When Your Brand New RV Needs Repairs

When last we wrote, we were on the way to Indiana through many states.  Which states you ask?  Let me share….Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee,  Missouri, Illinois and finally Indiana.  What a complete crazy time we have had.  As you know, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, we do NOT like to travel this way.  We love staying in places no less than 2 weeks.  But, we had to be in Indiana by March 20th.

While we were traveling to Indiana, we celebrated our 22 year anniversary in Champaign, Illinois at D & W Lake Camping & RV park.  We were only there for 1 night.  It’s a 52 year old family owned RV park.  It was 39 degrees when we arrived, and it was raining, but it was beautiful!!!  We were right on the lake!  The owner, Matt, was the nicest guy.  I highly recommend that if you are driving through Champaign, IL, this is a must stop RV park. 

As a reminder, we had to be in Indiana for an appointment with MORryde International to get independent suspension and disc brakes.  That was a very interesting experience.  They let us sleep in the RV which was in a HUGE bay where they do all the work.  We had to be out of the RV by 6:00 am two mornings in a row.  How did we sleep, you might ask?  We DIDN’T!!!  MORryde is a company that has workers 24/7.  There were no less than 5 RVs being worked on at all times. Thank goodness I use earplugs.  Poor Jerry though… Not so much.  

Are we complaining?  Absolutely not.  This company is amazing and the customer service was incredible.  We were fed lunch every day, and were able to hang out in a lovely lobby and relax. We even got to play tourist one day and went to the RV museum!  How cool this was.  We got to see RVs from the 1920’s all the way to present day.  I actually saw the trailer manufacturer that my parents used in the 80’s when they lived this lifestyle.  We thought their travel trailer was really cool, and that was back in the day!  My parents would completely geek out if they saw what we are living in now!  

A very cool thing happened while hanging out in the lobby of MORryde!  We reached our 200th YouTube subscriber!  We met Mr. 200, Curt, while we were all hanging out waiting on our RVs.  He’s a full-time RVer as well.  We were so excited, we interviewed him and gave him one of our Just One More t-shirts.  You’ll meet Curt later in an upcoming vlog!!  In the meantime, meet Curt:  https://maddawg.us

The work was completed on the 23rd and we drove immediately to Grand Design, the manufacturer of our RV.  Elkhart, IN is the home of most manufacturers of RVs.   We had a LONG list of things that have broken or have never worked from day 1 in the RV.  Of course, we only have a 1 year manufacturer warranty and needed to get these things fixed before June 30th.  Since we had the appointment at MORryde (which we booked in March of 2021, and yes it was a year out for an appointment.  That’s how busy this place is), we worked with our customer service person from Grand Design and she was able to get us an appointment on the 24th. 

They actually have RV parking with hook-ups, so we stayed there Wednesday night and had to check in at 6:00 am (again!!!  3 mornings in a row of getting up at 5:00 am). We went over the list and actually added a few more things that needed repairing.  They said, no problem with everything!

The next morning we went two miles up the road for breakfast in Michigan.  Just added another state to our travels!  The areas we were in were White Pigeon and Three Rivers MI.  

In Three Rivers we found a beautiful covered bridge and the coolest coffee shop called Leslie Ann’s Coffee.  It’s a family owned business.  We had a great conversation with Jerry the owner and his daughter Amy.  They have owned this business for 22 years.  This place was so cool we ended up hanging out for over an hour.  Everyone knew each other and they treated us like a local. I have to say, we will be coming back to Michigan in 2023 to really explore more of the state. It’s just beautiful!

We are completely blown away at the customer service from Grand Design.  Both Jerry and I got a bit emotional when they told us they would take very good care of us and fix everything on the list.  Some of the items that they had to fix were the stove, a recliner, the living room slide outs and many many more things that are too long to share.  They actually replaced the stove and recliner with brand new ones!  Because there was so much work to be done, they put us up in a hotel on Thursday evening. 

We stayed at the Essenhaus Inn in Middlebury IN.  It is an Amish Hotel, and quite beautiful, but NO alcohol is allowed on the property!  Even in the rooms.  We’ve never seen that before.  It’s not such a big deal to us as we are so exhausted and completely out of our routine that one drink would have knocked us out.  It’s that we just have never experienced being told we can’t drink in a hotel room.

The area is beautiful!  We drove around looking at the different farms and were treated to watching numerous Amish folks riding their horses and buggies.  The horse farms were incredible, the horses were beyond stunning and HUGE.  People here are incredibly laid back and so friendly.  They go out of their way to make you feel welcomed. 

For the first time in a very long time, I actually feel at peace now that everything is done, and that we have been taken such good care of by both companies.  It’s like we have a brand new RV and can really relax and enjoy our adventures.  Not that we haven’t been enjoying ourselves, but these appointments have been hanging over our heads for 8 months.  

Another exciting part of this adventure in Indiana, is we will be visiting Connie in Speedway, who I met while working for WW (Weight Watchers) on my Zoom meetings.  It’s been 2 years since we met on Zoom and we will be meeting in person when this blog comes out.  How cool is that??  

Just One More…morning I can actually sleep past 5:00 am.