Monday morning we left the campground north of Indianapolis and traveled north to Nappanee, Indiana where we settled into “Camp Newmar”. “Camp Newmar” is a name given to the area at the Newmar factory where Newmar owners can camp while having service work done on their units. Nappanee is in the heart of the Amish country of Indiana where there are numerous horses and buggies and bicycles on the roads.
Tuesday morning we drove a little farther north to Elkhart. We had an appointment at Bradd and Hall’s, a business that does rehab work on RV’s, that had replaced our carpeted floor with laminated flooring a few years ago. An area had become spongy feeling and had a spot that looked like something under the floor was pushing upward. After the technicians checked the floor it was found that a subfloor bolt was protruding. They were able to cut the bolt and the flooring was able to flatten out. While waiting around for the work to be completed we checked out the furniture and window shades in the show room. We replaced our old worn recliner chair with a newer one. The window shades we were looking at (MCD) could not be fitted under our wood valances so we will stay with the pleated day/night shades. After a lunch at Olive Garden we returned back to Nappanee.
Wednesday we stayed at the motorhome most of the day. Time to catch up on laundry, housekeeping and maintenance. There were a couple of malfunctioning lights that Tom replaced. We were scheduled for some factory work on Thursday. We did take the factory tour at 1pm. We had taken this tour previously and were surprised at the reduction of production. At one time this factory had 20 plus units a day going out the door with about 1000 employees, today there are 3 units a day being produced with 400 employees- but they have continued to remain in business when others in the industry have had to close their doors.
Today, Thursday, we had to be up bright and early. I heated up some coffee in the microwave and noticed that the turntable was not working and there continued to be a strong smell that we had noticed a couple days before coming from it. After checking the turntable we found the mechanism that turns the turntable had melted off. Service work starts at 6am and sure enough a little past 6am there was a knock on the door. We had had our roof replaced May 2010 and had episodes of water leaking through to the ceiling. Now that the microwave was broken we needed that to be replaced. The shower drain was in need of being replaced and a panel door needed to be repaired. The motorhome was taken into the service area and we went to a local diner for breakfast. We returned to the service center and waited until a technician came to give us an estimate and reported that the leak was due to a solar panel(5 watt panel used to charge chassis batteries). We then drove to some local stores and to Shipshewana to a few more stores and then lunch. When we returned to Newmar facility our motorhome was parked on the lot. The repairs had been made, the ceiling had been cleaned removing the water spots, a new microwave had been installed, the shower drain replaced and panel door repaired. Because of the roof work a water test needs to be done in the morning but we could stay in a little longer, the motorhome won’t be picked up until 7am.
