Milwaukee to Elkhart - Meeting Friends, Old and New

(Elkhart, IN) Hi 70 Lo 46 -- We left the Wisconsin State Fair RV Park in Milwaukee yesterday at 9:30am. It was a beautiful morning, but the trip was stressful and tiring. I-94 between Milwaukee and Chicago is horrible. The traffic was very heavy, and we've never seen so much truck traffic before.

Jim likes to cruise around 55-60 mph and stay in the right lane. On this trip he constantly had trucks all around him whooshing by, sometimes on both sides if he was in a middle lane. Add to that several construction zones with narrow lanes and concrete walls on both sides, and it made for a pretty stressful trip. This was one time we wish we would have stayed off the interstate. I do miss watching for the state signs to take a picture of them. Now that we have all 48, there's no need for another photo.

We arrived at Master Tech RV in Elkhart, IN around 1:30. There's a lot of RV's in the parking sites. We checked in and gave the receptionist the list of things we want done, and then parked in one of the several sites they have for customers. They have about eight sites on the back side of the building that were all occupied, so we were given the one site in front. We have 50 amp electric and water, and we set up our satellite, so we're fine.

There is one annoyance here. We keep hearing a high pitched screeching noise. It took awhile to realize we're near a huge train yard, and the sound is the brakes being automatically applied to train cars that are rolling down through the sorting chutes. We learned about that when we visited the Bailey Rail Yard in North Platte, NE a couple years ago.

We spent today waiting for a knock on our door to let us know they're ready to start working on our home. We're here to get our air conditioner repaired (or replaced), the propane furnace isn't coming on,  adjust our full wall slide, and find out why the trim screws on our front cap keep coming loose. They're behind on completing a couple of jobs, so they weren't sure when they'd get to us today. Jim went in and checked at 1pm and we had the option of having them do the troubleshooting late this afternoon, then do the work tomorrow, or just start the whole thing tomorrow morning. We chose the latter, so we don't have to move, then re-set up again a couple of hours later.

The RV-Dreams Fall Rally is being held this week in Goshen, about 12 miles away. We've been to two RV-Dreams Rallies in the past. Although we didn't sign up for this one, we were invited to come to their potluck dinner tonight. Several of our friends were there so we were looking forward to attending. We headed over around 4:30 to join the fun.

Selene and Hank are our friends from our ham radio days in NC. They sold their home this past spring and are now full timers in their new to them American Couch motorhome.

We met Kris and Dan in Ohio a year and half ago when they were just thinking about going full time. They've now been on the road three weeks. Congrats you two! We had the pleasure of meeting their friends David and Peggy, who are now OUR friends too!

David, Peggy, Kris, and Dan

The food tables were loaded.

There's 160 rally members, all learning about the full time lifestyle.

Our table. From L to R, Jim, Hank, Selene, Peggy, David, Dan (hidden), and Kris.

Howard and Linda Payne, who run RV-Dreams.com, have been conducting these rallies since 2008.

After dinner was over they gave a demonstration of their two models of Sea Eagle inflatable kayaks.

We went to Hank and Selene's motorhome for some after dinner conversation, then returned to our home. Even though we're parked in a parking lot in and industrial part of town, once we come inside and close our door we feel just as much at home as if we were parked in the most expensive RV resort. (Except for those screeching train brakes.)  :)

See you tomorrow.