The Rig Story and Nappanee & Shipshewana, Indiana

So, as I mentioned earlier, we came specifically to Nappanee, Indiana, a cute Amish town with buggies all over.  Of course, there are cars and such but it's a nice little town.  When we came into town on Hwy 19 on Monday, July 16th, you see lots of Amish quilt blocks painted on the walls of building.  From Granger, it takes about 30-45 minutes to get to Nappanee and we were scheduled to be here for three days - leaving on Thursday, July 19th to stay on schedule of our trip.

Gene Miller, a young Amish man who built our desks for the rig, to make some repairs to my desk that was damaged in shipment to El Centro, CA when we were there last winter.  Gene is a fabulous guy and his brother, Murrill works for him in his wood shop.  Both are under 35 years old and because they are Amish I didn't take their photos.  We would have to drive from Granger at the KOA down to Nappanee on the first day.  We hooked up to his 50 amp there at the shop while he made repairs that would take a couple of days.  We also asked him to moved the pull out doors of our trash bin area under the kitchen island, turn the pull outs into doors and then create a shelf instead of trash bins.

The new island storage.  LOVE!

Once we finished on Monday at Gene's we went back to the KOA and moved over to site 35 so that we had grass for the dogs.  The KOA associate place us in the place he wanted us in the site, however, when we left on Tuesday morning (July 17) to go back to Gene's place, the back end of the rig caught the edge of a pine tree too close to the road and ripped not only a big gash out of the tree, but a HUGE tear out of our rig in the back driver side corner!  Ohhh!  Not only that, the spot we had was right in front of the cabins where shrubs were place and I pulled out as far as I could without hitting those shrubs (which I even brushed against a few).  What a pain and a mess!  That site is definitely NOT able to accommodate a rig our size for sure!  We were upset with the tear, but what we were more concerned about was getting it repaired without it ruining our trip.

We got to Gene's place and first thing asked him if he knew someone who could make the repair to the rig.  He said, let me make a call.  Within 15 minutes, a friend of his came to his shop and said he could fix the rig the next day for us!  WOW!  Talk about service!  So, we finished up with Gene on Tuesday - a day earlier than we thought.  We also brought him and the guys at the shop some Rise 'n Roll donuts!  Rise 'n Roll make THE BEST donuts in the area and are a greatest company!  Their most requested donuts are these cinnamon and caramel donuts and they are so light and fluffy - they just melt in your mouth!  YUM!

Cinnamon & Caramel Donuts

Gene and Murrill finished up the repairs to the desk and island.  While at Gene's we had another John and his wife came to us from Performance Trailer to change out our bad axles from back in Georgia while Gene worked on the inside of the rig.  He was also going to be changing the suspension and that didn't arrive in time.  They said it was probably coming in by the 26th or 27th.  Sigh.  We decided that we'd meet them north of Chicago during our time in Door county, Wisconsin.  I wasn't happy because I was anxious and excited to do to Door county and didn't want to waste a day of my visit there.

We headed back to the KOA and showed the owner that the tree placed too close to the road has done and requested another spot.  So, we now moved over to site 36.  The owner, of course, didn't accept the fact that his tree was too close to the road and so I wasn't all too pleased with him.  If it wasn't for this incident, I'd have give this park a 5-star rating.  All he needed to do was to apologize but he was more mad that his tree had a gash in it.  It was then that I notice other trees with gashes in them, so obviously this problem has occurred before...probably not to the damage extent that we had.  At any rate, site 36 did not have trees anywhere near the rig so we felt much better about it.

The next morning, Wednesday, the 18th, we drove back to Nappanee and went to MCIRV to have the guys repair the tear and rip out carpet in the dining area because we're turning it into a dog area.  We had paint left over from when we had the front cap repainted earlier this spring so they didn't have to paint match.  While Scott stayed in the rig to work, I headed over to Shipshewana to visit a few Mennonite friends who own quilt shops in town.  Shipshewana is a wonderful place where I've been many times with the Dear Jane Quilters retreats.  The first place I went to was Rebecca Haarer's place.  She owns a shop of Christmas ornaments, antique quilts and Amish/Mennonite knickknacks.

Rebecca told me that she is selling part of her shop.  The left side of her store she will be selling to another person and she will be liquidating her shop and only keep the smaller right section of the shop.  The photos above except the the miniature Jane Graber pottery is in the larger section of the store, so I don't know how she's going to minimize her stuff.

The left building is being sold; the right building she's keeping

After I visited Rebecca, I walked across the street to the Davis Merchantile to visit with Kris Miller, a Mennonite woman who owns the building and the quilt shop Lolly's Fabrics.  I LOVE her shop but she's expensively priced and never has discounts.

In the Merchantile, is the pretzel shop, Jojo's Pretzels, and I got myself a Pickle pretzel and drink.  So good!

Web Photo

And, finally, I drove over to Yoder's Department Store and Grocer down the road.  It's an Amish owned shop.  When you walk in,  the grocery and tool section is on the right and the mercantile and quilt fabric is on the left.  Down the middle is a long, long row of rocking chairs for customer to sit and rock.  It's a super fun place to shop! 

Web Photo

When I returned back to the rig, I found out that everything was repaired except that the paint we provided was NOT the right color match to the back of the rig.   Since, it was Wednesday, and we were leaving tomorrow, they were going to order the right paint and we would have to come back to get it re-painted and then sealed.  That meant our vacation was going to have to be altered.  Since we had to come back to get the rig repainted and sealed, we decided to alter part of the Michigan Upper Peninsula and come back to Indiana the following week on the 26th.  The suspension was supposed to be in then, so we hoped that both things would be fixed at one time.

South Bend/Elkhart North KOA

We left Ohio on July 15th and drove into the South Bend, Indiana area where we had reservations in Granger at the South Bend/Elkhart North KOA there just off I-90.  We decided to come to Indiana to get my desk repaired from the Amish man, Gene Miller who built our desks.  Mine arrived damaged back in El Centro over the winter and he was going to fix it for us.  We were also taking out the trash bins under the island and converting the island to a shelf instead. The two trash bins we had were so small you'd have to empty the trash all the time, so I bought a larger one for the next to the island where the flip up counter is.  It's just a much better use of space for us.

The weather in Indiana was hot and muggy at 88-90 degrees...we're getting into the Midwest now and we could definitely tell the difference from Lake Erie.  We arrived at the KOA in the mid-afternoon and this was a good and bad experience for us here but more on that later.  The campground does have a gated system and they give you a key card to enter the grounds.  The campground is owned by a German man and his wife and the staff is quite friendly.

When we arrived, we were given a fresh cookie each and they had dog biscuits ready for Roxy, Coco and Chanel.  That was a first and a nice touch!

The first night, we were assigned site 24.  The problem was that there was no grass for the dogs.  But, this is a fun story, so let's just introduce you to the KOA first and it's amenities.  We did get our 10% KOA discount here, which was plus.  We paid $240 for 4 nights.

Amenities included:

• Pull Thru Sites
• Back In Sites
• Tent Sites
• Cabins: 16 regular, 2 two-room w/ TV/Fridge, 5 Deluxe
• Vintage RV rental
• Full Hook Ups w/ 30 or 50 amp depending on site
• Wifi
• Free Wireless Internet
• Dump Station
• Shade Trees
• Some Grass
• Picnic Tables
• Pet Areas
• Fire Pit
• Pool
• Bath House
• Gelato Shack
• Pizza House
• Walking Distance to Shops and Restaurants
• Petting Zoo
• National Monument Close by
• Nature Trail
• Bike Rentals
• Kids Playground
• Camp Store
• Horseshoes
• Basketball Court
• Tetherball
• Gem Mine
• Day Camps for kids

Here's what the campground looked like.

We LOVED the dog play area.  No grass but it's no wonder with all the shade trees.  Right next to it is the hiking trails as well.

Something unique they have is a petting zoo with Jenny the mule.

Amenities for the kids was plentiful with the nicest playground I've ever seen as well as bikes to rent, basketball, a small arcade, gem mine and a pool.

Another interesting thing here is that they have a gelato bar and pizza house.

The main house is the registration, but the bathrooms and laundry is also located in the building.

Next to the main house and pool is a rec building.

We really enjoyed the park and gave it a 4 star on our scale.  It would have been a 5 except that the trees in such a bad location on a few of the pull through sites that I ripped a chunk of the top of the rig on a tree which required extensive restoration when we moved from site 24 to site 35.  The KOA associate placed us in the site but it was too far to the left we scraped a tree.  We finally ended up in site 36...but more on that later...also, the roads were somewhat of large puddles of standing water during rains.