible family style eats. We checked the menu- it was all meat, potatoes, gravy and lots of "sides" (potato salad, cole slaw, broccoli salad, mushy veggies). We did a hasty retreat and drove another 30 miles in the other direction to South Bend and to our favorite (and only) Indian restaurant in the area. Sadly, they had no wine, but they did have Taj Majal beer- so we had lamb vindaloo and Taj beers.

We woke up on Sunday morning and got ready to leave. I got the GPS programmed for Nashville and we headed off. We got to the edge of the parking lot and water poured down from the halogen light in the ceiling onto John's head. So, we unhooked the car, and pulled back into space #23 in the factory parking lot. All of our parking lot friends from last week had gone and a new group slowly moved in. At least the sun was shining (although it was bloody cold). We were too tired to be screaming mad....so we settled in with a NY Times and resigned ourselves our fate. It really is a beautiful motorhome when it's parked.....it's just when it's moving that we have problems.
Monday morning and Ken and his team were surprised to see our coach in the parking lot. They were horrified to find out about the 2nd leak. This time, they decided to do a pressure test to find the source of the leak. Turns out that it was another unsealed antenna on the roof. They fixed the second leak and sent us on our way. But first, we had to stop at the Onan dealership to check out the black smoke pouring from the generator.

We become the "Guests from Hell"

It was back to Decatur and “From Trees to These” to get our cabinetry installed. We arrived in Decatur in a huge thunderstorm (we were both checking the skies for tornadoes) so we decided to stop at the factory parking lot for the night. The following two days Greg and his guys installed our new cabinet. We took care of other coach related stuff (getting grout cleaner, a touch up kit from the factory) and, at last, a chance to see the American Coach factory.

After a stop in Fort Wayne for some maintenance work at Cummins, we headed to “Charvat Country Club” and spent a few days with Gerry and Sandy. We got to see the progress on their new home and also got to see the “Pickle factory” in St Joe. It was actually quite interesting to see how they process pickles and relish.

We turned out to be the “guests from hell”. Our arrival was marked by a bit of an overshot on the driveway and we knocked out part of their stone wall. John put the stones back in and it looked good as new. With all the recent rain, Sandy was encouraging us to park on the driveway, but Gerry wanted us to have a good view of the creek so he backed us up on the grass. Several nights of torrential rains later, we decided to get everything ready to go while Gerry and Sandy were in church on Sunday morning. Unbeknownst to us, the grassy area we were parked on had been a garden (translation- not every well packed down ground) and as we tried to pull Maby Dick forward, it just sank in the mud. Our hearts sank as Maby sank further and further in the mud. Gerry and Sandy got home to find us on the phone trying to find a towing service. Gerry got ahold of a friend who had pulled his motorhome out before and while we waited for him to arrive, John and Gerry tried their own method. Using 2 x 10’s and the jacks, they slowly inched Maby Dick out of the muck. It was literally inches at a time- jacking up the motorhome, carefully placing boards under the wheels, dropping the jacks and moving it ahead a board length at a time. Just as the tow truck pulled into the driveway, they got it on the driveway- very muddy, but on solid ground again. The guys and the lawn didn’t look very good, however. We said our goodbyes and headed just a few miles away to Elkhart.

After the exciting exit from Gerry’s, we parked for awhile in Elkhart to just relax and play catch-up. The campground was run by a wonderful Indian family (who pointed us to a few Indian restaurants) and it was nice to just “sit” for a bit. We took the time to see the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart. The museum was small, but filled with some of the original “motorhomes” and trailers. Then, we planned our daily motorhome tour. Within 15 miles of our campgrounds, there were most of the major motorhome manufacturers. We started with Thor- and the Mandalay. We had a cute little marketing manager to take us on our private tour of the plant. We were quite impressed with the plant and with the unit. Then, it was on to Georgie Boy and Damon. The Damon plant (a company still privately owned) was quite impressive- but there really weren’t any models that would suit us. Their new quad slide looked like it was built for a NASCAR driver and team- a huge couch and bizarre layout. Mid-week, we went to the Gulf-Stream plant, home to the Atrium, and a private tour at Tsunami. The real highlight of the factory tours was the Monaco Royale- a Prevost converter. At over $1M, their coaches were stunning- all custom made wood interiors- like the finest corporate boardrooms. To top off our week, we did a tour of Amish country- stopping in Shipshewana to see MennoHof. The tour included an explanation of the Anabaptist movement- the Amish, Mennonite and Hutterites.

Our first Factory Visit

We made our way to Sandy and Gerry’s house for a pre-factory weekend. They have a beautiful house in Spencerville, Indiana- a Victorian farmhouse with a huge garage for Gerry and a small office for Sandy’s business. It was quite a sight to see the Eagle and the Heritage parked side by side. We had some great meals at the local Greek restaurants and a huge family style meal on Sunday. On Sunday night, Gerry and Sandy led us over to Decatur to get us settled in at the factory. The lot was full- ready for the 6:00 am check-in on Monday morning.

What a way to start the week. At 5:45, John was at the American Coach service door- along with 20+ other people awaiting service. We met our service advisor and walked through the list of to-do’s. Then, the work started and we were “homeless”. American Coach was in the process of getting ready for a huge announcement so they weren’t having factory tours. But, as we found out, we were in the middle of motorhome central- all within an hours’ drive. So, we spent our days going on other vendors’ factory tours- Travel Supreme, Newmar and Monaco. It was a strange experience watching this cottage industry that resembled home construction rather than car assembly. It was also a learning experience. Between factory tours, we got smart talking to other owners and factory people. The Spartan factory rep was a wealth of information as were our ‘neighbors’ in the parking lot. We spent some time in the service lounge listening to ‘horror stories’ from other owners (stories of sliders falling out on the road-leaving a gaping hole in the side of their motorhome) and getting advice. We met a slew of interesting people- Doris and Dale next door to us, Sheri and George and Bob and Trudi. We also got a little taste of Americana in Decatur with places like Arnolds Drive-in- complete with roller-skating waitresses or the Whippy Dip Ice Cream stand. It was just like being back in the 50’s.
True to form, we found another way to spend money on our coach. In search of a cup holder, we stopped by a local craftsman specializing in custom cabinetry for American coaches, “From Trees to These”. In addition to the stock cup-holders and magazine racks, he also made custom cabinetry. We saw one of his dinette/office additions and knew we had to have it. So, we spent time with Greg sketching out the plans and scheduled a return date for late July.