June 20, 2014 - Celina, Ohio

It must have rained during the night as there were puddles and the windshield was wet. I set my phone alarm for a 7 AM rise and shine. It was a switch, as I got up before George and made the coffee for me, and chai for him. I had to wake him as we needed to drive 48 minutes to Decatur, Indiana in order to make a 9 AM tour at the Fleetwood RV plant. Our idiot GPS system built into the SUV that we paid extra to get when we bought it back in 2005, was already outdated in 2006, and the vehicle manufacturer sold upgrades for $200. however, it was never as good as the portable GPS Garmin. It has a lot of unvertified roads and addresses. Say you want to go to 3208 Its A Road. The GPS will only direct you to that road and not to the actual address or worse yet, I have had it tell me that no such road exists. However, my Google Maps App has it in their data base, so I rely on that much more. When driving the motorhome, we have the Rand McNally GPS which is great as it knows we are in a 42' motorhome, so it doesn't route us in places we can't take that vehicle. Another feature we like on it, is it warns "Speed Warning" if the driver gets close to going over the limit. Sometimes though, the signs will say 50 mph and the data base will think it is 45 mph, but its rare. On the way over, the sky started getting dark and threatening. Looked at my radar and there was a big swatch of yellow, orange and green color in the direction we were headed. Drove through heavy rains and as we arrived at Fleetwood RV, it was just a light drizzle. We were the only ones who showed up for the tour, so we had a private tour. While we were there they had both a fire alert test and a tornado alert test. We were really impressed with the quality of the workmanship and materials used. The tour guide knew his stuff too and was able to answer all of George's questions. Since it was Friday and that is the day the plant does maintenance of the equipment. As a result we were able to get up close and personal with all of the stations except where the walls were actually made. That station was off limits to us as the requirement is for steel tipped shoes which neither of us were wearing. Being an artist, I was most impressed with the painting section. We were even allowed into the paint booth. The guide told us that looking at any of their coaches, the color in the design that is the narrowest on the graphic design is the first color painted on the motorhome. All of their Class A diesel pushers have the full body paint with clear coat. Depending on the price range, depends on how the color lines are sanded, and how many coats of clearcoat are applied. We also were able to see all of the coaches with masks or in layman's terms, a type of stenciling. We did get a little wet walking between buildings as the rain had began again. We also noticed that Fleetwood drives their vehicles from station to station beginning with the chassis, whereas the other plants we visited slid the vehicles from station to station. The guide told us the Fleetwood plant to build their motorhomes is 600,000 square feet, so that is why they drive the vehicle to each new work station. We were very impressed. I highly recommend this plant tour, and make sure you go on a Friday, as the tours on the rest of the work week need to stay behind a line hugging the plant walls. After this tour, we drove down to a Suisse settlement named Berne, Indiana. In Berne, the attraction was a cheese making tour, however, according to the folks there, the tours were shut down due to the health department. So we tasted samples in their store including sweet potato butter a similar consistency to apple butter, and various cheeses, and made some purchases including pumpkin pie sharp cheddar, two packets of country gravy mix, crackers and sweet potato butter. We at lunch at East of Chicago, and had delicious different types of pizza via a buffet. The place was crowed and they had, pan, thin, super thin, stuffed, sweet, as well as a full salad bar. The pieces were pie shaped pieces with the crust being about 2" wide, so we were able to try a plethora of pizza with different toppings and crusts. Buffet was really reasonable at $6.95 per person. After lunch, we decided to head back to the motorhome and on the way back, George had me drive as he was tired. So as we passed through downtown Celina, I turned into a park that had what looked like a swimming beach, although no one was swimming. Then we headed back, and Abby was happy to see us. I took her out and then we both took naps. We had ribs with mushrooms and onions. I wasn't very hungry and only ate one rib and a spoonful of mushrooms and onions. Tomorrow we are going to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum on Apollo Drive in Wapakoneta, Ohio.