Sun Setting On The Elkhart County Fairgrounds in Goshen, Indiana

Our last evening in Indiana.  Saying good-bye to friends old and new.  We’re home now and already miss being on the road.  It gets under your skin.  Being able to just wake up and say, “Where do you want to go today?” .

Our last evening in Indiana we went out to dinner to a local joint.  The South Side Diner was originally built in the early 1900′s as a grocery store and then a soda shop.  It has a pretty rich history in Goshen, Indiana, been featured in numerous magazines and featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives.  You can read more about it’s history at their website.

So our assessment of the food…ok.  Nothing to fantastic that we’ll be back.  We had high hopes for this place.  Oh well.  I can say they certainly have an interesting presentation for the chili.  Below are some photos of our dinner.  I ordered the Philly Chili and David had the Philly Cheese Steak.  Both came with a side of home-made fries that they make fresh every day.  Sorry, we had no room for milk shakes from the soda fountain.

We did however have room later, when we got back to the rig, for dessert.  Those Blueberry Fritters we bought at the donut stand earlier were gooood.  And yes, we were good and saved the Peanut Butter Chocolate donuts for breakfast.  YUM!

South Side Diner in Goshen, Indiana

Inside The South Side Diner in Goshen, Indiana

Philly Cheese Steak at the South Side Diner in Goshen, Indiana

Philly Chili at the South Side Diner in Goshen, Indiana

Blueberry Fritters and Peanut Butter Chocolate Donuts

American Countryside Farmers Market in Elkhart, Indiana

It was a wonderful day to take a drive.  So we went to the American Countryside Farmers Market in Elkhart, Indiana.  As a popular tourist destination we expected it to be packed on a Saturday.  We were pleasantly surprised.

The three story structure is constructed in the old-world tradition using wooden pegs to hold the mortis and tenon joints together.  It’s highest peak is 84 feet tall and spans over a football field in length. To find out for history behind this amazing structure, check out there website at www.americancountryside.us.

Inside is filled with food vendors as well as arts and crafts.  Of course we migrated towards the food.  Our favorite…Immer Frish Donuts.  Clearly the best home made, fresh, hot from the baker donuts.  Duane was in the back of the booth making fresh donuts all day long.  Jolene was the lovely Amish woman behind the counter.  But be careful…with samples to try, you’ll want to buy them all!  I can honestly say I have never had a donut so fresh and tasty that it literally melts in my mouth.  YUM!  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

We also had the pleasure of sampling, and of course buying, fudge and home-made cinnamon bread.  We resisted, but barely, the fresh, home-made chicken pot pie.

The only downside was lunch.  There are only two, yes count them…two, food vendors for lunch in the food court area.  The food vendor we chose was obviously the wrong choice.  I got a chicken sandwich and David got fish and chips.  I hate it when you get a fake, pounded to oblivion, processed chicken patty.  Where’s the real chicken? Yuk!  You know something was not right when David didn’t even finish the three fish sticks.  So, if you end up checking out the American Countryside Farmers Market I would advise not having lunch there. Too bad, there’s is so much potential.

Before we left, you guessed it, we went back and got some donuts to go.  I wonder if they’ll make it back to the rv?  It is a 20 minute drive after all.

Inside the American Countryside Farmers Market on the Second Level

Inside the American Countryside Farmers Market

Best Donuts Ever!

Best Donuts Ever!

Enjoying Our New Changes

So the day has finally come!  As you know we are at an rv rally at the Elkart County Fairgrounds in Goshen, Indiana.  We took this opportunity to do some upgrades to our coach while we were in the area.

While on our winter trip we had run into two different people (one in California and one on the east coast) that gave us the same guy’s name for woodworking in Nappanee, Indiana (where Gulfstream is located).  That made the decision real easy for us on where to go and who to do the work.  Luckily the couple we met on the east coast had a brochure, so now we knew how to contact this Amish gentleman, Carlyle.  They also gave us the info on the window blinds.

It’s so hard to pick a favorite upgrade.  Mine is probably the pantry, or the blinds, or the valances, no…the pantry.  Before we had one door and a metal slide out rack.  So much wasted space.  Now, nice double doors and adjustable shelves!  Thanks Bob and Pat for giving us the idea.  I now have more shelves than I know what to do with.  How often can you say that in an rv?

We also had all the cloth window valances removed and Carlyle made wood valences.  So much nicer.  It really opens up the rv.  We also had side tables made for each side of the couch.  It’s really annoying when you have a cup of coffee and you have no where to put it down when you are sitting on the couch.  Then there are the small things that are really annoying but once fixed, really nice.  Like in the spare bathroom there was a cubby hole below the toilet paper holder.  Basically it was an area that held your extra rolls of TP.  No one likes staring at that.  So we had Carlyle make a door for that cubby.  We also have, as many of you, florescent lights on our ceiling.  So we had Carlyle make frames for them.  It really ties in all the woodwork now.

He also had this really cool table.  It telescopes to any height you like, opens to a nice table size, has a magazine rack inside and has a topper that you can use between the drivers and passengers seat.  The topper has twp cup holders and a table top.  As you probably are aware, cup holders are a hot commodity. As you can see from the above picture, we’ve already had dinner on the table portion of it.  I can’t wait to put this between us and use the table topper with the cup holders when we leave.  It’s the little things in life isn’t it?

So here are some more photos of our coach before and after our changes.  We are really pleased with Carlyle’s work and would highly recommend him, if you’re in the area.  Oh…I forgot to mention the time frame.  We met with him Monday morning at 8am so he could take measurements and such.  Then we were back at his house/shop on Friday at 8am for everything to be installed, and out by 4!  Can’t beat that!  We’ve already talked to him about doing another cabinet for us and possibly redoing our entire kitchen table area.  We will see.  Here’s his info if you are in the Nappanee, Indiana area and are looking for some woodwork to be done, www.focalwood.com.  We called him ahead of time to set up this appointment because he is a busy guy.  He does all this himself.  Here’s the link to the blinds.  No more ugly pleaded shades that break and are a pain in the but to open and close! http://www.mcdinnovations.com/.  It makes life sooooo much easier.  A must have for any rver.

Pantry Before

Pantry After

Pantry Before - Inside

Pantry After - inside

Living Room Area - before (With new love seat, forgot to take photo of old couch.)

Living Room Area - After

Couch Area - Before

New Side Tables on Each Side of Couch - After

Kitchen Table Area - Before

Kitchen Table Area - After

TV Area Valance - Before

TV Area Valance - After

Master Bath Valance - Before

Master Bath Valance - After

Spare Bathroom Cubby - Before (Almost like they forgot a door here.)

Spare Bathroom Cubby - After

Wood Surrounds For Light Fixtures

Storm System and Tornado Coming Through Indiana

So we woke up this morning to a dark, rainy and dreary day.  Then the sky cleared and the sun came out.  Just long enough apparently to give us a false sense of security.  We went out to dinner with some friends of ours that live close by.  Once back home in our rig, while we were chatting, their daughter called to warn us of a storm approaching.  And here in Indiana they don’t take storm warnings lightly.

So we said our good-byes and thought we’d have another evening of rain.  Boy…were we wrong.  We checked the local forecast and they had a tornado warning issued for the county that we were in.  So David got out and warned everyone what was headed our way.

We flipped over our picnic table, for fear that it would go airborne, closed up all our slides and put down our satellite dishes.  Then David, as a precaution, disconnected our power and we started the generator.  Some people were leaving there rigs with there pets and heading to the storm shelter located on the fairgrounds.  We were going to stay put…that is until we heard the tornado siren.  There’s a sound that I’ve heard on tv but now I can actually say, I’ve heard it in real life.  So, after I ordered David to take some pictures for the blog of course, we took Tasha and headed to the shelter.  Well, we tried anyway.  Tasha with her torn ACL and being 14 years old doesn’t exactly move quickly.  And the shelter was further away than she normal can walk.  So a nice gentleman on a golf cart gave us a ride.

David had to pick up Tasha to carry her down the steps to the basement were everyone was.  Picture this…basement full of people and dogs, with no air conditioning.  I know, we were there to protect our lives, but boy, was it hot with all those bodies down there.  With the lights flickering and going off once, and the thunder roaring above us, it was definitely an experience.  Thankfully all the dogs were very well behaved.  As though they knew something was not right.

David was wonderful.  He donned his full rain suit and ran rv to rv telling people to get to the shelter.  Some people didn’t even know what was going on because they had there satellite tv on and did not see the local warnings and didn’t here the sirens.

Mental Note #1: Where ever we are it would behoove us to have the local tv antenna up so we can flip to a local station and see what is happening.

Mental Note #2: When we have to go to a shelter, bring bowl for dog water and dog blanket.  Tasha does not do well on the hard concrete floor.  We did luckily remember water and a flashlight.  But forgot the AED (defibrillator).

After leaving the shelter and heading back to our rig, David had to help some people move a dumpster that decided to fly/roll in front of there rv.  No damage thankfully.  It’s original location was 5 rigs down from them on the other side of the street.  So now we are safe and sound in the rv and I had to blog right away.  Everyone was safe.  The picture above is the storm coming through the area.  If you blow up the picture by clicking on it, you can see Goshen, Indiana in the center of the picture and a tornado right there.  That’s where we are. According to the weather forecasters a tornado touched down 2 miles south of where we were.  Now we are just in for a night full of rain.

Below is a couple of David’s pictures of the storm approaching.  These were taken 2 minutes apart.

And I didn’t even get to eat my left over home-made chocolate peanut butter pie!!!! Oh well…there’s always breakfast.  Just kidding mom.

Storm Approaching

Storm Getting Closer

Pull Tabs Galore!

So at rallies one of the usual things people bring are pull tabs.  You know, the tabs that open your pop can or beer.  People collect them over the course of time.  Once you’ve accumulated enough to not embarrass yourself, you can turn them in at the next rv rally you go to.  I did not bring my pull tabs that I have been collecting for this very reason.  I barely have enough tabs to fill a zip lock baggie, let alone what these people have brought.

Once collected, the (lucky) designated person will take them all to go get weighed and get paid for them, by the pound.  This particular rally we are at plans to donate all the money from the tabs to the KOA Campgrounds Kids With Cancer Organization.  Maybe next year I’ll have enough tabs to bring to participate and not embarrass myself.

And yes, all those kitty litter containers and all those garbage bags are full to the rim with tabs!  With space being very limited in an rv, sometimes I wonder where people put all these.

More Pull Tabs

Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, Indiana

Das Dutchman Essenhaus is an Amish Country Kitchen Restaurant that serves food family style.  All I have to say is YUM!  We went there this evening for dinner expecting a very touristy place.  When we pulled in to the parking lot we were greeted by tour buses, rv’s and lot and lots of cars.  Thinking we’d have to wait a long time, we went in just to check it out.  To our amazement, we were seated right away. Apparently they can seat 1100 people!  That’s crazy.

The food was great.  You can order off the menu or eat family style.  We chose family style.  For one price you can have all you can eat fried chicken, corn (or green beans), mashed potatoes, stuffing, home-made noodles, home-made bread, pop and pie for dessert!  Oh My!  That was definitely a lot of food. Thank goodness they let you doggie bag your pie if you can not finish it.  All their pies are home made every day, crust from scratch and all.  David had the strawberry pie and I had the chocolate peanut butter cream pie.

Sorry to say I didn’t think fast enough to take a picture of the food.  I did however get the dessert.  With some bites taken out of it first though.  I had to sample it before I took a picture and endorsed it after all.

They also have shops, bakery, a miniature golf course, convention center and hotel attached to this huge enterprise.  It was nice browsing the shops afterwards if only to walk off some of the dinner we just gorged on.

So I’m just sitting outside, enjoying the nice night.  Trying not to go inside and finish off the rest of my pie.  Until a train goes by that is and blows it’s horn. Which is directly behind our rig by the way.   We knew there was a train right next to the fairgrounds though.  So no surprises there.  But it wouldn’t be a complete trip without a train!  I always joke to David that I can not sleep in the motorcoach without a train close by.  He’s so nice to oblige.  For those of you who rv, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Some of the Inside of Das Dutchman Essenhaus

David Enjoying His Home-Made Strawberry Pie

My Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Home-Made Pie