Trouble on the road

We started the morning with a nice long walk by the breezy cool lake shore.   

We rolled away from the Great Lakes Naval Station at 11am, just 20 minutes down the road, we were stuck in a traffic jam close to O'Hare Airport for almost two hours.

While driving in the rain this afternoon one of our windshield wipers stopped working.  We were very lucky that there was a truck rest area that we were able to pull in to.  We called for mobile service and it took about two hours for the tech to arrive.  He was good and had the wiper working in 10 minutes.  Since the sun set and it already had been a long day , we decided to sleep at the rest area tonight.  I made flatbread pizza for dinner and we curled up and watched a movie.

Jelly Belly

This campground provides only electricity, no water connections.  We started today with typical  RV chores, we drove the rig to the marina to fill up the propane tank and fresh water tank and dumped the other tanks. Then it was back to the site to setup again. 

We were planning to go to Chicago today but we are scheduled to return here in a week and we will have much more time to see Chicago.  So we switched things up and went to the Jelly Belly plant tour; it was a delicious tour.  

For dinner, we enjoyed fish and chips at Chancery Pub.

Tomorrow we roll out to get setup at Spartan for their one week class.

Lake Michigan

Very cold rainy day, 40 degrees, we drove into Chicago but did not stay long. The weather report says tomorrow will be a much better (dryer) day. We enjoy the view from our RV of Lake Michigan's waves crashing on the rocks.

Lake Michigan with lot of white caps - the view from our RV lot.

Great Lakes Naval Station, IL

Today was very cold for our moving day to Great Lakes Naval Station, just north of Chicago.  Before we left Middlebury, we had no power to appliances, even though it has not happened before we immediately thought the inverter popped (if that is the name of it.  I will most likely know the technical terms for this stuff after we attend the Spartan class next week).  Our inverter box is attached to the big long beam that runs the length of our coach. To get to this box we removed many items out of the basement.  John crawled in and found the popped button on the box, pushed it back in and everything was back up and running.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, a nice smooth drive to Great Lakes.  We are in Lot #: 14,  it is a fabulous lake front site!  Beautiful!  After we were all setup, it started it rain, the wind picked up and whipped around, but we were toasty warm with heated tile floors.

Last full day in Middlebury, IN

We started the day with a bike ride and then it was off to Rise n Roll for an apple fritter fix.  

Later in the day,  we visited an Amish deli to pickup some ham and cheese for lunch on the road tomorrow.  Last week Tommy had recommended the Blue Gate Restaurant in Shipshewana, we went there tonight for dinner; very good home-style food, yum!  

Tomorrow we head out to Great Lakes Naval Station.

Golfing!!!

John and I have been driving by a great looking golf course, Meadow View, for over two weeks and today we stopped to play; beautiful fairways and smooth greens. It has been a while since we have used our clubs, it felt great to play again!   

We got our release papers from the Entegra warranty shop, everything was completed to our satisfaction.  These talented guys worked hard to ensure our RV is optimized and in peak performance for our 'Big Alaska Trip".

We have one week before our Spartan class is in session, so we decided to go to the Chicago area, but when we called the RV park they told us they were full; we can get a site on Wednesday afternoon.  So we will spend an extra day here and that will not be a problem for us.  We have become friends with many of the locals, we have grown to love this area and the people who live here.

Sunday in Middlebury

Today Bonnie and Alan said good-bye to us to continued their journey to Boston and Nova Scotia.  We had a fun week with them, so nice to catch-up with good friends out on the road.  

John and I visited the local parks and farmlands in Middlebury, here are some photos we took.

The Maple Festival

This morning, Bonnie and Alan joined us at a Middlebury Amish bakery shop and cafe, 'Rise n Roll', they make the worlds best apple fritters! After breakfast, Bonnie suggested that we check out the Maple Syrup Festival in the town of Wakarusa. This was a great idea! We enjoyed all kinds of treats to include maple cotton candy. We received a detailed demo of how they tap maple trees and then an Amish gentleman showed us the process of cooking forty gallons of sap down to make one gallon of 'pure maple syrup.'

One man built a miniature display of "Elkhart County from a Bird's Eye View." The attention to detail is amazing.

And the best part was holding two bear cubs! An Amish family that runs the local wild life center, brought the babies out to help educate the public.

We also toured an old one-room house and a one-room schoolhouse, and climbed in and explored an old train car and caboose.  

Barbara and Bonnie

April 22 - Back in Middlebury

This morning Bonnie and I ran out to a diner for breakfast. It gave us some time for more girl talk while the guys worked with the Entegra technicians on a few small items on each of our coaches; John said the techs were sharp and efficient fixing each item.  John took our RV to see Randy at the leveling company, Equalizer. Randy's team optimized our leveling system in less than an hour; good group of guys there.  

John and I were having dinner at the Village Inn when Bill and Joyce walked in, they are a lovely couple we met at the Entegra's owner's lounge earlier this month, so we had dinner together. It was a good visit with them before they head out on the road tomorrow.  They are also from Central Florida, so Bill & Joyce, Bonnie & Alan, and John & I all made plans to meet for dinner in Orlando this coming winter.

Last day of Spring Fest - Driving Class

Bonnie and I signed up for the Entegra driving class.  We met with our driving coach, Ted, at the campgrounds.  After a ten minute ground briefing covering the coach and hand-signals for parking, we were ready to take the wheel and we boarded a beautiful 2017 Anthem coach. This was the first time Bonnie drove on the open roads, she did great!  She drove on busy roads to the RV Hall of Fame. This is where Ted instructed us on how to properly back-in to RV sites.  Bonnie and I both practiced parking and getting in and out of tight places, then I drove the Anthem back to the campground.  Such a fun and informative class, we both learned so much. The 2017 Anthem is a very smooth driving coach, it was like driving on a cloud.

Spring Fest - Day 3

Today was the busiest day.  After breakfast, everyone boarded buses to

go to the Entegra factory for four different work sessions, our sessions 

ended with a tour at the factory.  It was our second tour this month 

but John and I learned a lot more, we could probably tour the facility

five time in one month and still learn something new each time. Then 

everyone was off to an Amish restaurant for lunch.

Dinner tonight was at a beautiful ball room in a great old building, the Palais 

Royal.  The theme of the evening was the roaring 20's and high rollers. There was 

Barbara & Bonnie at the Roaring 20's Party

lots of dancing to the Charleston played by a live band and card tables with dealers. We all had 

a wonderful time.

Spring Fest - Day 2

We had a busy day, full of morning workshops and then a quick tour of an Amish education center and at night, the big gala at the RV Hall of Fame. We sat at a table hosted by a smart,
young, guy named Laren, the Manager of Purchasing for Entegra. We all had so much fun!

Back Row: Alan, Bill and Melissa

Seated: Bonnie, Barbara, John and Laren

We met Bill and Melissa, Entegra RV owners from Texas.  At the end of the night
we toured the new 2017 Entegra coaches. 

Spring Fest 2016!

The Spring Fest kicked off today with a dessert reception and trivia challenge.  

The Amish desserts were delicious and everyone had a good time.

Taking it easy

We woke up to about a dozen Entegras at the campground, by the end of the day 

there were at least forty, with many more to come tomorrow.  We had a nice mellow day, we walked around and met a few more people.  Our good friends Bonnie and Alan 

from Orlando arrived in their brand new Anthem, looking very sharp.  They brought
the good weather with them, it was  80 degrees today.  We went out to dinner which gave us time to catch up.

Here is Alan, our new neighbor, meeting another new neighbor, Brentt.

Moving to Elkhart Campgronds

Today we moved from the factory to Elkhart Campgrounds, just a twenty minute drive.  We used the toll road to see if our new Multi-state 'E-Z Pass' worked, it did!    We washed our jeep and RV, this took a few hours because they were really dusty/dirty.   After getting setup at the new campsite, Lot #: 406 nice pull-thru, other Entegra owner's stopped by to talk.  Some of the people we have met earlier online, it was nice meeting them in person.

Last day at the factory

Today Entegra received the parts they ordered, so they were able to fix our air valves.  At the beginning of the week we had a list of 33 line items that needed attention; 31 items have been completed to our full satisfaction.  Sean, our maintenance tech, has done a wonderful job; it was exciting at the end of each work day to see his excellent accomplishments on our coach.

The last two items are scheduled to be checked out at next week’s Entergra Spring Fest Rally; Mike, our service advisor, has specialist from the product companies scheduled to come to our site on Monday and Tuesday.

For dinner we tried a great place in downtown Middlebury, ‘41 Degrees’.  I had the salmon and shrimp special, it was amazing!   But the best part of dinner was that Mark and Barbara walked in and they joined us, they are a delightful couple we met at the Entegra owner’s lounge earlier this week.  Good new food, good new conversation, good new friends.

Here is a picture of the 2017s RVs at the factory ready for delivery.

Tomorrow we leave the factory and roll out to Elkhart Campgrounds where the Spring Fest will start on Monday.

Newmar RV Factory

Today we toured the Newmar RV factory.  Our tour guide was Ashley, she was terrific.  You may be wondering why we are seeing so many RV producers; eighty percent of all RV sold in the U.S. are built in this area of the nation and it is interesting and fun to see how each corporation builds their rigs.

Middlebury, IN

We went to the Jayco Factory tour, they were building fifth wheel RVs, very interesting.  We had a child in our tour and he got a big kick out of riding the Jayco tour trolley to and from the factory building.  If you are in the area, you should stop in and take the 90 minute tour. 

When we got back to the Entegra customer lounge, we received our daily report from Mike.  They have a part ordered for the air valve handle pulls. We are going to Spartan's one-week school in May, maybe we can spin by and have the air valve handles worked on; they should have the part by then.



 

We visited with Joyce and Bill, who are also at Entegra for some warranty work, here is John enjoying Bill’s temporary Captain’s Chair.  

 

Prototype 2017 Captain's chair????





Entegra Tour

We took a tour at the Entegra factory.  It was great to see the new 2017's.

 

Entegra Factory, first day in the maintence shop

We were up early to meet Mike, our Entegra service adviser. After reviewing the maintenance list with him, John and I were off in the jeep to the Essenhaus for a hearty Amish breakfast; it was very good. Then we strolled through Amish furniture, clothing, and gift shops.  Later, we picked up an E-Z Pass for the toll roads, this pass is good for tolls in 12 states.  We returned to the factory and Mike briefed us that they fixed the following items: the drawer in the kitchen, the sliding door in the bedroom, wood trim in the living room, and replaced the tail light. Not bad for a Monday.  Tomorrow will be an earlier morning, our rig is scheduled to go in the shop at 6:30.  

Entegra Factory, Middlebury, IN

We drove away from Whitaker Place Campgrounds at 11:30 and arrived at the Entegra factory in Middlebury, IN around 4pm.  There were small patches of snow on the ground as we were driving into Indiana, I hope that is the last we see of snow.  We are in Amish country now, it was great seeing all the carriages and horses out on the roads.  

At Entegra, we went into the customers lounge and met and talked with four other couples who also have service scheduled for this week.  Everyone is friendly and the customers lounge looks like a good, comfortable hangout when we are not enjoying the Amish restaurants and shops in the local area.  We are scheduled to meet our service adviser, Mike, tomorrow at 7:30am.

Whitaker Place Campgrounds, IN

We drove out of Pidgeon Forge at 9:30, giving time for the early morning frost to burn off.  One hour into the drive we ran into heavy traffic, so we barely moved for about 50 minutes and then again about 100 miles later the same thing.  On top of that, the roads were not the smoothest.  It was a long, long driving day, at least the weather was good.  We arrived at Whitaker Place Campgrounds at Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh, IN around 5:30. The gate guard told us to go to Lot 11, which is a large pull-thru site with a fire ring complete with wood ready to burn; very nice. The camp host stopped by our site to welcome us and ensure we had everything we needed.  When we pulled into the campground we saw a coach that was a twin to ours, right down to the same colors. It belongs to a lovely couple, Charles and his wife, he said they just left the Entegra factory, they were there for a little motor coach work and he said their team did a great job.   We will be at the factory tomorrow. The weather reports say it will be very cold, I hope we don’t run into any snow.

 

Pigeon Forge (cont.)

We planned on going to Dollywood, but the cold and raining weather swayed us away.  We figured that we could still get our Dolly fix by going to her mid-day Dixie Stampede dinner show. Our server Justin was wonderful, the food was tasty and the show was terrific.  We were on the top row and could see everything perfectly, I don’t think there is a bad seat in the place.

We did a little sightseeing before we called it a day; we found the Dolly Parton statue in Sevierville and drove out a little to see the stables.  Horseback riding would be so much fun on a dryer day.  We will return here to go to Dollywood and go riding.  Tomorrow, we have scheduled an early departure and now weather reports are telling us about unseasonal snows and freezes.  Maybe we will delay our roll-out.

Pigeon Forge, TN

We pulled out of Unicoi Springs at 10:30 AM and we had 90 minutes of the most adventurous curvy roads, and the most charming scenery.  After an hour and a half of driving slowly, we were back on the open roads.  We arrived at Pigeon Forge at 3:30, I was surprised at how built-up it is.  We pulled into WaIdens Creek Campgrounds; Lot:10, a small park with 35 RV sites, it has a creek for fishing; not much going on here, but a good place to park for a couple of days.

I have to admit, I had visions of Pidgeon Forge being very folksy, having smaller log cabin like buildings leading the way to Dollywood.  But it is much different, it looks a lot like I-Drive in Orlando, don’t get me wrong - we love Orlando, just thought it was going to be much different here.  We got into tourist mode and jumped in the jeep to see what was going on, there are tons of options for a dinner and shows, we selected the Hatfield and McCoy dinner show.  We enjoyed plenty of southern food, the service was great, and the show was pretty good. All in all in was a nice first evening in Pigeon Forge.

Unicoi Springs Camp Resort, Helen, GA

Very cold day today and we found all the missing clouds; we were up and out early. Drove to Unicoi Springs State Park to check it out; walked around a little, it will be a great place for hiking on a warmer day.  Continued on to the Alpine Village, wandered through the town and we found a perfect place for lunch.  The Troll Tavern is down by the river, practically under the bridge, lots of character and friendly staff.  My Ruben sandwich was delicious, piled high, just the way I like ‘em, and John enjoyed his bratwurst platter.

We were back at the RV in plenty of time to really get a good feel for the RV park we are now members of.  Unicoi Springs Camp Resort in Helen Ga is terrific based on the location alone, it is so close to the state park and the Alpine Village.  There are currently around 300 sites and a team is working on some new sites that will be a nice addition.  We walked around the full resort, the staff is friendly, there is a wonderful big, community gathering log cabin that is anchored on one side with a pool table and the other end has an epic large stone fireplace flanked with over-stuffed couches. The fireplace became more popular as the day got colder. The cabin has a big porch with lots of rocking chairs, we sat out there to visit with some of the other RVers. People are playing on the tennis and basketball courts, children are playing in the playground, an active park.  We are very happy to be the newest members of this resort.  We will not be able to use it much this year since this is the summer of the ‘Big Alaska Trip’, but we will try to fit a two-week visit here into next year’s trip to Nova Scotia.

 

Helen, GA

Another beautiful morning at Stone Mountain; we have not seen a cloud in days, just big blue skies during the days and clear starry nights. We jumped on our bicycles for one last ride.  I am crazy about these hills, they are so much fun to fly down.  We both loved everything about Stone Mountain!  This park is the best!

When we were at Perry, GA last month for the big FMCA rally (fabulous time, met some great people), we won a membership to Unicoi Springs Camp Resort in Helen, GA.  Wanted to check it out so we reserved two nights.  It was just a two hour drive from Stone Mountain, once we were off the highway, we drove slowly through the winding mountain roads.  This was our first time driving an RV on mountain roads, all went well.  No sooner than we were settled in, we were off in the jeep looking for a good old fashion German meal in Helen.  This was my first trip to Helen and I loved strolling along the roads and alleys in this cute Alpine Village!  We had a delicious meal at the Hofbrauhaus Restaurant, on a small balcony overlooking the biergarten.  I enjoyed the Jagerschnitzel, John liked his Zigeunerschnitzel.  We strolled around some more until we popped in to the Old Bavaria Inn Restaurant for some apple strudel, yum

Stone Mountain (cont.)

Woke up to a beautiful cool morning.  After breakfast we jumped on our bicycles; we rode all over this park, past the golf course, out by the carillons, and through the covered bridge. We only had to pedal half the time because of all the hills, you can glide down the tall hills and then almost half way up the next hill.  Felt the kid in me come out today, lots of fun!  The golf course looks like it is in great shape and also looks challengingly amazing with all the hills and valleys. We wish we had time to play a round of golf but we roll out again tomorrow.

John lived in this area of Georgia for almost a decade while he was a pilot in the Army, so this afternoon he gave me the complete tour of DeKalb and Rockdale Counties, he said a lot has changed since the mid 80’s.  We were back to Stone Mountain in plenty of time to see the laser show again, which we both thoroughly enjoyed.

Stone Mountain, GA

We enjoyed hanging out by the lake this morning, there were a lot of people out early fishing.  After one more leisurely stroll around the area, we were off to Stone Mountain.  It was a four and a half hour drive with some traffic slow-downs near the end.  Check in was fast and friendly; we had a front-drive-in site, Lot: 80, not pull-thru and not back-in, this gave us a wonderful view of the water.  We settled in and were off discovering our new surroundings.

About four years ago we stopped by Stone Mountain for a few hours as we were driving through Georgia, just enough time to see the museum, square, and farmyard and do the skyride.  Which is all very interesting and great to see.  But wow, there is much, much more here!  We saw so many nooks and crannies of beautiful places; hiking up and over the stone and down to the water.  After a full day of hiking and relaxing, we grabbed some snacks and a blanket and joined several others on the big lawn in front of Stone Mountain for the laser show.  Cool show.

Grassy Pond (cont.)

It rained all night long. I was thinking today may be a total wash out, but by 9 AM the clouds parted and the sun came out. It turned out to be a beautiful day.  People were playing volleyball and basketball.  John and I walked down to the lake and rented a boat, so much fun.  We talked to a few guys fishing, they said they saw some bass in the lake but today they were getting lucky with catfish. Here is a pic of John enjoying one of the many swings.

Along with RV sites, Grassy Pond RV Park also has trailers and cabins for rent.  This is a park we will come back to again, it was a very good start to our Big Alaska Trip.  Nice people and everything was clean and well maintained.  Before the sun went down, John and I took a walk on the trails and quiet roads. Tomorrow, we head out to Stone Mountain.

Day 1 - Grassy Pond Recreational Area, GA

We are so excited! Today, we started the first leg of our seven month journey that will include a trip to the Entegra Coach factory, a one week class at Spartan and the most important part, at least two months in Alaska!  We have taken many week-long trips over this last year getting acclimated to the RV lifestyle. It didn't take us long to fall in love with everything RVing; learning so much from the rallies, meeting new friends around each bend, and taking our time to see this beautiful country.  

We drove from Central Florida to Lake Park, GA today; just a little traffic congestion around Gainesville, otherwise, a pretty smooth 4 hour drive. A good friend, Bonnie, recommended Grassy Pond Recreational Area, so we reserved two nights. After pulling off the highway, while driving on Loch Laurel Rd, an overhead wire hit the top of our RV; no damage to the RV or the wire, it was hanging much lower than we were expecting. We checked in and were all setup within 30 minutes.  We have a nice long pull-thru site: lot 16. Grassy Pond is a terrific park with a beautiful lake.