Focht Family Blog

We made reservations at the Lake Lanier Islands Resort Campground because we are now members of Passport America which gives you deals on campgrounds. We chose this because it was near my brother’s house and because Sawnee the COE campground that we usually stay at was closed for the season. We drove in and had to pay $8 at the gate to get on the island. It was 10pm so they gave us a map to our sites. We drove up very narrow roads in the dark and the rain looking for the sites. It was very difficult for Nathan to keep the RV and the trailer on the road. We got to the sites and decided to look at them before just pulling in. Good thing!

Mom’s site had an exposed wire box. We thought maybe we could just not hook her up for the night and have them fix it the next morning but then we looked at our site next to hers and there was a large branch hanging low enough on our site that at best it would have scraped the coach up and at worst it would have gone through the windshield. Both combined we decided it wasn’t worth the money even with the discount. We drove back out, I got a refund of the $8 and we stayed at Walmart for the two days we were there visiting my brother. My brother was driving to Alabama on Thursday to take a second look at a bus they were considering buying so we decided to head to the Boro a week early and surprise Nathan’s parents.

Mom and I finally found something we couldn’t do with a 40′ RV as your car. While in Boone, we decided we would go to Linville Caverns and then do some gem mining in Linville. We got on the road that it said to take. We made it to Blowing Rock and then turned onto the road and it said not advisable for vehicles longer than 35′. Thankfully there was a parking lot we could turn around in so we made it back to town, had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and then went back to where Nathan was working and caught up on school work.

The next day, I cured myself of being bothered by driving a large vehicle. Up till then I only drove the RV with the trailer hooked on when we were on the highways. We decided to check out early and planned to drive to Atlanta once Nathan was done with work for the day so we dropped Nathan off and I drove the RV and the trailer to a shopping center parking lot. We did school that morning, then went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (kid’s favorite). Then I had to find an immediate med center to take Josh to because the night before Samantha had shut his thumb in the bathroom door. I called his pediatrician and they said to have it x-rayed to make sure it wasn’t broken. I had to find a place to park close to the hospital. It ended up not being broken but the doctor said he would probably lose the nail.

Next Nathan started driving but then had to go to the bathroom. We switched at the last light before the mountains. I ended up driving through the winding mountain roads that were a bit narrow and it was so foggy you could only see about 100 feet in front of you. Needless to say, I am a lot more comfortable with driving the RV and trailer together now! :)

We decided to pick a halfway point for our travels from Indiana to North Carolina so we stayed a couple of nights in Berea, Kentucky. it is about 20 miles from my Aunt Beth. We got into town late on Friday so on Saturday we went into town and had lunch at a very nice restaurant called Boone Tavern and then we went in search of a laundromat and a Walmart. After doing the laundry and restocking the groceries we traveled to my Aunt’s house. My Aunt works in the International Affairs office at the local college and she has two borders living with her. One is from China and one is from Ireland. They were both very nice. We had dinner with them and then went back to the campground. We left relatively early on Sunday and traveled to Boone, North Carolina where we checked into the local KOA. We will be here until Wednesday. I will try to update if we do anything while in Boone.

Thursday my mother-in-law called to let us know there were large storms with tornadoes around Indianapolis. We told her not to worry because we were well north of that in a little town called Nappanee. Well…. wouldn’t you know that Thursday night the storms were knocking at our door. We were watching the local news and when we saw a large storm cell with circulation coming towards us we left the RV and went in search of the local storm shelter. We got to the church but it was locked. We drove to the fire station and they said that they were just heading to the church to open it. We were the first ones in the basement.

They had a toy room for the kids so they were playing in there and were happy until we heard the words… tornado on the ground! We didn’t have any more information than that and then they lost power so the lights all went out. We sat for awhile until they said the storm cell had past us. We decided to go back to the RV at least temporarily because I was starting to have an asthma attack from all of the animals that were brought into the shelter. Once back at the RV we found out that there was one more storm cell heading for us but it only had hail in it so we stayed put.

The next morning we got up early in case they were going to come and get the RV for service. There were a few RV’s there that woke up and had no idea what had happened the night before. There was no damage at Newmar but down the street a couple of miles there was quite a bit of damage. They had a boil water order and a state of emergency for the town the next day. The weather service determined that the tornado that hit was a F3 and it left a path of about 15 miles of damage.

Embrace the Pace is the motto for Nappanee, Indiana. I have been taking this motto to heart the last two weeks and have not been on here to update on our doings. We arrived in Nappanee last Saturday. We have been here ever since getting small repairs done on the RV. I cannot say enough nice things about the employees at Newmar. The only bad thing has been the early morning wake-up calls. They come and get the RV at 6:00 AM and we have to be out until about 2:00-3:00 PM.

Since being here we have net a nice Amish man who has been working on our coach. He is the one who comes and gets it every morning. He gave us a card for a bookstore that his wife and him were opening last weekend so on Saturday we went to their farm and spent quite a bit at their bookstore, Little Nook Bookstore. It was a very nice, well-stocked store and we bought a couple of books for each kid plus some puzzles and some hand-carved wooden trains for each of the boys. Next we went to the Farmers Market which is a huge wooden barn looking building that was all constructed by hand. AMAZING building!! Then we went to a corn maze that was really fun!! Nathan pulled all of the kids behind him in a cart that they supplied so he was a bit tired when we were done. It was 10 acres of corn.

Last night we were at the Inn at Amish Acres because our RV was being painted so they couldn’t give it back to us last night. During the day we walked over to Amish Acres and fed a bull that was in a fence between the two. Other than lack of sleep we have had a wonderful time here and have had the opportunities to socialize with other Newmar owners.