Middlebury & Shipshewana

Breakfast in Middlebury, IN is not fast food. We drank coffee for nearly thirty minutes while the kitchen worked zealously to serve two tables of ‘old farts’, who likely do this every morning. When the server finally brought Janice’s waffle, she tossed it down in front of Janice and walked away with one word: “waffle”. Obviously, serving is not a fun job for her. She returned moments later with the rest of the food, all of which was very good.

Middlebury is on the way to Shipshewana where the Flea Market is open on Wednesday, our destination. Three dollars were paid to park the car to get to spend real money. Some vendors were just opening up, and making a sales while pulling tarps back. This place looked amazingly like flea markets in Florida. Our purchases were modest. Before we became too shopping committed, we received a call from our service writer at Monaco; one of the technicians wanted to talk with us. Oh, oh.

We arrived back at the service center about 11:30 AM to find the techs at lunch. Twenty minutes later Kim took us to the coach and introduced us to Chet. Chet has been working with Dirk on our coach. We now feel the Weldex is fixed correctly, the door locking system works correctly, and the antenna up light is fixed. Chet explained what he had done on each of these. His explanation of the problem with the leveling system was less optimistic; he has no confidence that he can solve the problem. This assessment was the only ‘bad news’ we received. Some issues remain, but the list is considerably reduced. We are still hoping to be done Friday. If that happens, we plan to stay here until Monday and drive the car to the places we want to visit in the area.

Coaches are returned to the lot between 2:30 – 3:00 PM; happy hour is at 4:00 PM. Several of the long term residents have kept the happy hours going, and we average about 20 attendees. Today we had a special treat. Two members of the Frustrated Maestros music group are here getting coaches repaired. They played keyboard and saxophone for three hours; awesome musicians. We had a great time.

Tomorrow is a key day: a decision on painting the slide is coming. We may go to a motel for a night when the coach is in the paint shop, but we don’t know if or when that will be.

Long Weekend at Camp Monaco

Memorial Day weekend is over, and the memories linger on. Today is 'Monday' on Tuesday, as we are back to repair work on the coach. We met with Kim, the service writer, this morning to discuss status of work. We'll meet again later today.

Saturday was a beautiful day and we traveled to Shipshewana for a shopping trip. This is a true tourist town. Unfortunately, the Flea Market was closed. We have to go back tomorrow (Wednesday). In the evening a neighbor came by to invite us to a cookout on Sunday afternoon. This was a group effort by those of us here for the weekend.

Sunday was another weather bonanza. The cookout was fun. We met some fun folks and passed much of the afternoon sitting in the sun. Sunday evening was spent watching the NASCAR race from Concord, NC. We took time between events to dump our tanks and re-position our coach on a different site. We had more elbow room on the new site.

We chose not to travel far on Monday. We did go to Wal-Mart and Elkhart town center. The town center was decorated for the parade. We didn't get up early enough for the parade. New coaches began arriving yesterday for appointments today. It is a never ending parade.

Today, Tuesday, is sunny and much cooler. "A really short summer", said one of our neighbors. Still no appreciable rain. We like it that way.

Monaco Mecca - Day 2 & Day 3

The blog is a day behind. We are writing this on Friday about what we did on Thursday. We have a good wi-fi connection here in the customer's lounge, so we will try to stay current as long as we are here.

Early morning get-ups are standard here. Kim was at our coach at 6:30 AM yesterday to confirm our work order and to discuss our repairs. She is a cheery and confident woman who is excellent at her job. Soon after she finished, Dirk, our technician, arrived to take the coach into the service bay. Dirk is pleasant and we hope competent. He likes Yeungling beer. When he noticed we are from Virginia, he said he would have ordered a couple of cases had he known we were coming. He can't buy it here. We told him we have about six bottles in the fridge. He's motivated.

Breakfast is easy here. The Cock-a-Doodle Restaurant is about a mile from the service center. The food is good and the prices are reasonable. It is a working man's place and we will be regulars there before a week is over.

Plant tours are at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. We found our way to Wakarusa for the coach tour. The lobby was crowded with RV owners when we arrived who also wanted to see how Monaco does coach construction. At 10:00 we moved into the shop. Fortunately, we were provided ear phones so we could hear the guide as she talked over the shop noise.

This plant makes Monaco Monarch, La Palma, Knight, and Diplomat; the Holiday Rambler equivalents, and Safari coaches. Windsors were once made here, but now everything above Diplomat is made in Oregon. Clearly, the only difference between these Monaco and HR coaches is the labeling.

The coach tour began with floor building. This is a laminating process that bonds multiple layers of wood, insulation, and vapor barrier, about eight layers. The finished floor is picked up using overhead material handling equipment (MHE), turned over, and attached to the chassis rails. The chassis is moved through stations within the plant and the coach begins to take shape with woodwork, walls, appliances, etc. added as it moves along. Refrigerators are installed by one man who carries it to the platform with overhead MHE, drops it in place, and bolts it down. There are a lot of solo workers doing amazing things. The hold process is fascinating to watch.

At the end of the line we were able to walk through several of the finished products. From flooring to finished product in an hour. We didn't see anything in the new coaches that we had to have. The guide was asked about quality control during the construction. To no one's surprise, she said, "Supervisors at each station check the work and sign off on the work". There was a collective sense of disbelief by the owners on the tour.

We skipped lunch after such a big breakfast. We tried the customer lounge and found a mix of disgruntled folks who had been here longer than they had expected, a few new comers who are still optimistic, and many others who were sound asleep or just bored. Everyone has a story.

By 1:30 PM we were on our way to the afternoon tour at the chassis shop. Tom, our guide, was superb. There were three of us on the tour and Tom took as much time as we wanted at each station. We saw how the raw steel is made into parts for the chassis, How wheels are added to axels which are made at the plant, how the rails are assembled to the wheel-axle assemblies, how the engines are attached to the chassis, how the air, electrical, steering and electronic systems are added to the chassis. This tour was far more informative than the morning tour primarily because Tom was so competent. Finished chassis are sent to the coach plant every three days.

Our coach was back in the lot and hooked up to power when we returned about 3:30 PM. We relaxed for a couple of hours. Amish cooking is usually good ,and we decided to drive east toward Shipshewana for dinner. About 14-miles later we came to Das Dutchman Essenhaus. The food was good, too good. By the time we returned, we were well fed and ready for a quiet night. There is a real danger of over eating while we are here.

This morning Dirk arrived at 6:40 AM to pick up the coach and we headed for Cock-a-Doodle. We are sitting around in the lounge talking to fellow lounge lizards and exchanging stories. We met a couple that will celebrate two weeks here next Tuesday. Among other issues, their stove exploded. Another couple is having their Beaver coach ceiling replaced. He says he is leaving tonight whether repairs are done or not. Our items seem insignificant compared to these.

We are not sure what we will do over the weekend, but we have several options. We do plan to sleep in past 6:00 AM if nothing else. We learned there are several Memorial Day parades in nearby communities. That could be fun. The weather forecast is clear and warmer until Monday night. We will try not to be bored.

We'll tell about it later.

Monaco Mecca - Day 1

After a relatively easy drive from Coolville, OH to Elkhart, IN, we are settled in the Monaco Service Center Customer Overnight Parking Area. Not bad: concrete pad, water and electricity. Kim, the service writer, is due at 6:30 AM in the morning. This an okay place with 40 pads. We arrived around 3:30 PM and there were 4 openings left. When we returned from dinner, we saw two open sites; a popular place.

Chuck and Donna were headed east toward Virginia and home when we both pulled out of the campground this morning. Our journey west took us around Columbus and through Lima, OH. We won’t go through Lima again: too slow and too congested. We stayed off interstate highways except when bypassing cities. Scenery was excellent and traffic was light.

We plan to take the two factory tours offered by Monaco: Motorized Coach & Roadmaster Chassis. The coach tour is at the Wakarusa facility about ten miles south of here. The chassis tour is about three hundred yards away from where we are parked. Both should be fun.

We are unsure of how long we will be here. Perhaps we will know more tomorrow. The facility is closed Monday for the holiday, so we may have a three day weekend here. Our plan is to stay until everything is repaired.

More later.

Coolville, OH ... Cool!

Saturday was traumatic. By the time all the ODC coaches were out of the mud and at the barns, we were whipped. Our group of displaced coaches was isolated from the rest of Samboree attendees. Some of the group never did get the Samboree dinner; the towing operation lasted beyond dinner. None wanted to go into town to eat, so we ate in our coaches.

We were not highly motivated to attend the evening meeting and entertainment, but decided to go around 8:00 PM for door prize drawings after the entertainment. Peggy and Jim won a wheelbarrow full of groceries, and we won a Task Light. That was the best part of the evening. Our group trekked back to the barns after the concert and headed for bed. We were done in.

Sunday morning arrived with more rain showers and lower temperatures. Wayne and Barbara were early risers cranking their engine shortly after 5:00 AM. Dick and Sharon were next around 8:00 AM. The rest of us hung out together meeting in a barn to wait out the showers. Around 10:00 AM, Larry and Mem led our parade of coaches back toward the Samboree parking area where fifth-wheels were still being extricated from the mud. We had learned to keep moving once underway, and we did all the way to the main highway, SR14.

Sadly, we did not see our hosts on Sunday morning. We could not have been treated better by the WV Good Sam people. We are indebted to them for their friendliness and their helpfulness. We would like to believe they would be received the same way at a VA Samboree.

Our journey to I-77 was not without incident: the bridge on SR14 was closed. We detoured for about 10-miles before we reached the interstate. Who expected that on a Sunday morning? Once on the interstate the group began to go separate ways: Jim and Linda turned south toward I-64, Larry and Mem continued north toward Indianapolis, and we followed Chuck and Donna north and then west to Ohio. Peggy and Jim followed us all out from the barns, but then stopped to hook up their car.

We crossed into Ohio at the Ohio River at Parkersburg, WV on US 50. Fortunately, it was Sunday and the traffic was light. We stayed on US 50 all the way to Coolville, OH. Carthage Gap Campground is very nice. The owners are a couple from Louisiana who bought the campground in 2000. They seem to enjoy doing what they do, and it shows. We had agreed not to stay if we were put on a grass field. The owner said he valued his grass too much to put us on the grass. We had side-by-side sites with full hookups and free wi-fi; very nice. Most of the rigs here are long term fifth-wheels and trailers. We are the largest units here by a lot.

By early afternoon, Sunday’s weather improved markedly. We chose to use the good weather to visit the Blennerhassett Island Historical Park in the Ohio River. Harman Blennerhassett, a wealthy Irish aristocrat settled on the island in 1798 and built a magnificent mansion and estate. Blennerhassett fled the island in 1806 after being implicated with Aaron Burr in a military enterprise in the southwest territory. Both men were accused of treason by President Thomas Jefferson. The mansion burned to the ground in 1811. Its foundations were discovered in 1973 and the original mansion has been re-created.

Access to the island is by a 20-minute sternwheeler ride. We bought boat tickets at the Blennerhassett Museum in Parkersburg and enjoyed a pleasant ride on the Ohio River. The mansion tour was informative and the docents were excellent. Our tour was the last of the day so the docents were on the boat with us as we returned to Parkersburg; the tour continued. We had a great day.

Coolville, OH is home to the Cool Spot Restaurant and Truck Stop. We had dinner there Sunday night, breakfast on Monday morning and dinner Monday night. This may not be the only place to eat in Coolville, but it was good for us. It has more snack food that you can imagine. The hardest part of our visits was to turn down the many choices of homemade pies.

On Monday we traveled west to Athens, OH home of Ohio University and Rocky’s shoes, boots, outdoor gear, etc. This was a shopping trip, but we also enjoyed seeing the university and the town of Athens. We returned to Parkersburg later in the day to visit the Oil and Gas Museum. We were not aware of the significant oil history of Parkersburg and this region. The time we spent in the museum was too brief for an in depth understanding, yet it is intriguing to learn what this visit provided.

It rained again Monday night and Tuesday morning. We axed going out for breakfast at the Cool Spot; we ate in. By 10:00 AM the sun was breaking out. Fenton Glass Company in Williamstown, WV is a huge tourist attraction. We toured the gift shop before touring the manufacturing plant. Now we understand why these glass pieces cost so much: the labor that goes into making them is extensive.

After Fenton’s, we headed for Marrieta, OH, the oldest settlement in the Northwest Territory. We searched for an advertised trolley tour. We found a restaurant on the Ohio River where the trolley should be, but learned it did not run on Tuesday; the lunch was good. We also found a brewery in town where we enjoyed a sampler platter. Good stuff! The last stop on the way back to the campground was to see the ‘Smallest Church’. It is always open, it is adjacent to a roadside rest area, it has four two-person pews, it has a Bible on a lectern, and a cross on the top. We had no other information about it. Strange.

Tomorrow we leave for Elkhart, IN. We hope for dry weather and an early start. We’ll see.

Rain, Rescue, Rally

Our trip Thursday morning began at 7:40 AM as we pulled away from our Fawn Lake home. We arrived at the rendezvous point about 9:00 AM; the six other rigs were already there (One rig was scratched that morning). Larry distributed route maps and windshield placards that identified us as a traveling group. We had a very smooth trip with Larry in the lead. We made a re-fuel stop off of I-81. That was fun to get diesel at $4.40 per gallon. The roads from I-77 into the 4-H Campground were narrow, twisting, and a challenge for 40-foot motor homes.

We were welcomed by friendly folks who were representative of the folks we met all weekend. Our coaches were parked together in a line directly across from the main rally facility in a field of grass that had grown long due to extensive rains during the previous week. Power was available through a 15-amp line strung behind our coaches. This was barely enough to keep the batteries charged for some coaches, but with 10-coaches on each line there was less and less to go around.

Thursday night the rain began. We were pretty smug about it as we listened to the rain on the roof of the RV. By morning the puddles were everywhere; the ground was saturated and the water had nowhere to go. Showers continued to interrupt activities on Friday and poured down again during Friday night. By Saturday, we were sharing concerns about the bog in which our coaches were parked. Around 2:00 PM our group decided to move our seven coaches out of the field onto hardstand in the barn area. More rain was forecast for Saturday night. We guessed Sunday would be chaotic in the field if people were stuck in the mud.

Several rigs behind us made early exits, some with the help of a tow truck. We had a clear area behind our coach and backed up about 50-feet before we sunk into the bog and were stuck. Larry tried to back out and was stuck after moving about four feet. Chuck was next for the tow chain. Wayne made it out to the exit path, but spun his coach into the mud. Dick had the heaviest coach of any of us. He never got underway before a tow was required. Jim M. and Jim S. were the last to even try; they made it out without help.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the WVGS staff. Several of them brought tow trucks, tow chains, and a lot of resolve to get us out. Some rigs were pulled forward and others backward by one, two or three trucks. We provided a long afternoon of entertainment for the assembled spectators. By 6:00 PM, our seven coaches were out of the field and lined up near the barns, then the rains returned. We were pretty happy to be where we were

People make a rally successful or not. West Virgina Good Sams have some terrific people. We had rain, mud, and stuck coaches, yet we had a great rally because of the people. State Directors Don and Kathy Wise lead a wonderful competent volunteer staff. The Wise couple sets the attitude and expectations for the chapters. Their leadership is obvious down to individual members. We were honored to be there.

Westward Ho!

Today was departure day for the group going to the West Virginia Samboree in Mineral Wells, WV. But, we didn't go today; we will go tomorrow. The plan was to assemble at the Halsteads this afternoon, enjoy a group dinner this evening and start the caravan to morrow morning. That was the plan before the rains came last week. With over six inches of rain in four days no one was anxious to test the soaked and saturated fields behind the Halsteads' home. Six coaches take up a lot of real estate.

The new plan is to meet tomorrow at a rest stop on I-64 west at mile marker 113 at 9:15 AM. We have folks coming from many different directions and varying distances. It will be interesting to see how the group comes together. After assembly we will travel to White's Truck Stop at Exit 205, I-81 south where everyone can take on fuel. A lunch stop in Beckley, WV will allow us to meet up with the Ramers who are coming from North Carolina. The eight rigs will then caravan to Mineral Wells.

It is hard to know what to expect at the Samboree. We know it is dry camping for three nights, and that is not a problem. We have been assured that the parking area will be hardstand, but seeing is believing. The forecast here is for rain beginning tomorrow night and continuing through Friday. Our weather comes from the west; we are likely driving directly into it. Since we will be visitors, we will keep a low profile and see how they do Samboree in WV.

We'll tell you how it all comes out in the next post whenever we have another Internet connection.