Camping Amid the Soybeans

Camping in the Elkhart area is not cheap. The one big campground in town charges 32 bucks a night! The county fairground in Goshen is $27. We've been grateful to Charger Enterprises, a place we trust for RV service--they return your RV to you each evening and allow you to park in the gravel next to the building with 30 amp electrical service and water. Not a picturesque campsite, but free is good at this point. Our experience in Jones, Michigan, using a discount card and finding we had far less than the advertised 30 amps, made us appreciate it all the more.

We'll be back at Charger on Monday; in the meantime, we decided to try Grand Bend Community Association campground in Howe, Indiana, 25 miles (we thought) from Elkhart. Well...there's a long detour which increased the mileage to nearly 35 and took us through Shipshewana. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. Shipshewana is definitely Amish and directed toward tourists. We encountered any number of horse-drawn conveyances of various descriptions. Passing them wasn't an issue; they drive on the far right of the road and traffic was fairly light. Huge farms with clothes drying in the sun and beautiful horses in the paddocks were everywhere, as were produce stands.

The campground was a most pleasant surprise. We have 50 amp service for the first time since leaving Black Rock in April. We're parked on grass with soybean fields on both sides of the road.

We're grateful for 50 amps; the air conditioning is optomized with that service. A very nice lady came by on a golf cart and charged us $17.12 for two nights with our Passport America card; that card is by far the best bargain in camping. Everyone has been most friendly.

We're due in Elkhart at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Today we're going to explore a shorter route. There's the Indiana turnpike, but no telling what that would cost with a 38-foot motorhome towing a 3/4 ton pickup carrying an ATV!