Nappanee, Indiana

We headed to Nappanee Indiana to get some maintenance for Julie at the “Mothership” (as many Newmar owners call the Newmar Factory/Service Center - LOL).  This was originally scheduled for March, but  due to Coronavirus, it was rescheduled for August.  Lots of RV factory/service Centers in this area of the country.

The week before that, our first stop in Nappanee was at Wood Designs RV, where we had adjustable pullout shelving installed in our pantry & kitchen cabinets.  It makes a huge difference with these deep shelves making the space so much more useable - no more lost items in the back of the cabinets.

Love my pull out shelves!

Newmar has a nice campground for you to stay in while they service your coach during the day.  We wondered what we would do in & around Nappanee During our time there, we found out it was a neat town and there was lots to see/do in the area.

Indiana / Elkhart county have beautiful flowers ( not wilting in the summer heat as they are in Texas this time of year).  The county has “Quilt Square Gardens” planted in the cities... we got around to see a few of them, huge and very pretty

John suggested I stand by this one to better see how large this quilt square garden was,

The library hosted a walking tour of Nappanee that we joined one evening.  

The highlight of that was getting to see the old town movie theatre.

Reminded John of the old threatre in his hometown, 

except for the Yellow tape marking social distancing for seating!

This Nappanee original movie theatre opened in 1926.

Old huge reels and camera are stored in the balcony area - guy that owns the place now talked about working there as a kid and lugging tons of film upstairs and splicing film together, changing reels etc..

Hall of Heroes -  Super Hero Museum - Elkhart, IN

Lots of memorabilia 

John and his Super hero friends - LOL 

Items from the movies, motorcycle from Ghost Rider, 

car from Iron Man, and Captain America shield signed by the Cast

These were donated to them.

  Sculptures throughout downtown Nappanee - 

primarily made of old bike parts

The “Woodland Creatures” park 

with a really nice trail complete with animals and fairy houses.

There were many “Fairy houses” throughout the park trail 

This “dog pound” art used to be downtown, Was relocated to a local park 

Sculptures made of all kinds of scrap metal

We enjoyed several bike rides along the Pumpkinvine Trail

It’s  one of three trails (the MapleHeart Trail, Wilden Avenue Trail and the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail) that connect Elkhart, Goshen, Middlebury and Shipshewana. The total distance from Elkhart to Shipshewana is 25 miles. 

Krider Garden - neat park we visited off the Pumpkinvine Trail 

There are lots of great places to eat in Nappanee and surrounding towns - 

And since it is also 3rd largest Amish community in the US, there were lots of great Amish bakeries and restaurants!  It was neat seeing the horse and buggies on the roads... one fully loaded with a family.

We had huge delicious biscuits for breakfast that are baked in a pan like a cake with sausage gravy - yum!

Pic outside of RHUE 152 restaurant in Nappanee, 

also a microbrewery - very good!

Rocket Science Ice Cream

Handcrafted ice cream made from scratch with liquid nitrogen - yummy! 

Your Choice of a preselected classic flavor menu or Make your own creation

Our first night in the Newmar Service Center campground we parked next to a couple from Florida, (the wife was originally from Gautier, MS!), we enjoyed hanging out with them over the week we were there.

They had RAD electric bikes we have been looking at.. got to test ride them, and John was able to show them our drone which they had been looking at and let them test fly it.

Goodbye Nappanee Newmar Service Center. 

(Thanks to Shelia for the departing video!)