Week 55 - Indiana - 09-02-2007

Greetings from Indiana,

Praise God for a great week! Good friends, great food and old time religion. Indiana is the RV capital of the country, home of Notre Dame and has a large contingent of Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites. And we once again met up with our wonderful next door neighbors, Ben and Sid. We came to Wakarusa for a few motorhome repairs. Our one year warranty has expired but Monaco repaired most of the items without charge. We are very pleased with the Monaco product and service.

While waiting for repairs we visited Amish communities in Nappanee, Middlebury and Shipshewana. We also took motorhome factory tours at Monaco, Newmar and Travel Supreme. Ben and Sid took Ellen on a tour of Notre Dame while Pete worked to buy beans.

Amish Acres in Nappanee is a 80 acre farm with a restaurant, gift shop, meat and cheese shop and a fudge factory. While mostly staffed by the Amish, many of the employees are not. It also includes a theatre for plays, craft demonstrations and a farm wagon ride.

The American Countryside Farmers Market in Elkhart, Indiana is the largest farmers market in the Midwest. It has dozens and dozens and dozens of shops on two floors totaling over 51,000 square feet. They have fruits, vegetables, vitamins, food court, ice cream, crafts, pictures, furniture and more. It was really fun going with Ben and Sid. What Ben did not eat, he bought and took home!

Below is the Monaco factory. The building is as impressive as are their motor homes. Starting with a chassis they take 6 weeks to build a Diplomat like ours. It was very informative. By seeing the construction we learned many things about our home that we could not learn from literature, salespersons or even from using the home. We also toured the Newmar factory. Our tour guide said "65% of the Newmar employees are Amish, 30% are Mennonites and the rest are regular people." We have always considered Newmar to be of equal quality to Monaco. But after you take the tours you can see how the construction of the Monaco is superior.

This was the view to the East at sunrise from our camp at the Monaco repair center.

And this was the view to the West, wow!

Shipshewana is another historic community. We visited Menno-Hof, an information center that explained and chronicled the "Anabaptists". We spent about an hour in the center, but should have spent several hours to read and hear all the information they presented. The Anabaptists are religious groups that feel that believers in Christ should be baptized as adults not as infants. The Hutterites were formed in 1528, the Mennonites in 1536 and the Amish in 1693. The three groups have many common beliefs and traditions. All three believe in leading Christ-centered lives daily. Here is a very broad brush distinction between the groups. 1) The Hutterites do not own their own property but live in communities that have ownership of all land and buildings. The community collects and reports all income and provides food, housing and all needs for its members. 2) The Amish separate their living areas and customs from the rest of the world so as not be be influenced by modern culture. They will embrace newer technologies after they have concluded that such will not be detrimental to their beliefs and relationship with Christ. 3) The Mennonites do live amongst the regular people and use technology while attempting to not let the world influence their lives.

Below is the Main Building on the Notre Dame campus. The gilded Golden Dome is visible from the roads that lead from Chicago and Indianapolis and from about every point on the campus and from many areas of South Bend. The tower contains the beautiful painted ceiling and handrails. The gilded statue on the tower is Mary.

The present day Basilica of the Sacred Heart was built between 1870 and 1875 and was renovated in 1988. The Holtkamp pipe organ was installed in 1978 and has 2,929 pipes. The Goodyear blimp is flying over the Notre Dame library. Pictures were not allowed of the football stadium as they did not want any of their secret plays to be photographed. Apparently, after the opening game against Georgia Tech on Saturday, the plays are still secret!

Pete had a great time working at the free camp at Onan Indiana where an engine modification was preformed. Also our hero, technician Bud Powell, modified our speed control to work as we think it should.

Ellen has flown home for a few days as Pete stays in Milwaukee. When she returns on Saturday, we will head to Wisconsin Dells.

Until next week, love Pete and Ellen

Photos from Sep 2007