Before leaving Shipshewana Friday morning I went back into town to buy some kite parts. I had tried to fly my Prism stunt kite a few days ago and found a critical part was missing. Bummer. No flight that day. A web search revealed that the only authorized dealer in Indiana for Prism kites is Head Over Heels in, of all places, Shipshewana. As expected, they had the kites but no spare parts. The owner was super, however, and took the part I needed off of one of her stock kites. We are now ready for flight again.
We departed Shipshewana about 11:00 headed north. Within 10 minutes we had crossed into Michigan. I would like to say that the drive into Michigan was uneventful,
but nay, it was not so. When we arrived at our campground Dorcas went back to the bedroom and exclaimed "OH NO!!!!". When this happens it is usually something minor, like a cabinet door came open or something like that, but this time it was more significant. The rear window over the bed had been shattered. There was a clear, sharp point of impact and lines radiating out from there. No unbroken piece larger than 1/2". It looked to me like we got hit by a rock or a BB gun. Upon reflection, Dorcas remembered hearing a sound like something hitting the floor, but we never saw anything. Luckily, only the outer pane is affected; the inner pane is undamaged. The outer pane is still intact, at least for now, but even if it all collapsed and fell out, the inner pane would keep out the weather. That's a good thing, because this will be no quick and easy repair. This is a pretty specialized window. It is an emergency exit window with a special mechanism to allow it to be pushed out in a emergency. It also has a bronze mirror tinting that is not found on most RVs. It is definitely a special order job and will likely take a month or more to get the part. I called my insurance agent to let him know. Since I will not be fixing it soon and since it 
would be difficult for an adjuster to catch up with us, he suggested waiting until we got home to file a formal claim. I'll worry about it later.
We stayed at the Platte River Campground in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two nights. Unfortunately we had to stay on a different site each night. This is a very popular campground and is the same one we were unable to get into last year after standing in line for several hours at dawn. This year we were able to score two single reservations for different sites on Friday and Saturday nights. We just had to move before noon on Friday, which meant we had to stay close to home that morning. On
Monday we moved about 12 miles to Indigo Bluffs, a new Class A ownership resort. Likewise we tried to stay there last year, but it was not yet completed. Since we didn't get to visit the resort last year they gave us another complimentary 3-night stay this year. It is a very nice place, but it should be since lot prices top out at $250k. There was no pressure to buy. In fact, we asked the sales manager to bring us a sales package, but we never saw him again.
We toured some sites in the area during our stays at these two parks. One day we
drove north to Leland, Northpoint and Leelanau State Park, located at the tip of the little finger on the Michigan "mitten". Leeland had a quaint little harbor alley called Fishtown filled with fishing shacks and tourist traps. Leelanau State Park was very vice and features a campground right on Lake Michigan and the Grand Traverse Lighthouse Museum. We returned along the west shore of Traverse Bay and stopped at the harbor in
Suttons Bay. Suttons Bay was a very attractive and scenic town, and obviously there is a lot of money here. We spent an hour talking to the city harbor master and looking at the boats.
We spent an afternoon on the dune at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. There was a fair breeze and I flew the kite for a while, practicing stalls, take-offs and landings. We spent an evening at the Cherry Bowl Drive-In theatre and had a traditional Lumberjack Special pizza and a pitcher of brew at the Lumberjacks Bar and Grill in Honor.
We departed Shipshewana about 11:00 headed north. Within 10 minutes we had crossed into Michigan. I would like to say that the drive into Michigan was uneventful,
but nay, it was not so. When we arrived at our campground Dorcas went back to the bedroom and exclaimed "OH NO!!!!". When this happens it is usually something minor, like a cabinet door came open or something like that, but this time it was more significant. The rear window over the bed had been shattered. There was a clear, sharp point of impact and lines radiating out from there. No unbroken piece larger than 1/2". It looked to me like we got hit by a rock or a BB gun. Upon reflection, Dorcas remembered hearing a sound like something hitting the floor, but we never saw anything. Luckily, only the outer pane is affected; the inner pane is undamaged. The outer pane is still intact, at least for now, but even if it all collapsed and fell out, the inner pane would keep out the weather. That's a good thing, because this will be no quick and easy repair. This is a pretty specialized window. It is an emergency exit window with a special mechanism to allow it to be pushed out in a emergency. It also has a bronze mirror tinting that is not found on most RVs. It is definitely a special order job and will likely take a month or more to get the part. I called my insurance agent to let him know. Since I will not be fixing it soon and since it 
would be difficult for an adjuster to catch up with us, he suggested waiting until we got home to file a formal claim. I'll worry about it later.We stayed at the Platte River Campground in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two nights. Unfortunately we had to stay on a different site each night. This is a very popular campground and is the same one we were unable to get into last year after standing in line for several hours at dawn. This year we were able to score two single reservations for different sites on Friday and Saturday nights. We just had to move before noon on Friday, which meant we had to stay close to home that morning. On
Monday we moved about 12 miles to Indigo Bluffs, a new Class A ownership resort. Likewise we tried to stay there last year, but it was not yet completed. Since we didn't get to visit the resort last year they gave us another complimentary 3-night stay this year. It is a very nice place, but it should be since lot prices top out at $250k. There was no pressure to buy. In fact, we asked the sales manager to bring us a sales package, but we never saw him again.We toured some sites in the area during our stays at these two parks. One day we
drove north to Leland, Northpoint and Leelanau State Park, located at the tip of the little finger on the Michigan "mitten". Leeland had a quaint little harbor alley called Fishtown filled with fishing shacks and tourist traps. Leelanau State Park was very vice and features a campground right on Lake Michigan and the Grand Traverse Lighthouse Museum. We returned along the west shore of Traverse Bay and stopped at the harbor in
Suttons Bay. Suttons Bay was a very attractive and scenic town, and obviously there is a lot of money here. We spent an hour talking to the city harbor master and looking at the boats.We spent an afternoon on the dune at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. There was a fair breeze and I flew the kite for a while, practicing stalls, take-offs and landings. We spent an evening at the Cherry Bowl Drive-In theatre and had a traditional Lumberjack Special pizza and a pitcher of brew at the Lumberjacks Bar and Grill in Honor.
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