Nappannee and Elkhart Indiana

From Bowling Green, we moved on to Nappanee, Indiana. James wanted to have a desk built in. Someone at Newmar Corp. gave him Irv Kaufman’s name. By the time we arrived at the Kaufman’s, Irv had the desk built. The first thing he did was put the desk in the coach. Then he and James removed both of the TVs.

Irv put doors on the former bedroom TV cabinet space. This gave us more storage space. He and James put in a flat screen TV in the living room area. Irv reconfigured that cabinet to fit the new TV. He also took six inches off the end table between the passenger seat and recliner. We can now swivel the passenger seat around to face the center of the room more than we could before. Irv also put in a sturdier shelf for our washer/dryer.

When we arrived at Irv’s, he told us he would let us “sleep in” since he would not start until 8:00. At 7:20, he knocked on the door-ready to go. The next two mornings, we tried to be up earlier. Several days after we left Irv’s, James looked at his phone-it was around 9:00. James was puzzled because the other clocks had around 8:00. He thought there was a problem with his phone until he realized we had changed time zones(from central to eastern). OK, we’re idiots, we admit it. We later had the opportunity to explain our error to Irv.

From the Kaufman’s place, we went to the Elkhart RV Park

We had been in the Elkhart area for an Escapes Escapade back in September. There were many vendors there including Lambright Aluminum. This is an Amish owned business. They make comfortable light weight recliners {45 and 65lbs.) that are great for RVs. We went to visit their show room and bought two of their chairs. They took out the original sofa and recliner and replaced them with their recliners. With just a chair where the sofa had been, we now have more room for Clay’s big doggie pillow-and for Clay! We’re not having to climb over him as much.

James told Vernon Lambright that we were looking for dining room chairs(one of ours wobbled). Vernon told us about his cousin Calvin, also Amish, who makes furniture. We went to see Calvin and now have two oak dining room chairs.

We really enjoy the Elkhart area. There are many Amish farms in the area and we enjoyed seeing them working their farms and riding to town in their horse drawn buggies. Another favorite place to visit is the Farmer’s Market built by Amish craftsmen to resemble a very large barn. It is full of various craft, food, vegetable and other vendor booths. We are including a few pictures we took of the Farmer’s Market and other sites in the area back in September.

While we were in Elkhart, we had a call from our friends John and Dede Fischer to tell us that they were close to buying a Newmar coach. They said they wanted to meet up with us to go to the Newmar rally in Du Quoin, Ill. mid-June.

James and I made a second trip to Newmar Corp. to buy parts and to register for the rally. While registering for the rally, we spoke to Irv’s wife Vickie who is office manager for the Newmar Kountry Klub. (Newmar coach owners group). We are looking forward to seeing the Kaufman’s, Jeannie from the Newmar parts department who was so helpful to us, and the Fischers when we go to the rally. John and Dede are currently frantically getting ready to leave SC. They will be the first people we have seen from SC since we left in January.