10/01/2007 Parking Lot/RV Museum Elkhart, IN.

Captain’s Blog
10/01/07
Parking Lot/RV Museum Elkhart, IN.
Odometer Reading 10810.7

Spent last night in the parking lot at the RV Museum in Elkhart. We set up under a parking lot light for the night in the middle of nowhere. Not even sure if the Museum was finished because there was still a lot of construction going on, but it was free so it worked for us. Actually had great TV reception and no one bothered us. Had a nice chat with the people in the museum and the museum itself was beautiful with some great displays of the first campers and motor homes. We were able to tour many of them and were surprised to see that the very old campers had either oil fired or wood stoves! Fire hazard does not even describe it. Very cool and would recommend to anyone interested in the history of RVing.

Then it was on to Newmar Manufacturer in Nappanee, IN about 40 miles down the road. Ron thought since we were having a sputtering, hesitation problem which resulted in a drop in the MPG’s from 8 to 5 we needed to get it fixed or eating would not be an option for the rest of the trip. It was to the point that we considered putting a vacuum hose in our wallet just to keep the fuel tank full.
We arrived at Newmar around 11:45 am only to find run down looking offices and buildings with half paved parking lots and poor signage. That surprised us because they make high end RV’s (some over $500,000.00). Anyway, we waited three hours to talk to the Service Manager. We sat in a room with a bunch of unhappy campers – no pun intended- who were waiting for repairs to be done or to talk to the same service manager. Since we are from New England we cannot understand the snails pace of people in the Midwest or South for that matter. Ron finally spoke to the grouchy secretary and she gave him an 800 number to call. Get this, the 800 number is to Newmar in Nappanee. He finally spoke to a rep telling him we were on the premises and about our RV problem. Guess what – they don’t handle chassis problems and referred us to a workhorse dealer one mile down the road. The call to that place was futile because they couldn’t fit us in until the 5th. That option was too late for us as we still have another 1200 miles to N.M. They referred us to another workhorse dealer in the area who after some whining on our part agreed to look at the RV in the morning.

We were still at Newmar and they had campsites with hookup’s for free and since we were aggravated from the long wait and no results Ron decided we should ask for a campsite. He went back in to the crabby secretary and she did set us up with a campsite for the night. Because we spent so much time waiting for the invisible service manager we missed the Newmar factory tour. Hope to get that in tomorrow while the RV is being repaired. $$$$$$