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Our First Trip - 2001 Next

September 4, 2001

Today was an uneventful day on the road, other than a little detour or two.  At lunch we stopped at a truck stop that had phones in the booths.  Terry brought in her laptop to connect to AOL.  Although she was able to get a dial tone, it would not connect to the AOL 800 number.  It squealed and squawked trying to connect, but just couldn’t do it.  Later in the day we stopped at a large gas station that accommodated large diesel trucks; however, RVs had to share the other pumps with smaller vehicles.  We came in from the wrong direction, blocking some traffic.  With the car in tow behind us, we couldn't back up without unhooking the car.  So everyone waited for us, most patiently.  

An Amish restaurant was advertised on billboards along the way, so we drove up a little further to find it.  But before we  got too far off the beaten path, we decided to take  the next road and get back on the highway.  With a big rig, there is not much choice on two lane roads except to keep going until a place to turn can be found.  We ended up on a road running first alongside one side of the freeway, then on the next, before we finding an exit. 

We arrived in Decatur, Indiana, at 6 o’clock.  By then the RV factory was closed.  Someone at the local WalMart told us where to find an RV park.  It looked like a mobile home park and we weren’t sure we could get in and out, so we drove on past.  Then the road narrowed into a two lane highway going out of town.  Again we had no choice but to stay on that road hoping to find somewhere to turn around.  About 5 miles out we found a place to turn and returned to Decater.  We spotted an RV sales lot right next to a big car dealership with plenty of space for us to pull in.  A car was parked in front of the office, so we thought we might find somebody there.  No such luck, but we noticed that Kelly’s RV was at the back of the lot and not only were there RVs parked in front of it, but there were people with their chairs and tables outside. 

Knowing how friendly RVers are, we walked over and introduced ourselves.  They were all staying in their RVs while work was being done.  Kelly’s was one of the names we had been given by Fleetwood to do additional work.  One of the couples, Jim and Lee, took us under their wing and insisted that we would be welcome to park our RV alongside theirs.  Once we had backed in and settled, we joined the group of three couples for coffee and dessert provided by Lee.