Newmar Time

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08/02/2010: Drove to Moscow, Iowa, to HWH Corporation to have our motorhome jacks/stabilizers worked on. Ended up with two new front stabilizers and a new circuit board to the tune of about $600. Ouch. Spent the night in their hookup area and experienced the most awesome thunderstorm about 2:00 am.

08/03/2010 - 08/05/2010: Utica, Illinois: Just killing time until we go into Elkhart, Indiana, for our first Newmar rally. Weather has turned unbareably humid. Went to Starved Rock State Park to do some hiking and gave up after the first half hour. Drenched in sweat from just the short hike to the top of Starved Rock. Just stayed home the rest of our time here...weather too miserable to do anything outside.

08/06/2010 - 08/13/2010: Elkhart, Indiana: Newmar Fulltimer's Rally. Spent the week at Elkhart Campground with 22 other Newmar rv's. A week of friends, fun, and FOOD... breakfast daily, social hour with goodies daily, dinner and dessert nightly. OMG. When this trip is over I'll have to climb on the scales (depressing!) and start a diet! Played golf one day. 18 holes with a golf cart. Nice course and I played okay but it was just miserable.

08/14/2010 - 08/20/2010: Goshen, Indiana: Newmar International Rally. Moved in a caravan with the other Fulltimers to the fairgrounds in Goshen for another week of friends, fun, and food. Terry spent lots of time learning small details about our motorhome and we finally gave up on our old satelite dome and had a new dish installed on the roof - $1700 but worth it since tv seems to be our primary entertainment if we're not on the golf course and we haven't been able to find Directv for about a month now. I took a guided tour of Amish backroads one day and learned all sorts of interesting facts about that culture. Elkhart County has the second highest concentration of Amish in the US (behind Lancaster, Pennsylvania); 35,000 county population with half being Amish or Mennonite. Lots of horses & buggies on the roads and all of the businesses have places for them to park. Walmart has a small (6 horse) stable in the parking lot! Not many pictures, though, since the Amish don't allow photos of themselves. We visited a farm, a school, a furniture store, and a general store. A fascinating day.

08/21/2010 - 08/22/2010: Nappanee, Indiana: Moved the 35 miles from the fairgrounds to Newmar Corporation's rv facilities. Nice to have full hookups again and 50 amp for both airconditioners. Spent the weekend doing lots of laundry and getting packed. The coach will be in the shop for two weeks getting new fibreglass siding installed and a full paint job. It should look new when we get it back.

On to Chicago...

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