Its always fun traveling on Interstate 80, because you get to see so many trucks and so much traffic all on one drive! But its also nice to get to your destination, because after what seemed like 6 hours, but was really only 3, we arrived at Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds and were pleased to find that we could have a site with no neighbors. Yes, we mean NO neighbors at all. The Fairgrounds, which are on the edge of Goshen, Indiana, are quite large, dwarfing our local DuPage County Fairgrounds, has many exhibit areas, buildings, and even a harness race track. Although they have upwards of 200 campers here, we were able to get a site on the far side of the race track with no neighbors. We are not hermits, really, but the pets prefer fewer strange noises. Here is the view alongside the RV.
And about 50 yards behind us, the race course where we saw several harness horses being exercised. There are no races til October but there are a number of horses here being trained, so we are able to watch them from the comfort of our lawn chairs just outside our front door. It's cool.
But the campground was far from empty. They are in fact hosting a rally for 1970's era GMC Motor Coaches. These 23 or 26 foot long coaches were all built using the Oldsmobile Toronado's engine (455 cubes) and front wheel drive transmission; All have dual axles in back. Ahead of its time in styling and paint schemes, 13,000 were made over several years, and the models were named after national parks. If you think back to the boxy RV's of the mid 70's, these look much more modern.
This annual rally has attracted over 400 members of the national collectors club, but this one had only about 150. Many were restored to like new condition, and had added a number of amenities. One gentleman invited us inside to see his coach which was surprisingly spacious and with plenty of headroom.
We went to the Shipshewana Flea Market today and bought some stuff that we never knew we needed - funny how that happens, isn't it? Got some peaches that look yummy but are very hairy so we'll see. They need to ripen for about a day.
Tomorrow we go to the Newmar factory and who knows what else. We're just a couple of crazy kids with no deadlines to meet. Uh huh.
The motorhomes look neat. I'm pretty sure that transmission they use is a TH425, the same one in my caddy.
ReplyDeleteI remember when the Toronado came out and it was said that it has a very strong transmisson, even though it was FWD. So I guess your Caddy should last a while yet! ha! One fellow told me the RV's had few problems with engine or trans, and most of them haul a toad too.
ReplyDeleteYeah, its basically a TH400 with about a 2 inch wide chain driving the output shaft. They were pretty much bulletproof.
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