Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival

Today, we made it to Wakarusa, Indiana for the Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival, which has been held there every year since 1969. We ate maple cotton candy and pancakes with pure maple syrup.

We enjoyed walking through the historic village where we met two wonderful men, the first was an Amish maple syrup developer that explained all the stages of making the stuff 100% pure. The second was an Amish blacksmith who demonstrated his process and then gave me the cool spirally spoon he made. 
 

 

There was a civil war camp and a display of old tractors  

When it started to rain, we decided to check out some of the antique boutiques. Before we left the town we visited the fabulous candy shop, The Dime Store.

 

It was another good day.

Kite Komotion in Shipshewana, Indiana

This whale kite was at least 25 feet long!

All these amazing kites are big, over 15 feet long.

Fun day! We watched International kite teams dance their kites to music.  Hundreds of kids made kites at the craft area and then flew them. John and I had a small Hello Kitty kite that was so much fun to fly among the many elaborate kites.  

This was a great way to spend the day, we loved it!

 

RV/MH Hall of Fame

The RV/MH Hall of Fame is a 100,000 sq. ft. museum in Elkhart, Indiana that features a
variety of historical recreational vehicles. There was an RV show there and we stopped by to check it out.

Small Towns

Grandview Bend RV Park is surrounded with lots of cute small towns and Howe Military Academy. We explored the area today.

M60 A1 display tank at Howe Military Academy

Grandview Bend RV Park in Howe, Indiana

Our next scheduled appointment is May 8th at the Entegra factory for the end of warranty PDI. Our coach is almost two years old, which is the time when Entegra invites each coach owner to return to the factory and have a tech work on the coach. So when you reach the end of warranty date, your coach is in top form. Pretty cool!

We love our big open lot (lot# 1).

It only has electric and water. but it is beautiful!

Today we drove from Spartan Motors in Michigan to Grandview Bend RV Park in Howe, Indiana.  We were welcomed by the park hosts, Erma and Jim, a nice friendly couple. They assigned us to lot# 1, a big grassy site near the front of the park. Nice!

Holland, Michigan

Spartan Tech Joe was at our coach at 7:15 and drove it away for another day of maintenance.  John and I took the opportunity to see some of this beautiful state, we spent the day in colorful Holland, Michigan. Great town full of friendly people.

About 6 years ago John and I went to the Netherlands to see the tulips there. It was nice today to get a peek at tulip gardens in beautiful bloom here in the USA. 

We popped into the downtown Windmill Restaurant for a good cheeseburger.

De Zwaan

The De Zwaan is an authentic Dutch built windmill.

When we got back to Spartan, we reviewed the work on our coach. Joe did a great job! We are ready to hit the road tomorrow.

Spartan Motors

Our Spartan tech, Joe, met us at our coach at 7:15 AM and he drove the coach for an inspection. We checked into the front office and headed out for breakfast at J&J Eaton Place - nice omelets. When we returned, Joe briefed us on the RV inspection, he found some warranty items that Spartan will cover.  They have a solid warranty program, Spartan really stand by their product. Joe returned the coach to us at 3:15 and said he would be back to pick it up tomorrow morning. We visited our neighbors and then we were off to find a very late lunch at the Eaton Pub & Grille - where we found some great sandwiches.

Charlotte, Michigan

Today we drove to Charlotte, Michigan. We have an appointment tomorrow morning at

Spartan Motors for annual maintenance on our RV.  Spartan has a large parking lot with 50 Amp electric hook-ups for their customers to use. We were the first rig there, we parked and got settled in. Before long, four other couples in Entegra coaches arrived. They had attended the rally too, but none of us had met before. It was nice getting to know them. After we visited our new neighbors we headed out for a good Mexican meal at a cool converted old train station, Don Tequila's.

Entegra's Coach Academy '17 Rally - Day 4

On the last day of the rally, John and I joined friends at breakfast where Chuck called out some names for door prizes. If your name was called, you would spin a wheel that decided your prize. The last guy that was called won the grand-prize - a cool standup electric tricycle.  Everyone was so excited for him - that was a good note to end the rally on.  We said good-bye to all our Entegra friends and headed back to our coach.  Before we hit the road we had a few things to take care of like getting the Jeep washed. After, we walked around a lake at the town center. When we returned, we decided to stay one night and head out the next day.

Entegra's Coach Academy '17 Rally - Day 3

This was the best day of the rally, packed with information and good times!  After breakfast, we attended P.J.'s class on do-it-yourself RV maintenance - good information. Then we went to the Spartan building and talked with Mike O'Neil, we all know him better as 'Big Mike'.  It is always nice seeing Big Mike, he knows these chassis like the back of his hand. He answered our Spartan questions and he explained to everyone the correct order to clear the three air tanks. It was another good class.

We took a lunch break before the next class which was on the Aqua-Hot system. Another good class and I won a annual maintenance kit that came in a cool Aqua-Hot bag-case.

Next was the audio visual class that was lead by three smart guys. We got a quick overview of the new audio system. We don't have that one, but we enjoy hearing about the new stuff. Then the guys answered our questions about the specific system that is in our RV. And John won a JBL bluetooh speaker!  Craig Smith, President of Xcite Solutions, offered to go to our coach and give us a quick tutorial on our equipment.  We had a little time before our next class to we jumped at the offer. Wow, we never knew the Rand GPS could do all the stuff he demonstrated. By the end of that session we realized we were only using about 10% of what our Xcite system could do. We now have our phones setup on the Xcite bluetooth - which is so helpful when he is guiding my parking at RV resorts. We now send our SiriusXM to play over the house Bose system, and now use filters to locate FlyingJ's on the GPS while also showing the weather plotted with colors on the screen. Thanks Craig!

Then we headed to the best class - Wine Tasting, where there was a fun-loving good group of people and a wonderful host Wes, he knows wine and taught us a lot. We sat with our terrific friend Marie and had a great time! 

John line dancing

Tonight's bar-b-que dinner party had a theme of "Diamonds and Denim" with a band playing country music. Everyone looked great, decked out in their cowboy hats and boots, with the ladies iced in sparkling stones. There was line dancing and two-stepping. We shared a table with Jerry and Marie and we all had a delicious dinner and a grand time dancing for hours - fun night.

Entegra's Coach Academy '17 Rally - Day 2

After breakfast, our day started with a 90 minute '1-on-1 tech coach' session. Mike O'Connell, a knowledgeable Entegra Technician, met us at our coach and covered everything from front to back, inside and out.  He answered all of our questions.  We have owned our coach for over a year - we have taken it on many trips, even to Alaska. You would think we knew everything about it, but we didn't. In that hour and a half we learned so much, Mike was so helpful!

We picked-up our boxed lunches, which were pretty good, and ate before we boarded the bus to the Entega Factory Tour. Brittany was our guide on the informative journey through the factory; it is amazing to see the craftsmen work on the coaches from start to finish. At the end of the tour, we got to walk though the new 2018's Entegras that are ready for delivery.

Tonight, the dinner was a buffet of chicken, salmon and beef with all the accouterments. The dinner party theme was music from 'the 80's'.

     Music was a major part of my life in the 80's. I was a sophomore in high school in 1980 and I was going to concerts every month. In my senior year, I worked at a record store in the mall.  Do you remember record stores?  Before the 80's were over, I was living in England, enjoying concerts in London every chance I got, I was even at the Live Aide concert. 

So I loved a night of 80's music and the band did a very good job covering the songs. 

Entegra's Coach Academy '17

Goofing around in the big chair

We slept in a little longer this morning and didn't get on the road early. Got to Elkhart Fair Grounds a little late, the Welcome Reception for the had all ready started.  As we pulled into the fair grounds, we were greeted by Todd, who was helpful and efficient. He escorted us to our RV site and after we were parked he delivered us to the reception. It was terrific to see all our Enterga pals again. We spent the evening catching up with our good friends Marie and Jerry, it was a wonderful first evening to the rally.

Camp Atterbury, Indiania

Pond in front of our RV site

Today we rolled away from Baileyton RV Park in Johnson County Tennessee and drove to Camp Atterbury just outside of Edinburgh, Indiana. Camp Atterbury is an military training facility.  They have a wonderful RV park where every site is a long pull-thru with a fire ring complete with firewood. We like this RV park; this is our second time here, we stayed on our way to SpringFest last year. We are now headed to Entegra's Coach Academy, it kicks-off tomorrow on the 19th at 3pm with a Welcome Reception and classes are held on the 20th and 21st

Brotherly Love

John with his brother Eddie

We got together with John's baby brother, Eddie, and his wonder wife, Arlene. They live in beautiful Johnson County Tennessee.

It was good seeing them. They look
terrific and it was so nice catching up, it had been 5 yrs since we've all been together. The day passed quickly and our time together was much too short.

Eddie, John and Arlene

The Snake & Backbone Rock

Before we get to Nova Scotia, we have a few nice stops. We arrived in Tennessee today,

the forest covered hills are gorgeous. We are staying at the Baileyton RV Park for two nights.  It is a nice park with long
pull-thru sites, they have a swimming pool and a driving range for us golfers.

We are getting together with John's brother tomorrow. This afternoon we explored: we found 'The Snake' and backbone rock, two of Johnson County landmarks.  The Snake is a 33 mile road that is said to have 489 curves on 3 mountains. It is a favorite with motorcyclist, we loved driving it in the Jeep!