Breakfast, at last.  We had a great omelet (egg substitute, of course) this morning before church and it tasted so good.  While driving to church, we saw another church celebrating Father’s Day with several large (on wheels) grills, outside tents, and an outdoor stage with live music.  People were parking and walking a half mile to visit the church!  We attended the Goshen First Baptist Church after finally finding its location on the internet; they had power outages and the air conditioner was not working, so the service we attended was abbreviated.  It was a good service though, and the message on thanking and appreciating fathers was quite good.  After the service we drove around the area looking for the Jayco plant, and found it in Middlebury, IN, less than 15 miles from our campground.  Our motorhome will be visiting there next week to repair the water pump.

Other rally attendees began rolling in to the campground after lunch.  Richard and Virginia, our tail gunners on the Alaska and Yukon caravan last year, were the first, followed by Les and Jean, our wagon master from the same caravan.  Les and Jean had just purchased a Tiffin Allegro Bay FRED that is very nice.  Ted and Karen from last year’s caravan also drove in this afternoon, as did other attendees we did not know.  This is going to be a good rally.

Kay prepared a great dinner of fish, salad, and grilled squash and zucchini.  After dinner, we sat outside under the awning, visiting with walkers passing by.

Kay’s Take:  When our leaders arrived, we moved our coach from the outside parking area to the green area for large rallies.  This area had just been vacated by a national deaf rally.  We quickly set up again and Donald put out our awning.  We sat in our chairs outside and enjoyed the cool afternoon breezes.  We visited with Wes, Jean’s brother, who is a big hunter and fisherman.  He’s a funny guy and we enjoyed visiting with him.  Donald’s new grill, the O-grill got it’s first workout and it performed beautifully!  The countryside here is dotted with large, clean, & neat farms.  Everyone has flower gardens and they are beautiful.  There’s a large contingent of Amish and their buggies are very evident in town, on the highways, and even at McDonald’s!

To add to our woes at Hazlet State Park, IL, it stormed during the night dropping green gum balls on the roof of the motorhome, sounding more like walnuts, and the wind bounced us around.  Neither of us slept well.
Immediately after rising, we began preparations for leaving:  brewing coffee, making the bed, closing the slides, and unhooking the electricity.  We were out of there by 7:20 AM headed northeast towards Indianapolis and Goshen.  The interstate in Illinois was not too bad, but I-70 in Indiana was rough, and we both commented on the fact that Alaska roads were better.  Finally, we turned north on a small state road and enjoyed a nice drive in farm country, passing through several small towns.

We stopped for our final fill-up at one about 30 minutes south of Goshen, and noticed Rialta Heaven across the street. 
A Rialta is a small, but well conceived motorhome on a Volkswagen Eurovan chassis.  Its layout is among the most efficient we’ve ever seen.  Our friends and neighbors, Wayne and Loretta, have a Rialta, and we’re sending a picture of Rialta Heaven to them.
We arrived at the Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds in Goshen about 3:45 PM ESDT, and it was bigger than the Arkansas State Fair fairgrounds, with several hundred RV sites.  Hearing a train near one group, we retreated to as far away as we could get, realizing that we would have to move come Monday when our rally, RVFest 2010, begins.

After showers and dinner, we drove around for an hour looking for a Baptist or Methodist church to attend tomorrow with no luck.  I finally resorted to the internet and found Goshen First Baptist Church; we just missed driving by it.  The rest of the evening was spent getting these journals ready to post—finally!  Working with two computers, two cameras, and two people add up to some confusion, but we’re going to get them finalized if it kills us.

Kay’s Take:  Donald generously offered to fix supper while I took a leisurely shower and washed my hair.  Abundant water is a luxury!  We ate a good (healthy) supper and are planning to drive around and explore Goshen, IN.  We want to go to church tomorrow and we’re gonna check out the area churches.  Of course, I want to locate the nearest grocery store or Walmart, if we’re lucky.  I also was very interested in Warsaw, IN as we passed through.  It looks like an older town with lots of history; really near; plus, it’s on a lake.  I may go back there to explore some time next week.  There’s a music concert here somewhere tonight and we may try to find that.  There is another large rally here at the fairgrounds – a deaf rally.  I wonder how they got their RVs here – can a deaf person get a driver’s license?  I thought they couldn’t; but that may have been a long time ago.  What do I know!