Celina, OH
We left St. Charles, MO on Sunday morning (7/7) and headed east on I-70 across Illinois into Indiana. Our destination was Lake Haven Retreat, a small RV park just south of the I-465 beltway around Indianapolis. We booked a site for two nights to allow us a little time for a quick look at the city of Indianapolis and to visit with Jill Ellis and her family. Jill taught at the same high school in York, PA with John and she and her family are now living in Carmel, just north of Indianapolis.
On Tuesday we did a quick drive through tour of the city, taking a look at some of the famous sites, like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The Speedway offers various tours but, since we are not racing fans (and have never watched the 500) we just took a drive around the outside of the facility. But we could feel the Jeep pulling toward the big oval begging for a high speed lap!
Driving through the downtown, we passed Lukas Oil Field, home to the NFL Colts and the 2012 Super Bowl. Its a beautiful facility just south of the downtown area.
On the drive from the downtown to Carmel, we stopped for a quick look at the campus of Butler University.
If you follow NCAA basketball, you’ve heard of Butler and their very successful men’s basketball program. They have been highly ranked the last few years and their coach, Brad Stevens, was recently named head coach of the Boston Celtics.
We continued north to the cool city of Carmel, where we met Jill, her husband Jamie, and their daughter Paige, at a local restaurant.
We had a great time catching up on life in the Ellis family in their new home town and some things going on back in York, PA. After our meal Jamie and Paige headed home. Apparently Jamie has a job and was tired from a hard day. We didn’t realized that some people really have a job they go to every day! Jill then took Pam and John on a great tour of the town of Carmel. Many thanks to the Ellis family for their hospitality. We were very impressed with their new home town and plan to return some day for a longer visit to see more of the sights.
On Wednesday we headed north on I-69, headed to Celina, OH. The small town of Celina is the site of an RV repair/renovation shop called Cruising America. Its a small facility owned by Kevin Mallory, a former employee of Fleetwood, the maker of our motorhome. We met Kevin and his assistant, John, at a rally during our first year of living in the motorhome and have stopped at his shop a few times before for some enhancements to our coach. We had a couple of little things that needed some attention so we decided to pay Kevin and John a visit and enjoy the ambiance of their parking facility for a couple of nights.
Our “site” at Cruising America. We couldn’t locate the pool or the hot tub!
Today (Thursday), while waiting for a part to arrive for the coach, we headed about ten miles east to the town of Wapekaneta, OH to visit a museum. Of course, everyone has heard of Wapekaneta, but for those who have forgotten why, it is the boyhood home of Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon.
The museum is small but it has a nice assortment of items from Armstrong’s life and the space programs. Armstrong was an astronaut involved in the Gemini and Apollo programs, so much of the information focuses on those programs.
Two famous American astronauts from Ohio
Armstrong’s Apollo 11 space suit.
It weighs 190 pounds on earth but only 32 pounds on the moon.
Our repairs are now complete so tomorrow we will head east to Canton, OH. Look for a blog on our visit there real soon . . .
Oh, the Places They Go! 
Maybe you can meet up with Paul and Marsha Weaver! Such nice people. I’m glad you enjoyed your little tour of Indy (our home town). We sure do like it……unless it is snowing, raining or hot with high humidity! lol…..
Nan, that is too funny. One of the reasons for this route is to visit the Weaver’s! We are headed there today. Can’t wait to see them again.
You will be just south of us – we’re right between Akron and Canton. Enjoy the beautiful weekend, but watch for road closures from the flooding yesterday…
Thanks, DJ! Hopefully our roads will be fine. The flooding made the national news.
So glad the repairs are done. That’s the main thing I dread about this RV lifestyle, especially traveling with 4 pups! So far, so good! I did meet Dave and Lewis this morning. I had walked by with Sally several times, but they were never out or were gone. I’m not one to be knocking on RV doors!
Safe travels!
I can’t imagine having repairs done with four dogs. But people do it. You just find a dog friendly area for the day I guess. Hope the luck stays with you!
Glad you got to meet Dave and Lewis. Lewis is so cute.
Enjoy the rest of your time there.
You can’t go wrong with Kevin. I have belonged to the American Coach Yahoo Group for nearly two years, due to our American Eagle that we just traded in, and Kevin has helped a good many people who have asked questions in the group, and many who traveled to Ohio, or met him in Arizona or some other place for an American Coach group gathering. Had we kept the Eagle, we probably would have made it to Ohio ourselves….but that is water under the bridge now. Hope it all goes well.
Dave (Marcia and Bubba and Skruffy)
GoingRvWay.com
We totally agree about Kevin. Glad we met him at our first rally. He and John have done lots of upgrades and other projects. They put in our residential frig. Now they are doing a ton of them.
We did the same thing in February … visited the service shop of a former worker of our RV brand — in our case, in Red Bay, AL — home of Tiffin RVs. Like you, we stayed in the parking lot to get the work done. There is an advantage to going to such service shops as they are intimately familiar with the rigs made in their former plants.
That’s exactly why we return to Ohio to have these upgrades and small repairs made. Also, because John has great faith in their ability.
How nice to have a personal tour guide. I am sure John really enjoyed meeting up with an old friend.
So excited to see you two. I had to laugh at Nan’s comment about MAYBE you can meet up with us. You would be in BIG trouble if you passed this way and didn’t meet up with us. See you two real soon.
Lots of our friends do the same thing–head to Red Bay with their Tiffin rigs–for repairs. Me, I just carry along my mechanic for our 1995 Country Coach.
Now that’s perfect, Janna! John is extremely handy but somethings need that real tech.
Paying close attention to your stops in Indiana and Ohio as we have plans to pass through there on our way to Niagara Falls in October. Vic definitely wants to visit the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton as he made special trips to the baseball and basketball halls of fame a few years ago.
Only two days for repairs? That sounds incredible after our nineteen day stay in Red Bay. Sounds like you found a gem of a guy there.
Pam: We just left Cicero, IN this morning heading to South Bend, IN. In our short stay north of Indianapolis in Cicero we found this “hidden gem” of a County Park CG just north of Carmel named White River Campground. I will be posting a review on it tomorrow… Check it out the next time you are coming through Indie area…..
We are not racing fans but we did flew to Indiana for the Indy 500 and boy was I amazed. It was one of those things to be checkoff our bucket list.
We keep note of these excellent tech to do repairs for who knows they might be on our way when we need things done. We visited one in Oregon, Elite Repair, a referral from Wheeling It who did fixed our air dump issue.