After leaving Pam and John’s house, we realized that it was time to head home. We were a bit tired of being on the road, and we knew that we wanted to visit our kids, my brother and Chuck’s parents before Thanksgiving. An additional incentive was provided by our fridge, which had twice defrosted itself and seemed unable to get really cold (although the freezer compartment has worked perfectly throughout). We decided to see any interesting sights en route, but basically try to be home within the week.
Chuck discovered that our route took us through Elkhart IN, home of the RV and Motor Home Hall of Fame and Museum (RV/MH) Elkhart is known as the RV Manufacturing Capital of the World, as most US RV manufacturers (although not Winnebago) with 80% of RV production are located in or near the city. We got to Elkhart after the museum closed for the day, but since they allow overnight RV parking, we stayed in the lot. The RV parked next to us was a 1974 model that was identical to one we saw in the museum the next day, but we did not meet the owner.
We did not see too many colorful sunsets on this trip, but the sunset in Elkhart was pretty. As a place to camp, the parking lot was better than some places we have been. And the next morning we toured RV/MH.
As I mentioned in my Laramie posting, the idea of living in one’s vehicle is pretty old. The Romani (Gypsy) caravan, sheep wagon and private train compartment all had the essential elements: beds, storage and cooking space along with a mode of locomotion. According to RV/MH manufacturing got underway in Elkhart in 1931 when a local businessman Milo Miller constructed a travel trailer so that he could easily take his family with him on business trips.
On his first trip, he was asked to sell that one, and also construct another. Miller started a business constructing travel trailers. Two years later, an entrepreneur, Wilbur Schult saw Miller’s trailers at the Chicago Exposition and purchased the company. The industry expanded from there. Now Elkhart is home not only to RV manufacturers, but also companies that supply RV parts and appliances.
According to Wikipedia, Elkhart is also the Band Instrument Manufacturing Capital of the World. Not bad for a town most of us have never heard of! The Airscreamer Guitar (above) is not exactly a band instrument, but it is an amusing artifact.
If you are interested in RVs, the RV/MH is pretty cool. There are Model T’s converted to travel vans (bed, storage and outside cooking), the first pop-up tents, early motor homes and early pull trailers including some early Airstreams (the iconic aluminum RVs). And of course there are a couple of display cases of toy RVs.
After the museum, we noted another Travato in the parking lot, but the owners did not seem to be around. However, we must have set out around the same time because we ran into them at our lunch stop. They are frequent posters to the Facebook group, and we got some tips about how to winterize.
Driving along I80 was not fun. Because of the short time between our purchasing the T and leaving on our trip, we did not receive our EZPass which came in the mail after we left home. On this stretch of I80, there are tolls every hundred miles or so, with pull-out lanes if you are paying cash or credit card. Most of these are automatic, although some are manned. We kept getting into automatic lanes for which the mechanism did not work. You cannot back up once you are within a certain distance of the booth, so if the mechanism does not work, you have to hit the call button. Some of these tolls took us 10 – 15 minutes to get through.
Our last night on the road was spent at the KOA in Streetsboro, OH. We came in after the campground office closed, so we picked out one of the empty campsites from their “night registration” box. Imagine our surprise to find that we were camped next to 2 other Travatos. (We are the van on the right.) And imagine our further surprise to find that on our last night out, we were to meet up again with the first Travato couple we had met on the trip in our first Colorado stop at Blackhawk.
Dan and Judy remembered us because they had told us that they planned to go to Hershey for the annual Hershey RV show, and we had invited them to visit us in State College. They were now heading home from the show.
We never did ask what they do (or did) for a living, but Dan seemed to know a lot of the design staff at Winnebago. They seem to be frequent attendees at Winnebago and Travato meetups. They were at the Grand National Meeting in Forest City in July and then went to Hershey. Dan knows a lot about the designs and why they are done that way (mostly monetary), and what changes are planned. It was quite fun to see them and we spent a lot of time talking.
And then, on Monday Sept. 16, after supper, we arrived home. Everything in the house was as we left it. We unpacked the essentials from the van and marvelled at the amount of room in the house. We also marvelled at the heaps of stuff we were going to have to put away — things that we unpacked from the Vista, things that we thought we were going to use for the Travato but decided were unnecessary, and of course everything in the Travato.
And that is the end of the trip for this year. Who knows when and where the next adventure will be.