Our RV Adventures

It was a quiet day at work, so I thought I’d do a repost of one of Jan and mine’s favorite museums, The Auburn-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, IN, with a tour of the Fleetwood factory in Decatur, IN thrown in

October 30, 2009

Today was an early day…a VERY early day.

We got up at 5:30 AM and left the rig in our toad about 6 am on a 130 mile trip south to Decatur, IN.  We wanted to be there by 9 am to take the American Coach factory tour at their plant.  We left early because the weather was pretty bad, with a lot of rain and wind. With all the wind, I was glad we weren’t in the rig.

But before we hit the Interstate, we stopped off at McDonalds for a quick breakfast sandwich.

We got to the American Coach plant in Decatur about 8:45 am, right on time.

We were really surprised to see how full the parking lot was, considering the condition of the RV industry.

After filling out a form, a gentleman named Tom came by to be our tour guide.  Unfortunately we were not able to take pictures inside the facility, but it’s really amazing how the RV’s are put together.

In this case American Coach starts out with a pre-built chassis/engine combination from Spartan Chassis that looks like this.

These are complete ready to run units just waiting for an RV to be built on top of them.

The floor and the walls are built up from welded aluminum tubing that form a single unit. Then the carpet / tile / wood flooring is added and the cabinets / furniture are installed. Finally, the roof is put on and the rig is moved into the paint area to be painted and striped.

It takes about a week from start to finish to build a rig and roll it out the door.  They are presently building about 30 rigs a week, around 1500 a year, and at this point business is increasing by about 5 more rigs a month.  Good news for the RV industry.

Our tour took a little over an hour, and after it was over, we drove over to American Coach Service to buy some parts for my coach.

Leaving there, we headed about 30 mile south back to Celina, OH where we were a month ago for the Gypsy Journal Rally.  We wanted to eat lunch at  La Carreta, a Mexican restaurant that we really enjoyed while we were there.

After lunch we started back toward Elkhart, stopping in Auburn, IN to visit the Auburn – Cord – Duesenberg Museum.

Founded in 1874, the Eckhart Carriage Company was a successful manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages. Frank Eckhart had not only the foresight but also the engineering ability to steer the buggy company into the “Age of the Automobile.” His Auburn Automobile Company prospered, particularly after E.L. Cord was brought in to run the business. Cord was both inventive and astute, and in 1929 created his own company, which, among other things, bought out the Duesenberg Automobile Co.

Despite the enthusiastic public response, sales were disappointing. The estimated production figure of 500 cars per year was never matched and eventually only 481 Model Js were constructed. Being extremely expensive, the Model J was popular with the rich and famous. Among the owners were many greats from the showbiz industry like Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, James Cagney and Greta Garbo. Various kings and queens were Model J owners as well. Part of the Duesenberg legend is based on the many famous owners.

Styling and engineering failed to overcome the fact that Cord’s vehicles were too expensive for the Depression-era market and that Cord’s stock manipulations would force him to give up control of his car companies. Under injunction from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to refrain from further violations, Cord sold his shares in his automobile holding company. In 1937, production of Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs ended.

The building that now houses the Museum was the original Art Deco headquarters / showroom of the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg automobiles, and it’s beautiful in its own right.

And the inside is even more outstanding.

I won’t bore you with all the details. I’ll just show you pictures of these beautiful automobiles.

Leaving the museum we drove back to Elkhart through more heavy wind and rain.

And arriving back about 5 pm, we immediately headed out to dinner at Ryan’s with Nick and Terry.

Tomorrow we start getting ready to leave here on Sunday afternoon.

Thought for the Day: 

Denny’s has a slogan, “If it’s your birthday, the meal is on us.” If you’re in Denny’s and it’s your birthday, your life probably sucks!

fgd

Jan and I headed out about 1pm to first have lunch at Yummy Yummy, probably the best Chinese Buffet we’ve eaten at in our travels around the country. If not the best, certainly in the top three, or even two.

Then after a yummy meal we headed up to the Clear Lake area, first with a stop at the office to take care of a small problem that they called about this morning, and also to pick up my Disc Rotors that came in, along with my new lug nuts.

And once I picked one up it as easy to see why they were shipped in two separate packages, since they weigh almost 25 pounds each. Glad the shipping was free with Prime. And even with all that, at $84 for the set, they were $34 cheaper than I could purchase them for locally.

After a couple of more stops, we headed home, with a Costco stop for a fill-up. Nice to see gas was another 5¢ to $2.11 per gallon. Nice.

Long-time readers will remember my experimenting with making my own magnetic shades for our RV.

Years before I had purchased a set of RV Quick Shades while at one of Nick Russell’s late, lamented Gypsy Gathering Rally’s. They were held to the inside of the windshield and side windows with silicone suction cups.

They stayed up pretty well, but due to the height and backwards rake of our windshield, they were not easy to install. And due to the fact they were on the inside and not the outside, they still let a lot of heat in.

I always like the idea of the Magne Shades, but a set for our RV was over $1000.

Ouch.

So I decided somewhere along the line to make my own set. by converting my Quick Shades to magnetic ones. The problem was finding some magnets that would be strong enough. After a lot searching, I found some on Amazon that were about the diameter of a dime and about the thickness of 4 dimes. Like this.

I figured that I would use a bunch of smaller ones, across the top and bottom. And if worked . . . kind of. But after the first big wind/rainstorm pulled them off, it was obvious that I needed more magnets.

But when I went back to Amazon, I found they were no longer available. Turns out that the FTC/FDA had been cracking down on these small, very powerful magnets because small children would swallow them and then the magnets get stuck to each other in the child’s intestine and problems, including death.

So I continued to use them occasionally, but finally gave it up as a lost cause

But recently I came across some magnets that looked like they would work.

They’re about the size of a half dollar, and very, very strong. Plus they  have a recessed hole for a mounting bolt. So I stripped off the old magnets and then bolted the new magnets to the shades. Then I mounted the ones on the inside of the windows using clear Gorilla tape.

And this is the result.

But on the door window, I did use the old shade and the silicone suction cups to mount the old Quick Shade, but mounted on the outside.

And boy do they work. Where the rig AC would normally run all day recently, it now cycles on and off, and that will hopefully save us money on our power bill.

Plus we had a really heavy rainstorm last night, and all the shades stayed put.

Success!

Thought for the Day: 

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

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