We are staying here in Nappanee, IN for the week and manage to fill our time in a variety of ways.
The best way to fill time is meeting a bunch of fellow Newmar owners. There were fellow HOOTS here and many new friends that all offer us great advice about where to stay and what to see along our Adventure. We even had breakfast with the Meesters (new Hoots) and Linda brought her travel journals so Ellen could take notes about touring California.
A visit to Nappanee always gives us the great opportunity to hang out with Steve and Junell and their wonderful family. We visited their home, Junell was canning Applesauce and Steve was out in the nicest garage I have ever seen. We went out to Chief’s for Ice Cream and also traveled to Lake Wawasee for dinner on the shore. This is a great family and one of these days we may need to meet them up on The Lake Michigan Dunes for some fun Four-Wheeling.
We are lucky enough to be here in time for the Elkhart County 4-H Fair. This is a BIG deal! The Elkhart County Fair is one of the largest county fairs in the country! Jody Nichols has joined us for a few days and any opportunity to be up close with horses and other farm animals is right up her alley. We wander through more barns and poultry buildings than we have ever done. "Hey, what makes that particularly chicken the Blue Ribbon winner?" We are having a blast at the fair with antique tractor displays, 4-H craft displays (REALLY Impressive!) and great food. They even had a display of a live calf being born, you don't see that at the Spencer Fair. The parade is spectacular winding its way down Main Street and out to the Fairgrounds where each float passes the Grandstand before ending its journey. The parade is huge, lasting for hours. And what was the cost of all this? FREE! FREE parking, FREE admission on Sunday, FREE live entertainment. Oh yeah, we did pay $10 for dinner, That was the total for BOTH OF US! TEN BUCKS!
We drove down state and toured the Subaru Plant. We have been through the Ford F-150 plant and the Corvette assembly plant but this tour offered one gem that the others didn’t. Subaru has a full scale metal stamping facility and we got to tour it. It was absolutely amazing to watch these large body panels getting stamped out of flat sheet metal and the ginormous machines required to do it. It was a rare treat and really impressive.
For all you “Meadow Lake Skiers”, we took a side trip to North Webster, Indiana and visited Bart’s Water Ski Shop! Yes, there really is a Bart’s and they are doing well both locally and as internet and mail ordering facility.
We also killed some time by chasing down the Elkhart County Quilt Gardens. These are square patches of flowers scattered around the county. Each garden is laid out with flower colors so that it takes on the look of a traditional quilt square. The gardens are beautiful but most do not offer a high enough viewpoint to really get a great photo.
Now it’s time to head to Michigan for Amy’s wedding. More on that soon.
The best way to fill time is meeting a bunch of fellow Newmar owners. There were fellow HOOTS here and many new friends that all offer us great advice about where to stay and what to see along our Adventure. We even had breakfast with the Meesters (new Hoots) and Linda brought her travel journals so Ellen could take notes about touring California.
A visit to Nappanee always gives us the great opportunity to hang out with Steve and Junell and their wonderful family. We visited their home, Junell was canning Applesauce and Steve was out in the nicest garage I have ever seen. We went out to Chief’s for Ice Cream and also traveled to Lake Wawasee for dinner on the shore. This is a great family and one of these days we may need to meet them up on The Lake Michigan Dunes for some fun Four-Wheeling.
We are lucky enough to be here in time for the Elkhart County 4-H Fair. This is a BIG deal! The Elkhart County Fair is one of the largest county fairs in the country! Jody Nichols has joined us for a few days and any opportunity to be up close with horses and other farm animals is right up her alley. We wander through more barns and poultry buildings than we have ever done. "Hey, what makes that particularly chicken the Blue Ribbon winner?" We are having a blast at the fair with antique tractor displays, 4-H craft displays (REALLY Impressive!) and great food. They even had a display of a live calf being born, you don't see that at the Spencer Fair. The parade is spectacular winding its way down Main Street and out to the Fairgrounds where each float passes the Grandstand before ending its journey. The parade is huge, lasting for hours. And what was the cost of all this? FREE! FREE parking, FREE admission on Sunday, FREE live entertainment. Oh yeah, we did pay $10 for dinner, That was the total for BOTH OF US! TEN BUCKS!
We drove down state and toured the Subaru Plant. We have been through the Ford F-150 plant and the Corvette assembly plant but this tour offered one gem that the others didn’t. Subaru has a full scale metal stamping facility and we got to tour it. It was absolutely amazing to watch these large body panels getting stamped out of flat sheet metal and the ginormous machines required to do it. It was a rare treat and really impressive.
For all you “Meadow Lake Skiers”, we took a side trip to North Webster, Indiana and visited Bart’s Water Ski Shop! Yes, there really is a Bart’s and they are doing well both locally and as internet and mail ordering facility.
We also killed some time by chasing down the Elkhart County Quilt Gardens. These are square patches of flowers scattered around the county. Each garden is laid out with flower colors so that it takes on the look of a traditional quilt square. The gardens are beautiful but most do not offer a high enough viewpoint to really get a great photo.
Now it’s time to head to Michigan for Amy’s wedding. More on that soon.
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