Pre Rally Fun

Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds
Goshen, IN
Site 470

We've been so busy I haven't had enough time to read e-mails, facebook or my favorite blogs.  

Saturday we drove over to the Apple Festival in Nappanee.  The parking was terrible and we rode up and down the streets trying to find a place to park.  Once we finally found a parking place we were able to walk to town.

Families were having a great time.  It seemed strange to watch the Amish enjoying the rides. Respectfully, I didn't take any close up photos of them.

We've been looking for a new piece of furniture and checked out the furniture stores.  They do have beautiful furniture, but there are no bargains.

Since Dutch Village was nearby we decided to stroll through there.  I couldn't believe how empty it was.  I would say that only about 25% of the booths were occupied this year.

 They did have a big tractor auction which included antique ones.  It was a huge affair and they had horses and buggys parked everywhere.  By the time we left and made a stop at Walmart we were both getting hungry and decided it was a good time to stop at Lux's since we haven't been there yet this year.


The last time I posted there were 10 Montana's here.  The following day that number doubled.  

Vicki did that at a truck stop while they were fueling up.

Our site is in a great location.  We have shade in the evening and we can sit outside and see the Montana's come down the road to enter the fairgrounds.  

Vicki and I happened to be nearby when the Montana's pulled in.

Don Lee gave me his best side for a photo.

Vicki and I were drinking "Not Your Father's Root Beer" and walked down to take photos of the tent being erected.  She took a swig of beer and immediately spit it out.  She got stung by a bee.  

I decided it was time to clean out the water heater.  Mark and Bill were watching me.  I knew how to do it, and have done it in the past.  Well things didn't go so well this time.  I have this neat gadget that you put on the end of the water hose and there is an on/off control for the water flow.  I turned the control on and the end of the brass wand blew off and into the water heater.  We had every imaginable thing stuck in that tiny hole trying to find that brass wand.  Of course we couldn't use a magnet since it was brass.  Mark made me a hook tool out of some wire but that didn't help.  

Jan and Paul Kelpe pulled in a short while later and I went over and asked if she had any tools that were bent that could grab the wand.  Jan is a nurse and she did have a pair of hemostats but not a bent pair.  Ron and Terrie Ames had finished setting up a few sites away and I asked if he had any bent needle nose pliers.  He said "sure" and brought a pair over and the next thing you know, we have the rod out.

While this was going on Vicki was doing something to our back window.  I didn't get a photo of the finished job, so I'll post a photo in the next blog.

 Elkhart is known as the RV capital of the world.  Here's the kids play area at the mall. 

Don and Bonnie Lee invited us down for root beer floats.  At this rate, we are going to need to buy more root beer.  

We went to Sam's Club for some more root beer and picked up 4 six packs.  They had to check with a supervisor to see if we could buy that many before checking out.  

The Montana's just kept rolling in and it was so nice to see friends we haven't seen for awhile and also meet new ones.  
Vicki and Mark asked us if we wanted to go to dinner with them.  Guess where we went?  Yep, Lux's.  

Mark loves the farm area and I showed him a more scenic way back to the fairgrounds.  

I probably won't be blogging much in the next week.  Not because there isn't anything happening, but because there is so much.  The official start is Wednesday. 

Turtle Safely......