October 17-18, 2017 Goshen, Indiana

A picture of sunrise this am. You may ask why I saw sunrise, since I don't usually get up till 8 am or so. One reason we came here was to get the door lock on the RV fixed. We had to be at the repair shop at 7 am. We crossed the timezone into eastern time last night. So I had to be up at 6 am and we lost an hour yesterday. I was a mess. It was still dark at 7am. Anyway it was a lovely sunrise.The bus at Master Tech RV.  Of course it needs a part which they ordered. It is supposed to overnighted and get her tomorrow 1030am - I don't have to get up before dawn tomorrow and we should be done then. This is beautiful historic downtown Goshen, Indiana. where we are staying.

The bus is parked at the Elkhart county fair grounds. Another bus with eyes! There is an RV convention here this weekend and this is one of the venders. There are a lot of Amish here in Indiana, you see lots of these buggies along the road. We toured Newmar RV plant this afternoon. Newmar is on of the top manufacturers of RV's. They don't allow photos on the tour so this is what you get the tour building. It was a fabulous tour. The plant is gigantic. They put together those huge expensive RV's in 4 days! Then up to 21 more to paint them. They say 28 days to produce one. I highly recommend this tour for anyone in the area. There are 14 RV manufacturing plants here that give tours. We are in the RV capital of the world here. Frank our guard snake is wearing a red maple leaf this afternoon. 

No photos of the plant, but here are a couple photos from their brochures. The first on is their top of the line King Aire. It is one the the top luxury 45 foot coaches on the market now. I suspect it costs a million plus all decked out.  The next one is their new for 2018 shorter luxury coach the New Aire, it is 33 feet long. It's base price is $360- it just goes up from there. 

After the coach tour we stopped at the Goshen Brewery to taste a couple brews. Their sign, the brewing tanks and John with his IPA. These are shots of the fairgrounds we are at. They have the biggest RV rallies here in the RV capital at this fair ground. 

It was so nice to finally see sun I took a long bike ride around the fair grounds. They are HUGE. I saw soybean fields nearby and fall colors. 

Newmar has been making coaches for 50 years in 2018.  The RV capital of the world. 80% of the  nations RV are manufactured here. We are also home to some of the  nations largest RV rallies.   Etc. At the moment Women Who RV are having their national convention. Lots of ladies here. The track and stand nearest to us are for the Trotting and Pacing Assoc. Would love to see those. Some grasses seen backlit on my bike ride.

Today while they were installing our new door lock we toured downtown Elkhart. Here is beautiful historic downtown Elkhart. In the city park is this 25 foot sculpture  God Bless America by Seward Johnson. It was inspired by  Grant Woods American Gothic. John barely makes it to their knees.  Pretty impressive. There are 50 other sculptures around the county by Seward. 

Heart sculpture in Elkhart, the town with a heart. Three more by Seward Johnson. They are mostly of lifesized everyday people. You have to look twice to see if they are sculptures or real people. After them every time I saw a person standing still I had to look twice to see they were a sculpture. The one of Marilyn Monroe is in the art museum. Our new door lock-it works great-now we won't be getting locked in or out and a mural on the side of the art museum. The first mural is a map of Elkhart , the next is a train, band and a trailer camped. They have a train museum and are the RV capital of the world. I am assuming the band has something to do with this band art piece along the river walk. There are painted elk around town too. 

John at the Fireman/police memorial that is along the river walk. Also around town is the quilt garden trail. There are 20 garden plots that form quilt designs. This one is at the fairgrounds. It is hard to tell what it looks like, it is pretty overgrown, but here is a picture of what it is. Also by it is another Seward Johnson sculpture of a woman, child and rabbit. 

The Women who RV convention is having a chair volleyball game. I had to see it to believe it.