Friday June 12, 2009-Heartland rally-Goshen Indiana

It was very cool again this morning but at least it wasn't raining. We went to the rally hall this morning for an early morning seminar presented by Lippert, Heartland's frame builder. They also furnished a continental breakfast of coffee and donuts, which everyone was glad to get.

The seminar was actually more about Lippert's new leveling system for fifth wheel trailers. They sell two variations of the system, one a rear only system consisting of four hydraulic lifting legs, two behind the wheels and two in front of the wheels. These act as the stabilizing legs and extend at a 5% angle to eliminate sway and selling for $2,000. The second system available is the front jacks that replace the electric jacks furnished on the coach and selling for $800 plus labor. I would love to have the complete system on my trailer.

After the seminar, I went into the "marketplace" area of the rally hall to look at some of the gadgets and goods being offered there. I bought the last hummingbird design stained glass window for the door to the trailer from a vendor there. The vendor is John Joseph's wife, who also represents Passport America. I brought the new door glass back to the trailer and hung out for the rest of the morning. I didn't have the necessary parts to install the glass in the door.

There were more seminars during the morning that Stella attended, one on the maintenance of Dometic appliances, Flair Industries on cleaning and caring for the furniture in our coaches and the final seminar this morning on the Apollo Half-Time oven. She said she got a lot from these seminars.

We ate a lunch of Subway sandwiches that were furnished for us in the rally hall. Stella and I walked over and looked at the two new trailers on display, a Landmark Grand Canyon and a Bighorn 3410RE. The Grand Canyon is the newest model in the Landmark line and very interesting to us. We both agreed that this is a model that we would like to have if we were in a position to buy a trailer of this size and weight. The Bighorn model is an interesting design, with a television that lifts up out of a cabinet at the back window. It is nice but not something we are interested in.

I stopped off at another vendor's booth and bought some quick connections for my water lines. We returned to the trailer to rest up and visit with our friends until we left for the evening meal at the Blue Gate restaurant in Shipshewanna. This is another Amish family-style restaurant, but a full-on sit down restaurant. The food here was similar to Yoder's, chicken, meat loaf, veggies, mashed potatoes and noodles with a choice of five pies for dessert. We found that this place is much better than Yoder's and we all enjoyed our meal.

On the way to the restaurant we went into a leather shop in the building next to the Blue Gate. They make and display leather goods, and had some very old saddles from the 1800's and some new items that they had made right here in their shop. They had some large leather-bound trunks that are built in the old style to hold a saddle and tack for horse shows. They are very pretty and made very well with the tight joints in the wooden box and saddle racks inside the box. They are being made for a large horse show next year in Louisville Ky. This shopkeeper is not Amish, but buys his basic boxes from a local Amish carpenter and merely finishes the boxes in the leather for sale.

After our meal, we returned home and just about all went in early tonight, very full and ready for bed.