Shipshewana, In

Well, I've been kind of slack on the blog recently, so I want to post a brief report and let everyone know that we're fine and  had a very nice trip from Berlin, Ohio to here in Shipshewana, Indiana, about 320 miles. About 200 miles of the trip was on Interstate 80 & 90 which is a toll road in both Ohio and Indiana. The toll for about 150 miles in Ohio was $20.25 and the toll in Indiana was $4.00 for about 50 miles. One reason our toll was higher than normal is because of pulling the RV. The tolls are based on total number of axles. We're at the Shipshewana South Campground, a very nice park with full hookups right on Highway 5. The rate here is about $280 per week, which isn't too bad considering this is a nice park in a desirable location. This area is close to Goshen, Middlebury, Elkhart and several other smaller towns, all of which are heavily influenced by the RV industry and the Amish community. They tell us over 80% of all RV's manufactured in the US are made here, and it's not hard to believe when riding in the area and seeing facility after facility that is either directly or indirectly involved in the RV business. As a result, a large percentage of the Amish are employed by the RV manufacturers.
              We were very happy to be greeted by our good friends, Ed and Linda Allison upon our arrival here last Wednesday. We've had a great time visiting with our buddies and were sad to see them leave yesterday. We'll see them again in Florida this winter if all goes well.  We've decided to extend for another week and will leave next Wednesday, heading north into Michigan. We've been busy since arriving here having some upgrades done to our RV, touring RV factories and the local area. We don't have a whole lot of blog worthy activity to share but will hook you up with a few pictures and descriptions of some cool stuff in the area.

Our RV Park, Shipshewana Campground South located on Highway 5.

Our Camp Site, #88. Ed & Linda were across the road.

This was taken on I-80/I-90 in Ohio. I didn't realize towing triple was legal here. The only other places we've seen this was in some of the western states last year. 

Crickett and I in front of pretty flower display behind Reigsecker Craft Barn in downtown Shipshewana.

Meet our good friends, Ed & Linda Allison from Bristol, Tn.

There is a heavy Amish population here and we see LOTS of horse pulled buggies on the road, but this one was different from most of the others. It had fenders over the wheels. First one I've seen like that, but have seen more since. Also, noticed they have license tags on the buggies here, unlike Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Local market that sells grocery supplies in bulk. It's very popular with our Amish friends.

Linda took this shot at Tiffany's Restaurant in Topeka, In. The restaurant has wonderful food and is popular with the Amish.The Amish children are about the cutest you will see anywhere. Bicycles are very popular here with the Amish (unlike Pennsylvania) and women wearing long dresses can be seen riding them.

Pink trash container alongside highway waiting to be emptied. Most trash containers were brown, but we spotted several pink ones. We assumed it was to support breast cancer research.

One of the upgrades we had done to our rig was to replace the old steps with newer lighter aluminum ones. This is the "before" shot.

And here is the after shot. These steps are lighter and much easier to handle. They seem to be as strong and sturdy as the steel ones. Crickett can handle these whereas the steel ones were too heavy for her. 

Here's our rig at the Lippert Customer Facility having the new steps installed.

Check out the fuel prices on the sign. It's been many years since I've seen the price of diesel to be cheaper than gas, but it's common throughout this area. The prices on some of the signs do not include the state road tax, but this one did. We saw  diesel prices as much as $.50/gallon cheaper than gas.