Well it’s been quite a couple of weeks since we left Missoula in Montana and headed East on the I-90. We had to go quite slowly to run in the pickup truck which was a bit frustrating with 1900 miles to cover. And we weren’t allowed to use cruise control as the engine speed had to be varied quite often. Good exercise for my foot.
We passed from Montana into Wyoming and stopped at a small town called Sheridan and set the alarm for 4am in time for The Wedding. Afterwards we decided to leave early and went to load 4 huge bins, 4 suitcases into the pickup to discover that it was snowing and over an inch covered the pickup.
We decided to go anyway and hope for the best as we didn’t carry chains. Fortunately the passes were open for vehicle without chains and so we passed through Wyoming into South Dakota and then into Iowa and Minnesota and Illinois and finally on Sunday we arrived in Indiana. 1900 miles in 4 days and 3000 miles since we had left San Francisco a week earlier.
For 1000 miles from Montana we had been passing through rolling hills. The ones near Montana were very high 5000 ft. But gradually and almost imperceptibly the height of the hills decreased until by the time we reached Iowa we were in the great US Corn belt and the land as flat as. We had passed over the Bighorn Mountains, past the site of General Custer’s Last Stand and over the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers swollen with snow melt from one of the worst winters in recent memories. Spring was only just coming. The trees lay bare and it was cold. Oh it was cold. Every day we had to load the suitcases and storage bins into and out of the pickup tray.
But we are now in Elkhart the RV capital of the world where most of the main RV brands are built including our Sundance Fifth Wheel made by Heartland.
We arrived at the dealer early next morning to discover they weren’t ready for us even after weeks of notice, and further our TV had been stolen. They replaced that but what should have taken a few hours took all day.
We decided to stay in Elkhart for a few days to kit out the fifth wheel. This we did with frequent trips to Wal-Mart. Prices are a lot cheaper than NZ. For example 1 doz eggs cost $1 at Wal-Mart. Fuel is cheaper at US$4 or so a gallon or NZ$1.30 per litre. Strangely Diesel is more expensive.
On our last day in Elkhart we went out to Shipshewana to see a huge flea market where we bought a few bits and pieces. But the main attraction of the area is that it is in an Amish County. The Amish also called Pennsylvania Dutch are German immigrants from long ago who speak Pennsylvania Dutch as their main language, use High German in Church and talk in English to the rest of us. They do not subscribe to modern conveniences and drive around in horse and buggies and dress like early Victorians. A strange sight.
Many of the people are Dutch descended and Dutch and German names, foods and architecture abound. We bought some lovely German sausages from a big Amish supermarket.
Then it was time to head off. We decided to head into Michigan for 10 days to make sure everything was working in the RV. if not we could always pop back to Elkhart to get it fixed. We left and headed North and stopped just out of Grand Rapids in a small campground where we had a discount pass to get a half price site. We managed to unhook and setup fairly well and spent the next day just relaxing and trying out our bread maker which produced lovely crusty bread.
We hook up to electricity, water and sewerage and have most mod cons. We have found the PBS channels on American TV (equiv of BBC) and they are very good. Similar to Living and Travel channels on Sky NZ. A very good picture as most channels are in HD these days and the days of NTSC seem to be disappearing rapidly. All of the campgrounds have good wi-fi so we can keep in touch with the world very well. We can (thanks Sharon!) stream virtually any movies via wifi to our TV using Netflix. We have discovered Pandora on our iPads and connecting it via our hifi system can listen to free personalised radio. Listening to Diana Krall now 
.
The people we have met have been very friendly and helpful. The countryside is very pretty and the scale of everything is so vast. We have the same scenes in NZ. We have high desert – 50 miles of it on the central Plateau, but it goes for 800+ miles here. We have high mountains but there seem to be endless high mountain ranges in the States. We have the Canterbury plains but the Great Plains go on for ever. We have Lake Taupo but the Great Lakes make it look like a duck pond.
Sam has left to go home now having secured a great job at Quid.com in San Francisco where he returns as soon as he has a visa. He had a great time enjoying all the SF has to offer and meeting his new work mates socially as well as at work. He did a lot of walking from climbing Mt Tamalpais just over the Golden Gate bridge to walking 30 minutes to work every day up and down the steep hills.
Today we went to Holland. That is Holland Michigan which was founded by Dutch settlers in 1847. We imagined some kind of quaint Dutch village, but in reality it was a typical American town with tulips scattered through the parks and roadsides and a windmill in another park ($10 entrance) As we had seen our fair share of authentic Dutch towns and windmills we gave the paying attractions a miss and went out to the shores of Lake Michigan and saw Big Red - a famous old lighthouse at the entrance to the Holland Harbour. The sun was warm and the sky was blue and Lake Michigan looked at its best.
This coming week we spend some more time in Michigan before crossing the border into Canada where we will spend the next two months heading over to Nova Scotia.
