Shipshewana, Indiana

We arrived at Duncan RV Repair, in Elkhart, IN last night around 8:30pm.  Our RV was parked in a site right in front of the office, so we unloaded the truck and got settled in.  We missed "Survivor", but caught most of the premier of "Grey's Anatomy".  Afterwards, we all went to bed, so we could be up bright and early to meet the technician.

We met up with Dave, the technician, first thing in the morning and he reviewed all of our repairs.  Most of them were taken care of, except for a couple of small items.  One big item though -- our landing gear motor that seems to be a bit sluggish -- had still been under review by Newmar, and just before we arrived they finally decided that they would add a 2nd motor so that the 2 landing gear legs worked independently.  We decided that the best course of action would be to bring the RV back on Sunday and leave it here for them to work on again.

We left there around 11:30, and stopped to check out the American Farmer's Market before we headed to Shipshewana for the weekend.

They were having their Harvest Weekend, with

tractor displays

pony rides

and lots of food and music.  We walked through the various vendors' booths and had pretzel dogs for lunch.  We also were able to check our email at a computer walkup station.  Before leaving, the boys just had to have some of "Carol's Confection"  -- delicious fudge -- we bought creamy praline, caramel apple pie, and vanilla -- YUM!

From there we headed over to the Shipshewana Campground - South.  We checked in and took a full hookup, pull-through site for 2 nights.  He gave us site 66, which is a very long pull-through.  It easily fits the RV and truck, with room to spare in the front and the back -- Nicolas was even able to open the dovetail door for a while this afternoon.

We decided to ride bikes into town for a little while, and our first stop was a battery store.  The Amish men working there were very helpful, and offered lots of good information.  They are distributors for Magnum and Iota, who make the inverter and charging system in our RV, and had some good literature that they were able to give us (Tom is studying it right now!).  Nest stop was Eash Sales -- a store that we've never been in before.  They carry a wide range of products -- from gas appliances and fireplaces, to beautiful paintings and statues for your home.  They also have housewares, and we found something that we've been looking for . . .

cast IRON pie irons for the campfire -- we bought 2 - a round one and a square one!  We had an aluminum one, and it is warped so badly that it really doesn't even seal the pies closed anymore.  We've been wanting to get iron ones, and were excited when we found them!

Outside, we checked out their outdoor furniture and playground equipment, and cabins

and then wandered over to find the

PUPPIES -- they were SOoooo cute!  They were so excited to have people around, and just kept wanting to be petted!  We could hardly drag Nicolas away from them!

After spending some time with these puppies, we decided we had better get back to our own puppy . . . and  it was about time for dinner!  After a quick dinner of chicken parmesean (during which we got a little bit of rain), we decided to ride our bikes the other way toward downtown and see if anything was open still.  None of the stores were open, but we heard some action at the Auction Grounds.  We parked our bikes behind the auction Restaurant, and walked around back to find ourselves surrounded by THOUSANDS of Amish . . . it was unbelievable!  It was a huge community fundraising auction to raise money to build a new hospital to study genetic disorders in amish children.  There were silent auctions and live auctions -- animals, furniture, appliances -- everything you could imagine!  I would have loved to have gotten some pictures, but didn't want to offend anybody, so I didn't.  We stood inside the main auction building for awhile, watching the action.  Now, I have to share a story here . . . 20+ years ago, Tom and I bought quite a bit of furniture for our home at one of the big amish stores here in town.  We worked with one of the furniture designers, Myron, and got to know him pretty well.  He eventually left the big store and opened his own shop at his house.  Over the years, we've visited him a few times, and when we needed additional furniture, we went right to him.  Well, I was standing there in this auction building tonight, watching all these amish men carrying furniture onto the stage, and I said to Tom, "That white-haired guy over there looks like Myron."  Tom watched him for a while, and agreed that it did look like him, but what are the chances that it is?  Well, Tom is curious, so he walked up to him and asked him -- and it was him!  We talked for a few minutes, and it turned out that he was the organizer for the whole event and he was pretty busy, so we let him get back to work.  What a coincidence that we would run into him!

It was starting to get dark, so we headed back to the campground.  We had to ride on the main road, which isn't too bad because they have a really wide shoulder for buggies, but you have to watch out for horse droppings!!  We made it back safely, and went inside to watch National Treasure on DVD, and catch up on blogs.

That's it for today -- a pretty full day!  The kids' DVD has ended, and I don't hear any movement in the living room, so I think they both fell asleep -- I'll have to wake them up so they can get ready for bed!