Shipshewana

Our first destination was Shipshewana IN, home to a large Amish-Mennonite community in extreme northern Indiana.  Shipshewana was named for a local Potawatomi Indian chief.  We are here to attend a rally of Country Coach International (CCI), the national club for our brand of motor home.  This is not our first trip to Shipshewana.  We visited here August 2010 on our way to Michigan and Minnesota (again!).  On that trip we spent a day at an Amish farm where they also make replacement cooling units for ammonia absorption RV refrigerators.  We installed a new cooling unit to replace one I had recently installed, which turned out to be defective.  You can read that post here.

People often ask us what an RV rally is and what we do there.  Essentially a rally is a gathering of RV owners, usually who own a similar rig or have some other common interest, to socialize and visit.  It gives these RVers a reason to travel to a location or venue that they may not have thought to visit by themselves.  We share stories and experiences and close friendships are formed.  Eating and adult beverages are usually involved.  We belong to two manufacturer-related RV clubs and both have rallies 3-4 times each year.

Prior to our arrival, the area had many days of hard rain.  When we arrived the weather had cleared and was perfect for the duration of our stay.  During the rally we toured Shipshewana, over-ate, visited the Midwest's biggest flea market, over-ate, visited the Entegra Motor Coach factory, over-ate, visited Cook's Bison Ranch, over-ate, torued the Menno-Hof museum, over-ate, rode carriages to an Amish home for dinner where we over-ate and, finally, we over-ate.  There were also adult beverages involved.

The Amish shun automobiles and other modern conveyances
This photo and many others in this post courtesy of George H.

Dorcas and Irene in a quilt flower garden

Buggies all in a row

Boarding a wagon at Cook's Bison Ranch

Beefalo on the hoof up close

Hand-feeding the bison.  Have you ever been licked by a bison? 

Dorcas after the buggy ride to an Amish dinner.  Does she look full and happy?

An Amish farm

Myron and Dorcas boarding a buggy to the Amish dinner

View from a buggy

Preparing to be fed at an Amish home

Another view from the buggy

A Spartan chassis; the foundation for many fine diesel pushers

Near the beginning of the Entegra production line

I wonder what they thought of all these Country Coach owners viewing the Entegras.  I bet they were hoping for a sale.

A view of the cockpit through the D/S living room slide out

Entegra Motor Coach is the luxury motor home line of the Jayco Company.  They list for over $400K.  We're not buying a new coach any time soon.

We stayed at the Shipshewana Campground- South Park for seven nights, but now it is time to move along.

Upper Midwest 2015

After an extended absence from this journal (but not from traveling), Dorcas and I are on the road again.  We departed this day with the ultimate destination of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northern Minnesota.  In the meantime we will attend a Country Coach International (CCI) Rally in Shipshewana IN and a major FMCA motor home convention in Madison WI.  After our canoe trip in the BWCAW we plan to loop through Canada, likely north of Lake Superior, and re-enter the US near Niagara  Falls and then attend another CCI rally at Watkins Glen NY.  Within mere days after the Watkins Glen rally in late September, we will dash back to NC and attend another motor home rally in Marion and then a canoe club gathering at Hanging Rock State Park the first week in October.  Whew!!!!  That's the plan and we hope to stick to it.

We left home shortly after the crack of noon.  On our way out of town we stopped at Bill Plemmons RV World and took on 18 gallons of propane at the ridiculously low price of $0.99 per gallon.  Bill Plemmons sells LP way below their cost as a loss leader to get customers into their store.  We fill up there every chance we get.  We also filled a 20# bottle and a 5# bottle.

We continued north on US 52 north and hit I-77 north of Mt. Airy.  When I say we hit I-77, I mean we hit I-77.  Traffic was at a near standstill and, according to Google Maps Traffic, would be that way all the way to the VA state line and then all the way to West Virginia.  We traveled at a blistering 10-15 mph until we got to Wytheville VA, where we jumped off and topped off with 70 gallons of diesel.

We crawled back onto I-77 hoping, hoping the traffic had cleared a bit, but it was not so.  To add insult to injury we encountered a severe thunderstorm.  Ironically, I don't think the storm slowed traffic any further; it could just go no slower.  The traffic congestion magically cleared after exiting the East River Mountain Tunnel at Bluefield WV.  We had traveled almost 75 miles, rarely exceeding 15 mph.  We never did determine the reason for the slow down.  It was a Saturday afternoon and most of the vehicles had Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania plates.  Maybe it was just a hoard of Yankees returning home from a summer trip to Myrtle Beach.  There was no corresponding back-up in the south bound lanes.  I love to put lots of photos in these posts.  Unfortunately, we were so disgusted with the traffic neither of us thought to take any pictures.  It was not a good start for our trip

We had no particular destination for this evening.  We had a few Walmarts spotted along our route. We intended to pick one and park about dusk.  Due to our day's slow pace we didn't go as far as we had hoped.  It turns out that we stopped in Gallipolis OH just across the WV line on the banks of the Ohio River.  Coincidentally, we had spent the night at this same Walmart on July 30, 2014.  It is a memorable spot because it is next door to Tudor's Biscuit World, home of the biggest biscuit sandwich and cinnamon roll I have ever seen.  You can guess where we ate breakfast.