October 8, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

We had seen some ads for a few places in some surrounding areas that we planned to go to today. We started out looking for a place that advertised glider recliners especially for RV’s. It was in the country, south of here, near Topeka, IN. The GPS didn’t recognize the address, so we started driving in that area, thinking we could figure out the logic of the numbered roads. We couldn’t! Many of the roads ended at a “T”. We drove and drove. Finally, in Topeka, we stopped and asked at a gas station. The man there directed us to go back the way we had come, but told us where to reconnect to the original road. (We had tried to call the business, but got a fast busy signal like there was a problem with the phone.) We finally found it, down a couple of gravel roads. It was an Amish owned business that didn’t really have a phone, just an answering service. They had a few beautiful recliners, but not much in stock. They do lots of special orders and ship the chairs out to the customer. - We’ll think about it, but we were really impressed.

Another business advertised in the brochure we had was in Elkhart, IN. It was an RV Supercenter and sold all kinds of RV supplies. We headed in that direction, missed our turn and ended up on the other edge of Elkhart. At this point, Larry programmed Greta to find the place. We drove through Elkhart and finally found it. It had everything deeply discounted because they were going out of business. They didn’t have much left to choose from though.

The dip in the economy has deeply hurt the RV industry. Some of the manufacturers of RV’s have gone out of business also. We went past one large one that was totally cleared out. As with other businesses in this area, many of the RV manufacturers here employ the Amish. They have buggies parked at the edge of the parking lots, and there is usually a small barn there also for the horses. Also many of the Amish ride bicycles to work.

Leaving Elkhart, we went to Goshen, IN, where we were planning to go on a tour of the Keystone plant. Keystone makes the Montana and Mountaineer RV’s. We really enjoyed the tour provided to us and two other couples. If only the economy were better!!

We arrived back in Shipshewana just in time to attend today’s final guided tour at the Menno-Hof Amish-Mennonite Visitors’ Center. It was very interesting and explained the differences between the two sects. The Amish are the ones with the horses and buggies, dress in black and do not have electricity in their homes (among other more subtle differences). Mennonites do use the modern conveniences, including cars and electricity, but still live a strict lifestyle.

We’re in for the evening now and will be packing up to leave tomorrow morning. We’ll be home sometime tomorrow evening. It’s nearly 400 miles to Troy, so it will be a longer day’s drive than we usually plan for a day. It has been a fun and interesting trip, but it will be good to be home.