Morning began with coffee, breakfast, and a morning stretch, led by fellow Alaska and the Yukon caravaner, John.  The morning stretch has proved to be quite popular and is very similar to physical therapy which some attendees have undergone.

SHIPSHEWANA FLEA MARKET  Kay and I drove to Shipshewana to attend their weekly Flea Market.  We thought the Don Wes Flea Market in Alamo, TX, was big, but is no comparison to this one.  The parking lot covered perhaps 75 acres and the Shipshewana Flea Market had row upon row of venders selling everything—if they didn’t have it, you didn’t need it!

After working about one third the way through, ominous skies and a light downpour convinced us to return to the car.  Just a few minutes later the bottom fell out with heavy rainfall.

While we didn’t have a full day of activities planned, there was enough to keep us busy.  After coffee in the motorhome, Kay joined many others for a morning stretch session led by fellow Alaska and the Yukon caravaner, John; the number of participants was surprising, and all seemed to benefit with relief from aches and pains.  For the rest of us, it was coffee and conversation.  At 9 AM, a heavy continental breakfast was served and consisted of sweetened fruit, biscuits, and sausage gravy; in attempting to lose weight, we couldn’t eat this great looking food.  Following breakfast, we received a welcome by the Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds, and a tourism pitch from Elkhart County.  There are some pretty neat things to do up here in northern Indiana, the RV capital of the world, and home of the 2nd largest Amish population in the US.  Quilts and quilt gardens are a big thing, and we look forward to doing the quilt garden tour in the next day or two.
We adjourned back to the motorhome for egg substitute, ham, and tomatoes—not too bad if you’re hungry.
Three seminars were held in the afternoon.  The first was a demonstration of Bread In A Bag.  A local lady makes, packages, and distributes various bread mixes, and she did a demonstration of mixing the dough and served several samples.  Though we didn’t try any, those who did said they were very good.  She was followed by a talk on traveling to Alaska by RV given by Richard and Virginia, our tailgunners on the Alaska and the Yukon caravan.  Richard and Virginia have been to Alaska 5 times, and are definitely authorities on traveling there in an RV.  I was supposed to show pictures they had taken, and tried the projector/computer combination at home and it worked perfectly—not to be here.  After fiddling with it for several minutes, it finally began working, BUT their pictures were individual files and I could not project them in a slide show so ended up using mine, and felt really bad about it because Virginia had taken many great photos.  Surprisingly, there were not too many questions and answers.  We concluded that traveling to Alaska is too adventuress for most.  If the good Lord is willing though, we intend to do it again in a couple of years.  The last seminar for the day was a show and tell by Les (our wagonmaster on the Alaska and the Yukon caravan) of the Tournament of Roses Parade.  He showed many photos of the parade, pre-parade preparations, and post-parade displays, and discussed costs and logistics.  He was with a caravan and expressed disappointment in as much as money seemed to be the driving force, with cost cutting measures implemented across the board.
Following an early dinner of grilled beef and vegetables on our own (good, but the beef was tough), we drove to Middlebury to tour Dutchman Essenhaus, a mixture of Amish style restaurant, bakery, shops, convention center, and well manicured grounds featuring one of the quilt gardens on the Elkhart County tour, and a covered bridge.  We managed to visit the bakery and ALL the shops, walked the grounds, and took many photos.

The remainder of the evening was spent catching up on this journal, and making reservations for camping on our trip home. 
 

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!

After a fun Arkansas Travelers rally in Carthage, MO, we departed this morning for Hazlet State Park Campground at Carlyle Lake about 45 minutes east of St. Louis, MO.  I-44 from Carthage to near St. Louis was one of the best roads we’ve traveled—it was smooth, and the scenery was great.  We stopped at a rest stop just west of Rolla to find the cleanest restrooms we’ve ever seen in a rest area; the picnic shelters resembled the facade of old businesses, and were clean and neat.
Signage into Hazlet State Park was poor, and we were further disappointed to find that the camp sites had only electricity, NO water, and were very narrow.  After a skimpy dinner—we’re still on 500 calories a day—we walked the roads in our loop noting many families camping to celebrate Father’s Day as the campground was almost full.  Despite a lack of food and water, we settled in for the evening, relying on our sick water pump for washing dishes and flushing, and caught up on our reading.

Kay’s Take:  It was very hot today!  Humid, also.  Our Garmin took us thru the middle of St. Louis.
I should have overridden her and taken the southern loop around.  My friend, Lois, is gonna kill me for not calling – but I realized that she and Dick were probably in AR visiting her dad for Father’s Day.  The campground tonight was on a huge lake, Lake Carlyle, in IL.  It’s mostly a boating lake.  If we were to come here again, I would want to stay at the dam site campgrounds.  There was a beach there and it was much cleaner, I thought.  It was a corps campground.  I’m right in the middle of my book club book, South of Broad.  I absolutely love Pat Conroy’s writing!  His fluid use of language, descriptive imagery, and wonderful vocabulary is a delight to read.  His characters are always full of depth and inward reflection and this story isn’t as ‘dark’ in context as some of his others.  One of the joys of RVing  is I allow myself time to read – worthlessness at a new level! heheehe!

This is the last day of the rally, and the only planned activities are a business meeting followed by dinner on the economy—that’s Army talk for eating dinner in town.
About noon, we took the audio CD guided tour of historic Carthage.  It took us forever to synchronize the start of the tour with the start of the CD as several of the tour markers had been removed.  However, once we found the start, the tour included many historic houses and other buildings, dating back to the mid 1800s.  There are many historic houses in Carthage, and most have been restored.  I opted out of a Walmart trip and returned to the motorhome while Kay toured the Precious Moments Chapel and Gardens, followed by a shopping trip to Walmart.  At 4:30 PM we attended the business meeting, and was once again reminded of why we retired—it was so much like the last few years of work!  I hate meetings!  After the meeting, we joined the other rally attendees for dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant for our meat and vegetable of the day.  Upon returning to the campground, we readied the RV for travel, and Kay adjourned to the rally room for a game of “31”.
This has been an outstanding rally, we met some great new friends, and enjoyed good conversations and laughter.  Among our best finds were new friends, Mickey and Menlo, from Texas.  We can’t wait to visit with them again in late September.
Kay’s Take:  On the last day of the rally (Thursday) I went to Precious Moments Chapel and Gardens just on the edge of Carthage.  The artist who developed the precious moments characters – drawings, sculptures, etc. is a fervent Christian man and he built a chapel depicting many Bible stories using those characters.
 

The crowning glory is the back wall of the chapel which has the Hallelujah Square painting.  It’s wonderful!  He painted his mother in there and his grown son who was killed in a tragic auto accident.  So many families were there with children and the children were very responsive to the murals.  I think the artist must have a heart for children’s ministry.  The grounds were beautiful with many blooming flowers and sculptures.  It was 98 degrees so I didn’t tarry outside very long.

Carthage is an interesting old town, with a picturesque court house square and many Victorian houses.  The women toured one such house, historic Phelps House while the men tripped to Colaw’s RV parts and salvage, the largest in the world.  The county courthouse itself is a sight to see, made of Carthage granite, with a mural depicting Carthage’s history.    And, there are historic Route 66 buildings and mementos throughout the the area.

This has been a really fun rally, and we’ve enjoyed all the Travelers attending.

Kay’s Take:  The Coxes and the Garros have outdone themselves with the food they’ve prepared.  And the potluck desserts looked divine!  We have met the nicest and most welcoming people at this rally and learned a new card game.  31!  It’s a killer; one night I came in 2nd but close only counts in horseshoes. Hehehehe!  

Today marked the official beginning of the rally, with coffee and homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast; coffee only for us.

We carpooled to the George Washington Carver National Monument where we took in a hour-long guided tour of the farm where he lived as a child.  The son of a slave mother who was kidnapped and disappeared, he was raised on this farm by a white family.  We remembered his work in developing uses for peanuts, but had forgotten his research on soybeans, and invention of synthetics, including a substitute for rubber during World War II.  A deeply devout man of God, Carver was quite a philosopher and exhorted others to make the most of their God-given talents and gifts.  As part of the tour, we strolled by a large pond with several active bream
beds and one bass bed.  The tour was well worth the time.  The photos below show Kay and our tour guide, a seasonal ranger whose regular job is teaching English as a second language, and the house where Carver’s adopted parents lived after he left home.

The afternoon was spent attempting to repair the water pump, to no avail.

Dinner included beef brisket, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, rolls, and several deserts.  We took a banana nut rum cake cooked via the microwave oven.  Once again, we restricted ourselves to meat, green beans, and salad—the price for trying to lose weight.

A lively game of 31 ensued with lots of fun and laughter.  We’re both immensely enjoying the rally.
As an aside, we’re accessing the internet via tethered Verizon Droid phone, and it’s working great.

We departed home this morning at 8:30 AM headed to Carthage, MO, for the first of two RV rallies.  The drive was largely uneventful—except for our RV water pump not ceasing to shut off, similar to last year when we had it repaired in Grand Island, NE—and despite a major frontal system barreling its way toward us, we succeeded in escaping rain, arriving at Coachlight RV Park in Carthage at 1:00 PM for the Arkansas Traveler rally.  Upon arriving in Carthage and setting up, I tried everything I knew to repair it, without success.  Oh well, we only need it when we’re without city water, so no potty breaks when traveling down the road until it’s repaired!
Happy hour started early with Bloody Mary’s.  With coffee and hot tea in hand, we joined the others for renewing old acquaintances and meeting new people.  This crowd is a bit younger, most about our age, but everyone is young at heart.  It’s going to be a good week.  A pot luck began at 5 PM, and the food looked scrumptious.  Of course, we’re still limiting calories and could only partake of a small portion of meat and salad—passing up so many other good things—and we didn’t even look at the deserts.  After eating, Kay joined in a game of “31” and lost two whole dollars, but the lively conversation was worth it.  We met several new couples and particularly liked a couple from Collierville, TN, another from Arkadelphia, AR, and another from near Springfield, MO.
After walking back to the RV in a slight mist, bedtime came early; we always sleep well in the motorhome.
Kay’s Take:  This is a nice RV park.  Donald went over to the RV center and requested a service tech to check out our water system.  The service manager said he was backed up all week and took D’s phone number to call if he got any openings.  We never heard from him.  So much for a Jayco dealer and service department.  I recommend the RV park but not the Coachlight RV dealership or service dept.

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