Since our appointment at S & S Automotive Repair to rectify the damage done by the FedEx accident wasn’t until Monday, October 9th, we had some time to kill after our visit to Spartan. Instead of staying in a campground near S & S Automotive Repair in Wakarusa or boondocking in their parking lot, we stayed overnight in the parking lot at Entegra where we at least had an electrical hookup on Saturday, October 8th.

Once set up, we were off to Shipshewana where we could once again visit a few of our favorite places – Yoder Popcorn for some Tiny Tender White microwave popcorn and some white cheddar seasoning and Yoder’s Meat and Cheese so we could buy some Wagu patties. Bought a pkg of 2 1/2 lb burgers and 4 1/3 lb. Burgers.

On Sunday, October 9th, we headed to S & S to drop off the coach for our appointment on October 10th. Then we proceeded to pack up half the coach with all of our stuff (and Sparky), checking into Candlewood Suites, a pet friendly hotel, in Elkhart.

Although the rooms (we were in room 108) had apparently been remodeled and looked nice, it left a lot to be desired, very uncomfortable. No table to eat at, no night light of any sort, not enough seating for two people with only one desk chair and a recliner. Guess being a studio, it is set up only for one occupant – it had a small table so you could sit in the recliner to eat, otherwise you had to sit on the bed. The woman at the desk had told us to check if we had silverware, pots and pans, etc. because they have a problem with people stealing stuff. We were missing a fork (only two of each type of utensil are provided) and a big glass. When we went back to the desk, she gave us another fork but said they didn’t have any glasses and that they needed to order them. Really??

And it continued! The garbage disposal didn’t work. Fortunately my handy dandy super duper hubby fixed it (the breaker had tripped) and the peep hole was missing from the door so anyone could look in. For a table, we ended up going to our coach to get one of the smaller white tables we had and one of our outdoor chairs so that made it a bit more comfortable. With the RV rate, the daily rate was $65.99, which seemed like a lot for such an uncomfortable room.

We stayed at the hotel from October 9th through October 19th which meant more bad news for us. Nearby Notre Dame was having a home college football game on the 15th. Now you wouldn’t think that was a big deal, in a way it wasn’t at least until we realized that the room rate tripled to $189.99 for two nights on the weekend. Yikes, same crummy room at triple the price! What a rip off!

On Monday morning, the 10th, we drove to S & S to meet with the owner, Mark, to review the repairs that needed to be done, arriving there around 7:00 a.m. Afterwards we went to Callahans Restaurant for breakfast, our favorite order “2 eggs and get 3″ restaurant. While we were at Entegra, our neighbors next door, Bruce and Mary had mentioned doing an audio driving tour of the Heritage Trail so we stopped in at the Visitor Center (within walking distance) to pick up a map and a USB drive (also have it available on a CD). Surprising that we had visited this area numerous times since buying our first RV in 2013 and had never done the driving tour! After that, since it was a beautiful day, we drove down to the Riverwalk to take a walk.

Besides sightseeing, during our stay, we stopped at Lambright’s Comfort Chairs which is where we bought the recliners for the coach, to check out their swivel dinette chairs ($395). After five years of use, our original existing ones had become pretty uncomfortable. While there, the owner told us that if we special ordered new chairs it would take 17 weeks. An alternative would be for us to buy a couple of their display chairs off the floor. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any in the color “putty” which would match our existing furniture so we would have to buy chairs that were upholstered in a slightly different color. After much debate, we decided that the new chairs would not be that close to the existing furniture so they would probably match okay. When we were told that our old dinette chairs would be donated to local families, it was a done deal! Love the new chairs!

With all our shopping out of the way, we could focus on enjoying the driving the Heritage Trail. More about that in our next post!