2019 Summer Adventure Post #4

Elkhart Indiana 6/7-6/16

Well, got the first couple of posts out fairly on time.  Since then it has been very busy.  We attended a Heartland National Rally that was held at the Elkhart County Fairground.  It is basically over a week long get together of a group of campers that have the common thread that we all own a camper made by the same manufacturer-Heartland.  There were actually 230 rigs and over 500 people at this one rally.  It is a great way to connect with campers from all over the United States.  They have numerous activities throughout the time we spent there.  There are many vendors of camping accessories, cool add ons for your RV, new products that make the camping experience better etc.  They also put 13 new rigs to entice people to purchase some of the new models.  They have technical seminars all about the care and maintenance of your RV.  They have lifestyle seminars with many different subjects.  I took a pole treking class.  We attended some on full-timing in your RV all the things to consider when choosing that life style.  They also had numerous social events and catered dinners.  They had many outings including tours of the amish lifestyle, dinners at the amish homes, tours of the factory where they make our RV's and more.  We spent many evenings out at a campfire visiting with many new friends we made.

One other thing that took up most of our other free time was we are considering purchasing a new 5th wheel.  Ours is 12 years old.  We kept our last on 10 years.  So we do tend to get our moneys worth but they are like a car.  As they get older you need to make that decision on keeping it or getting rid of it before the value goes down too much.  We really love this one but know if we are going to be doing more traveling it will be nice to purchase something for our next phase of camping and being on the road a bit more.  So we spent a lot of visits to the dealers and many hours of thinking of which one to go with and we have finally made that decision.  We chose a company called Vanleigh.  They just started venturing into making the 5th wheels, up until a couple of years ago they only made the large class A drivable RV's.  Then the owners son Leigh had a son named Van and business was good but to get more revenue as the owners were multiplying they ventured into a new line of RV's.  We really like the company and will be touring the plant where they make them in Mississippi later in July.  Now that we know what we want we are going to head to a few more dealers to see where we get the best price.  So still more work ahead but the hard part of deciding the brand and layout is done.  So that will keep us busy for the next few months.  Next we will be heading to the UP as they call it(Upper Peninsula in Michigan) . We will be meeting up with Nathan and Elizabeth and Elizabeth's parents Judy and John.  We will be spending a little over a week with them.  There will be a lot more interesting stuff to see up in that area.  Will try to get some pictures of all of it.  Looking forward to doing some exploring there.