5 Aug 2025 - Arrived at Camp Atterbury IN

 

This morning at 0915 hrs we said goodbye and thank you to our Alliance factory friends and headed southbound on Hwy 31 past Indianapolis to Edinburgh and Camp Atterbury which is an Army National Guard training base. 

They have a nice campground on base called Whitaker Place.  We have camped here many times before, usually transitory as there is not much to see or do right around here unless you drive up to Indianapolis.   We have toured their museum and outside display before.  You can read more about it in the 2016 blog.  The history of Camp Atterbury is pretty interesting including it's use as a POW camp back during World War II.  

Recently, Camp Atterbury has been in the news for its potential use as a temporary housing site for immigrant detainees, according to The Republic News and YouTube. 

We rolled into Whitaker Place at 1328 hrs after driving just 210 miles today.  We stopped once to stretch and use our mobile "facilities"!  As we drove in we were greeted by a friendly camp host who gave us our site assignment, key to the laundry facility and our receipt.  It is a very smooth process now compared to how it used to be where we had to drive our rig to a separate building, park, go inside and check-in.  This is really nice now.

Whitaker Place is not fancy, but it is a nice campground with many pull-through sites, 50 amp full hook-up, dedicated laundry facility and free firewood!  The sites are widely spaced.  

Playground and stacks of free firewood!

We had one "casualty" thanks to the rough roads today.  Back in February 2020 when our coach was made, Alliance put a paper sign on the pinbox and as it transitioned through assembly, the technicians that built it signed the paper!  Then that document was included in our packet when the coach shipped.  We framed it and hung it on the wall.  Well, the mount rattled loose and the glass broke on the floor.  It did not harm the document, so we will find a frame with Plexiglas and remount it.

Here is a picture of our frame when they were just starting to build our coach and you can see the document on the pinbox.

Interesting story about that document.  Every year since Alliance started in January 2020, they have an annual rally in Elkhart or Goshen IN.   It started in August 2020 with about 40 or so coaches there and has grown to nearly 400 this year.  We have attended them all.  Prior to the rally you can submit a list of up to three items that you want Alliance to repair on your coach.  Alliance shuts down part of their production operation to provided the needed staff to perform the repairs.  So we've had some of the production staff in our coach over the years working on stuff, and it's awesome when they recognize their own signature on our document! They are so proud to see their work several years later looking mighty fine and happy owners too!   I really wanted to try and get all of those who signed it in a picture holding the document, but that is just logistically unrealistic.  

So we are only here two nights as we make our way down to our grandson's basic training graduation.  Tomorrow Doreen is planning to do some laundry and I'm not sure what I am going to do.  We are both tired from some very early mornings, so we will likely take it easy and get ready to head further south to our next stop, Frankfort KY.  We might take advantage of the free firewood and stoke up a blaze!