Thousand Trails Indian Lakes

My brother departed for his home at Angier, NC Saturday afternoon. Dorcas and I departed Linville Falls headed north Sunday morning. We weren't sure exactly how far we would go or where we would spend the next night when we left Linville Falls, but after driving a few hours we decided we would make for Thousand Trails Indian Lakes in Batesville Indiana, almost 450 miles away. The drive was uneventful except for crossing the NC mountains from Linville Falls to Johnson City TN. Of course the road was hilly and twisty, but shortly before entering TN we saw a sign on US 19E near Plumtree NC advising that the road was closed ahead. DANG. We didn't see a detour sign and turning back was not an option, so we ignorantly charged onward. A few miles later we came upon another "Road Closed Ahead" sign, this one blocking the road and directing us off on a mountain side road. Again, we had little choice, so off we went. The best thing I can say about this road is that it was paved. It was steep, narrow and winding. The road was so narrow that when we met an oncoming vehicle, one or both of us would have to stop and pull off the road. We met a couple dozen oncoming vehicles, and more than once a car screeched his brakes and skidded over to the side. All the traffic coming down US19E would be on this road, but this was Sunday morning and, thankfully, most of the locals were parked at church this morning, praying for the survival of those lost souls in that huge motor home. The detour lasted perhaps about four miles and returned us to US19E without physical damage. US19E, which is itself a fairly small mountain road, looked like a major interstate to us now.

The rest of our drive was very pleasant and uneventful. We drove north from Knoxville through TN and KY across the Cumberland Plateau, crossed the Ohio River as we circled Cincinnati, and arrived at TT Indian Lakes shortly before dark.

Thousand Trails is a membership park system to which we belong. We can stay at a Thousand Trails park for up to two weeks at no cost, except for our annual dues. We stay at TT parks in Florida more than enough to cover the cost of our annual dues, so any other TT parks we manage to visit is like free camping. Thousand Trails Indian Lakes is a very pleasant park. It is huge, covering 544 acres with 722 camp sites and 52 cabins. The campsites are clustered in four areas with vast open grassy and wooded spaces between them. I wonder if this facility wasn't a county or regional park in a previous life. There is lots of room to run Matilda without her getting into trouble with other campers and other dogs. Most of the motor homes stay in Phase IV which has 50A service and full hookups. When we arrived on Sunday we had a choice of a number of sites in that area.

We stayed here three nights and didn't really do anything. We mainly decompressed from our long hard summer. I fretted a bit over the refrigerator, which, by the way, was behaving pretty well at this point. It was cooling well enough that I had put our food back into it and stowed the cooler in the car. Sometimes an obstruction can block the flow of coolant through the unit, and the motion of driving and the bumps of the road can clear the obstruction. At least temporarily. The thing that caused the obstruction may still exist, and it could come back around and block up the works again. The fridge may be working, but it may not be fixed.

Which brings us back to the Saga of the Jinxed Fridge. Pines RV Refrigeration still owed us a new cooling unit to replace the temporary re-manufactured unit they had sent us two weeks ago. The most direct route to Minnesota, our final destination is through Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. That is the route we had originally intended to take, with planned stops in Wisconsin at the Lienenkugel Brewery, a Canoe Rendezvous, a Harley-Davidson factory tour and maybe a Brewers game. We then planned to return home through the U.P. of Michigan. It turns out that these aftermarket cooling units are made by an Amish family at a factory on their farm in Shipshewana in northern Indiana, only a few miles from the Michigan state line. Shipshewana is not so far out of the way if we go to Minnesota up the Michigan side. So, it had occurred to me before leaving home, that we might could go by the factory, pick up our new cooling unit there, and not leave until we knew it was working correctly. When I mentioned that to the sales guy, he said that was a great idea, and that the owner of the company would actually install it for me. That clinched the deal; it was off to Shipshewana for a new cooling unit and a counter-clockwise Lake Michigan circle tour. We departed Batesville IN and TT Indian Lakes early Wednesday morning for a 230 mile dash to Shipshewana in northern Indiana.