HIT N THE ROAD: FINALLY LEAVIN DECATAUR, INDIANA

Well, it is July 26, and is our lasst night here at the Allied Recreation Group Factory and Service for Fleetwood and Monaco Products. We have been here since July 10, their lot has only electric hookups and we have a dump station a little ways down the road. We have quite a shopping list to have done and got an appointment for the 13th a month ago. First was a new windshield, our 3rd in a year and a half. Putting down the jacks in this really unlevel gravel lot cracked it even worse. They found out that not enough fiberglass was in the cap and proceeded to redo that, then a new gasket. The rig had to stay in the shop for the night and we were not allowed to. So we had to take our 22 lb cat peanut, 2 birds, clothing, litter box over to the baymont for a room. We couldn't get anyone to help us get there, we have a 2 seater corvette. I guess not all rv people help you. Anyhoo, we put the cat in his carrier and put him, the litter box, our suitcase in the trunk. The birdcage was wedged against my chest, we only had to go about a mile and a half but it was such an inconvenience. Luckily the next morning we met a guy at breakfast we knew who was getting his rig redone, and he had a car rental and took us back to our rig in comfort and even helped us carry everything in, really nice fella. So the windshield was done, next our fresh water tank was leaking and they put new fittings on it and it is as good as new. Our inverter was not registering on our ems board, and they did something with a remote and that was fixed. Then we had a bad rainstorm here and fried my microwave and the receptacle it was plugged into, the guys leaned on my removeable counter over the stove when the installed it and cracked the counter, so they had to fix that. Then when they put in the microwave they didn't bother to open the kitchen slide and pushed it into the moulding around the fridge and gouges all up and down which they tried to fix with filler, we will live with it. My warm fridge, which was diagnosed before we got here and said we needed a new thermistor, well the service writer came in, saw the loose thermistor wire hanging and clipped it to the fin, fridge works great now. They then put all new seals around all our slides, fixed our flashing dash board monitor, and remote door locks which kept blowing the fuses. Hooked up our dvd player which was never hooked up to begin with. Also 15 of our air fitting on our suspension were no good, they were snap on connectors which are no good, and they put on regular fittings. We did not get our delaminating slide fixed because they wanted $5000 to put a new floor under it which didn't even require taking it out. We passed on that, the slide still works well. The only thing we didn't get done was the little motor that lifts the fantastic fan in the bathroom, it never got here, and we put in a new one just a year ago, so we bought a cover for the top and now we can leave it open without rain coming in. All of this work, our extended warranty paid for some, it was about $6000 altogether and we ended up paying about $2500, not bad. We have been eating out a lot, we are in an amish community here. I brought laundry to the wash and fold place, 3 huge bags and it only cost $20 for them to do it, I like that, I may not do my own laundry anymore.

Yesterday we went to a big hoopdedoo festival at the amish village. We were in a car show and we won an award and lots of door prizes, the boy scouts provided the lunch, we had a great time, they had a sled with lots of concrete blocks for the big belgian percheron horses to pull, that was exciting.
Later we will dump our tanks, we haven't leveled here, I am too afraid to and we will pull out in the morning for northwest koa outside of Chicago for two nites, then on to Wisconsin Dells for 5 nites and then to Mackinaw Island in Michigan for 3 nites, then we will be going to Niagra Falls.

I took only a few pics, but they were pretty good. I will post again when we get to the Dells.