Indiana Wants Me.....April 24, 25/08

I have been to Indiana twice before but only by accident. (If you miss the turn-off from the Ohio turn-pike to go to Detroit, you can do it too!) This time we were intentionally going there. It took about 7 hours to get from Kentucky Horse Park to Elkhart Indiana. We don't do drives like that all the time but have learned to enjoy them. Make sure both tanks are full with diesel so you don't have to worry if you can get in with the rig, pack a picnic in the plug-in-cooler to avoid fast food stops (we have come to hate those) and go! We stop at rest areas on the Interstates for breaks. Easy in and out among the truckers. Pretty painless and we really enjoy the countryside.

We had heard from other travellers that construction from Detroit to Port Huron was horrendous and to avoid it with your RV. So crossing into Indiana would take us up to Flint and then over to the Port Huron border crossing into Sarnia. So that is one reason we did this route. Another is that Elkhart is the RV capital of the world! 70% of all the world's RV's are manufactured there. Isn't that exciting? John was all for doing a factory tour. I wasn't interested in that and tried to deflect him from that goal. But we had the opportunity to tour the very factory where Sundance was made 2 years ago so why not? As it turned out I loved it.

I was surprised they would allow people in once I saw the place in action. It was just the 2 of us with a "sales" type person who was extremely knowledgable about the process. The workers were running around at break-neck speed and all kinds of big things were moving around with them. We did wear safety glasses but basically were ducking in and out between RV's in various stages of completion. It was very interesting and impressive. The workers were on piece work, meaning they had to hustle to get the best wage and to keep their jobs I would imagine. So I was glad I wasn't able to deflect him, as usual.

We also went to a variety of dealers looking at a variety of RV's. It was kind of like going to an RV show but you drove around the town instead of walking. Elkhart is also in the middle of Amish Country and Amish people build the cabinetry for most of the RV's in between working their farms. I think many people go to Elkhart because of Shipshewana. It is an area near Elkhart where you can tour Amish back roads for all kinds of antiques, crafts and goods they produce. We didn't go there but it might be an interesting side trip sometime. Saturday morning we decided to head for home. Next blog post will tell you about that! No pictures from Elkhart. It wasn't really photogenic but the weather was still warm. That was about to change!