13 May ‘09 Wednesday
First I have to tell you that Saturday mornings are the nuts for finding something interesting on satellite TV. Boring, Boring, Boring…
OK, there are more important things to do on a Saturday morning, but it was raining heavily and is really wet outside so we’re sitting it out for the sun that is supposed to come out soon.
Well it’s been a while since I last wrote in this blog, so I’ll try and catch up a little. On the 1st of May we pulled into Goshen, Indiana for a week with the HRRV 419 Club/Seminar/Rally. The “419” is a well organized group of Holiday Rambler owners that started a “Special Interest Chapter” interested in the continued maintenance of the Holiday Rambler Diesel Pusher motor home. Seeing as how we own one of those “diesel pushers”, we decided that we would most likely find this rally to be of high interest to us. There were about 250 motor homes that showed up for this gathering and for most of those here, this wasn’t the first time attending. This gathering of HRRV 419 takes place annually and is always here in Goshen. It’s been Goshen because of the central area of the states, and because the Holiday Rambler factory was located just a few miles away. In the good ole days, the factory was well attended at the rally and able to teach and handle a lot of the needs of those that had a warrantee problem or just need a helping hand. On a daily basis, Louise and I had a medley of classes we could take from entry level to advanced convection cooking to lubricating and changing the oil on the motor home. One of my favorite gatherings was the “round table” discussion. Overall there were about 8 different round table discussions so we all chose the one that fit the age and type of HR motor home that we owned…it was really well done and I learned a lot about “our” coach. As always when we attend gatherings like this, we have met some “new friends”. In parking the motor homes, we were parked pretty close to each other
First I have to tell you that Saturday mornings are the nuts for finding something interesting on satellite TV. Boring, Boring, Boring…
OK, there are more important things to do on a Saturday morning, but it was raining heavily and is really wet outside so we’re sitting it out for the sun that is supposed to come out soon.
Well it’s been a while since I last wrote in this blog, so I’ll try and catch up a little. On the 1st of May we pulled into Goshen, Indiana for a week with the HRRV 419 Club/Seminar/Rally. The “419” is a well organized group of Holiday Rambler owners that started a “Special Interest Chapter” interested in the continued maintenance of the Holiday Rambler Diesel Pusher motor home. Seeing as how we own one of those “diesel pushers”, we decided that we would most likely find this rally to be of high interest to us. There were about 250 motor homes that showed up for this gathering and for most of those here, this wasn’t the first time attending. This gathering of HRRV 419 takes place annually and is always here in Goshen. It’s been Goshen because of the central area of the states, and because the Holiday Rambler factory was located just a few miles away. In the good ole days, the factory was well attended at the rally and able to teach and handle a lot of the needs of those that had a warrantee problem or just need a helping hand. On a daily basis, Louise and I had a medley of classes we could take from entry level to advanced convection cooking to lubricating and changing the oil on the motor home. One of my favorite gatherings was the “round table” discussion. Overall there were about 8 different round table discussions so we all chose the one that fit the age and type of HR motor home that we owned…it was really well done and I learned a lot about “our” coach. As always when we attend gatherings like this, we have met some “new friends”. In parking the motor homes, we were parked pretty close to each other
and that gave us plenty of time to get to know your neighbors…all good!!! On our way into Indiana we encountered some really rough roads and at one point we even had to pull off the roadway of I-65 and tighten all the screws that hold in our TV. I even noticed that the rear camera was going off and on as we hit some of these craters. I also noticed that our heater/cooling fan was also going off and on at the same time. After we pulled into our next campground I found that we also had a 3 more problems…our electric step wouldn’t extend, we couldn’t dump our air-bags, and we couldn’t extend our jacks. I fired off a quick email to the President of the 419, whom I had not yet met, and wrote him about our problem. The next day I had received 3 emails in regards to our problem and they gave me a quick idea as to what I should look at and most likely fix the problem. I took their information and ran with it. I found the area were the problem was coming from, got everything working, but didn’t find the culprit. The electrical box held the key but it took one of the tech’s from the rally to help me find a large battery type of cable
that was creating the problem…problem solved!!! We also had plenty of time to explore the surrounding areas of northern Indiana, and especially the Amish areas close to Goshen/Elkhart. We’ve been traveling through some areas of the Amish since entering into Tennessee and now we’re in the heart of Amish country. I really have to admire the strength and integrity of the Amish and the life they live. As you drive the “red” roads (those that show on the map in red as most often the very narrow two lane country roads) you will find the farms of the Amish…
some small and some much larger. You will always see the hand washed cloths hanging from the clothes line and blowing in the winds of the day, and the constant meeting of the horse and buggy traveling the roads. The family owned businesses that supplement the farming are located in one of the out buildings, and you can find a hand painted sign at roadside telling you what’s available. We saw the fields being tilled using the horses and sit/stand-on plows as we traveled though the farm lands…
not the same as a large tractor and plow we would see in Washington. We also saw the “one room” school house, with the two out-door potties... Most often, the kids are educated to the 8th grade and then they go full time to the home and become a very important part of the family. We did join a group for an “Amish Family” dinner at one of the larger farms in Nappanee, Indiana. They served us family style and it featured soup and salad, fried chicken, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, noodles, beans, and fresh made pie for desert. Following the rally, we took a day to replace our rear ladder at one of the shops in Elkhart.
About a year ago I backed into a medium sized tree and it “squashed” our ladder, so we took this time to have it replaced.
