3 Aug 2025 - Arrived at Alliance Factory Elkhart IN and Dinner with the Mills

 

Early to bed, early to rise.  We rolled at 0500 hrs and bugged out of the Kamp Komfort RV Park this morning at 0610 hrs CDT, heading towards Elkhart IN.  There is no good direct route there from here.  I-80 through Joliet and the south side of Chicago is terrible, so rather than rattling the trim boards off, destroying the suspension and dislodging appliances, so we took a few Illinois and Indiana back roads and county roads to get here.  We had traveled these roads previously so it was really a nice early morning drive through the corn and bean field of Illinois. There was no traffic to speak of and it was smooth sailing.  

After a few potty stops and 252 miles later, we arrived at the Alliance RV factory at 1215 hrs EDT.  As explained before, they have five camping spots specifically for those customers who are here for service work.  The Alliance team starts very early, in fact they want our camper in front of Door 19 at Plant #4 at 0600 hrs tomorrow morning,  So this will be relatively short and sweet tonight!

After we got set-up here at the factory,  we headed out to a local restaurant called the "Flippin Cow" for a late lunch/early dinner with some Alliance friends of ours, Trent and Yvonne Mills.  Trent is a retired contractor for NASA, so interesting conversations there!  We last saw Trent and Yvonne at the Alliance Rally here in May, and then again at the Michigan Rally in June.  From the Michigan Rally Doreen and I headed up the U.P. and down to Wisconsin, and the Mills headed out on a trip through Canada (Yvonne is from Canada originally).  Their coach is now at the factory, lovingly called "The Mothership",  having a few things done to it, so they are staying at a local hotel in the mean time.  We had some great conversation and great food - way too much food!! 

From there we took a swing through the Elkhart Campground to see if there were any "Allies" there we recognized, and then we headed back to the factory.  It is pretty cool camping here at the Alliance Factory.  The campus is massive.  This is an old picture but they now have four plants plus a lamination plant and a parts warehouse, with a fifth plant being built right now.  When our coach was built in February 2020 they have one plant!  Wow! 

You can see construction in the background of the picture above and that is the site work for Plant #5!  Across the drive from us is Plant #4 and outside each of the Plants are racks and racks of materials used to build the various models of RV's - and now boats!  Yes, this is now the home for Alera Marine.  They are producing tri-hull pontoon boats here!  We took Liberty on a long walk tonight, although there is not a lot of grass here!  A few pictures on our walk:

Frames for Valor toy haulers.

Racks of materials, such as welded extrusions, compartment doors, etc

Plant #4 across from us.  That is far as we have to go tomorrow!!

An RV frame waiting to be built

Racks of Fiberglas front caps

Pontoons waiting to be assembled

An Alera pontoon boat ready to go

Not sure how this pontoon ended up on the asphalt!

Pallets of potties!

Racks of acles

Compartment doors and frames

Racks of entrance doors

That is about it for today.  Again tomorrow, early rise to get the coach in front of door 19 by 0600 hrs!  I thought I was supposed to be on vacation!  

OBTW, our grandson Lucas completed White Phase of Army Basic Training at Ft Jackson SC and now starts Blue Phase.  Our daughter Jennifer (him mom) got a call this weekend and in Blue Phase among other things, he will throw a few grenades!! Yeah buddy!!  Kick some ass!  See you soon!

More tomorrow night!