Chapter 14, Newmar factory tour and bad weather

 After leaving Madison, Wisconsin, we drove to Nappanee, Indiana which is where our motorhome was made at the Newmar motorhome factory.  We wanted to visit the factory and go on a tour.  

The bad news is that they wouldn't allow photographs so we couldn't take any pictures of the amazing facility.

The good news is that they have a video tour on line that I was able to capture some photos from to show you a little about what we experienced.

The factory employs over 800 people and the town of Nappanee has basically grown up around the factory and the people either work at the factory or work in businesses that support the factory and related activities like stores and other services needed by all communities.

We arrived in Nappanee the day before our tour was scheduled and spent the night at the Newmar factory parking lot. We arrived a day early because they wanted us at the Newmar headquarters building by 7 AM to begin the tour. Work starts at the factory at 6 AM.

After watching a brief orientation video, all of the tour participants piled onto a party bus and began the tour. There were about 10 people on the tour and all of them owned Newmar motorhomes. The tour bus drove all around the town, pointing out various buildings where components of the motorhomes  were manufactured.

The first stop on the tour was a very large parking lot where they stored all of the bare chassis assemblies that the motorhomes are built on. There had to be at least 50 very large chassis.

The chassis are manufactured by Spartan, Freightliner and Mercedes. They come as a complete assembly that is driveable. The front instrument panel wiring and instrumentation are installed along with the steering mechanism. Steering wheels are not installed and the dashboard assemblies are not installed because they are manufactured by Newmar and installed during the motorhome manufacturing process.

The chassis assemblies are driven into the first assembly building, which is the welding shop.  Here, precise jigs are used to hold large metal beams in position as welders attach them to the underlying chassis. These jigs keep everything properly aligned so that all further construction is square and level. 

The underlying frame structure of the motorhome is made of welded steel components. All of the upper structure of the motorhome is welded aluminum forming a solid structure that will not warp or rot.  In the following picture, a craftsman is welding sidewall components.

 Nappanee, Indiana is located in what is frequently referred to as Amish country. A very large percentage of the employees at the factory are Amish. We have learned that the Amish are fastidious craftsman and  the work that we saw being performed affirms that.

 This is what a completed sidewall frame assembly looks like. The layout of the wall and ceiling follow the dimensions of a brick and mortar house, and all of the studs are 16" on center, just like a house.

 This is the layout table for welding of the roof support assembly.

 While all of the welding is being done, further down the assembly line, other work is taking place. Each of the motorhomes is hand built and assembled. They are built in the order in which the actual dealer orders are received, so there are many different models being assembled on the assembly line at the same time. We were told that this keeps the work interesting for the workers because they are not doing the same repetitive thing over and over again like you see in an auto manufacturing plant.

 Once the steel frame is attached to the chassis, the chassis is moved into the next building where the sub floor is installed along with all of the wiring and plumbing that go under then floor. Once those things are installed, the ceramic tile floors are installed.

The floors are hand laid in a large assembly building. The tiles are cemented to a wooden sub floor that is designed to flex as the motorhome bumps and bounces down the highway. They use a fiber reinforced epoxy adhesive to secure the floor tiles to the wooden sub floor. This substance allows for flexing without cracking. Cement based mortar and grout would not work in this environment.

  Once the ceramic floor is installed, the chassis is moved to the next building where all of the interior is installed prior to installation of the exterior walls.

 

Once the interior cabinetry and bathroom sub structures are installed, all of the above floor wiring and plumbing are installed. This is all done using residential-type construction materials and wiring. 

While we were on the tour, we got to see them moving these monstrous projects down the assembly line. All of the floors are polished concrete, and because each of the motorhomes under construction is a different model, they won't fit on a regular conveyor belt-type assembly line. Instead, each motorhome is moved on its own set of air cushion pads.  The motorhomes that are being built here vary in lengths from 20 feet long to 45 feet long and by using these pads, each motorhome can be handled by just two or five people.  When each motorhome chassis first enters this building, it is driven up on separate pads that rest under each of the tires. These pads are connected to 2 inch compressed, air lines. When it's time to move down the assembly line, air is supplied to each of the pads, causing them to rise slightly above the polished floor. Then, workers push the chassis sideways across the floor to the next station, where the next phase of the job will be completed.

Once all of the interior components are installed, then the side walls are installed and insulated. It looks just like building a house and is heavily insulated, just like you would want your house to be. 

  After all of the wiring, plumbing and insulation are installed in the sidewalls and ceiling, it's time to put on the siding. Once that is installed, it moves down the line, where the slide-out assemblies are inserted into the motorhome. Then the motorhome keeps moving down the line.

Next, trim pieces, finishing touches and ongoing quality control happen.

  Then the final step is on to the paint shop.

As we have been traveling on this amazing summer trip, we have encountered really bad roads in the northern part of the country. It is spring time and the roads have been tortured all winter by snow, ice and rain, as well as heavy truck traffic, and gigantic potholes and cracks in the pavement were everywhere.

As a result of the hammering that the motorhome tires and suspension had been experiencing, we discovered severe front tire wear. I suspected that the front end had been hammered out of alignment, and we needed to get it fixed soon. While we were at the Newmar factory, I spoke with the service technicians, trying to find a reliable place that could sell us tires and align the front end.

 We had to add in the extra complication of living full-time in the motorhome and needing to find a repair facility that could work on the motorhome during the day and release it to us in the evenings so we would have a place to live. 

They recommended a local tire store and a quick phone call resulted in ordering eight new tires for the motorhome and four new tires for the car. This tire store did not do front end alignments on heavy equipment, but recommended another local business that worked on heavy equipment like ours. 

I contacted them and they were able to immediately shuffle their schedule so that they could begin working on our motorhome as soon as the new tires were installed. 

 The next morning, we took the motorhome into the tire store, and after several hours, left with brand new tires all around. We then drove about 10 miles away to the closest RV park where we spent the night. It was a beautiful park on the lake, and the manager did not have a problem with us, taking the motorhome out every day and returning in the evening so that we could get our service completed at the alignment shop.

 

The next day we took the motorhome to the alignment shop, expecting to wait several hours for them to complete the alignment.  Unfortunately, the service manager called us to let us know that they had found severe damage to the front end suspension components, as well as damage to some of the rear axle mounting assemblies.  He then emailed us a detailed description of the damage, which included photographs and videos for us to consider. The pictures and videos made it obvious that repairs had to be made before we continued our trip.  He also sent a detailed estimate of the cost for the repairs. He also told us that they would have to order parts, and that we could come get the motorhome and return to the RV park until the parts arrived. We then spent the next several days traveling from the RV park every morning to the repair facility where they worked on the motorhome all day and then released us to return to the RV park for the evening.  

This went on for several days and we were able to explore the area and found interesting things to see and do.  We also experienced some severe weather.   One night we were awakened by our cell phones screeching a siren-lik sound, which woke us both up. As soon as we looked at the phones, we were sure that we were in for an exciting evening.

  At the RV park, there were no substantial shelters for any of the guests to hunker down in, so we just watched the weather radar and kept our fingers crossed.  We didn't think to take a screen shot of our weather radar until all of the excitement quieted down, but the following picture shows where we were at the blue dot and the extreme weather that had just swirled all around us.

 When we got up in the morning, we noticed  many of the trees in the RV park, had large branches that had been blown off, and were lying on the ground around our motorhome. After we dropped the motorhome off at the alignment shop for the day, we drove around our immediate neighborhood. We talked to a man who told us that a tornado had touched down briefly in the neighborhood and had done some damage.

 

Although we saw several buildings that were struck by trees or flying debris, we only saw one really heavily damaged area. A large travel trailer had been blown through

 a fence and into the side of a nearby building after it went through a corral fence.   

 

  

A nearby barn had its doors blown off and part of the roof was damaged.

 

 

We feel very lucky that we did not experience any damage from the storm.  It's frightening because you don't have any idea that it's coming until suddenly your alarm starts going off.  Then you don't know where to go because it's pitch black outside, pouring down rain and the wind is howling. 

 

They finally finished repairing the motorhome suspension and we continued on our trip. 

 

There's one more chapter coming from our stay here in the Indiana area and I hope to get that out to you soon. We hope you're having a good summer and staying cool. 

 

Tom and Suzie

 

 

 

 

Chapter 13, Jamestown, ND to Winona, MN, 2026

When we left the missile launch facility, we drove back to Jamestown through Cooperstown. This was a small agricultural community that was established in 1882.  

As we were driving past a large park like area, we found a very old structure.

Also, located in the park-like area was a very large brick building that was identified as the Griggs County Courthouse. Because it was the weekend, everything was locked up and we couldn't visit. 

 

 The building seemed out of place because it was so large and the entire population of Griggs County is 2,239 people. 

 The return drive to Jamestown again took us through miles and miles of cultivated fields. 

 

 

As we drove throughout the northern tier of states, in these heavily cultivated areas, we kept coming across large storage facilities. At first, we thought these were silos, but they are not. We discovered that silos are used to store seed for local livestock. Grain  bins are used to store recently harvested crops. Then they can be held in climate control containers until commodity prices are favorable for their sale.

 

These storage facilities were huge, and they may give you an idea of just how much agriculture is occurring in the northern states. We would see facilities this size every few miles on every road we drove on.

The pictures make the weather look ominous and the temperature was in the mid 60s and very windy. 

This line of trees was actually a living snow fence that was protecting a ranch house and related barns and equipment sheds that seem to be connected to all of the large cultivated fields we were driving through. 

I would hate to be here in the winter!

 

    We also went by numerous large ponds and small lakes that seem to be naturally         occurring on the depressions of the undulating landscape.  In those ponds, we saw

large flocks of Swans and American White Pelicans.  Both birds are very large.  

   

Swans have a wingspan of 5 to 8 feet.

American White Pelican have an 8 to 9 foot wingspan!

 

We stayed in Jamestown, North Dakota, and used that as our home base when we visited the missile launch facility. When we made our reservations for our stay at that RV park, the owner told us that his park was located about 1 mile down a dirt road, but that the road was smooth and graded. 

He also said that there had been some frost heave on the road and that might make that portion of the road a little bumpy.  We told him that while driving down the dirt roadwe would just slow down and take the bumps gently. When we arrived at the dirt road, we had our first experience and, hopefully, our last experience with frost heave.

 It turns out that frost heave is caused by water that is trapped below the road surface. When that water freezes, it expands pushing the soil above it up at an uneven rate. That would have made the road a little bumpy, but that's not the rest of the story.

 

It turns out that when the ice melts, it does not go away, but returns to a watery state under the now heaved topsoil.  That essentially turns the topsoil into quicksand, which the motorhome did not like. When we first entered onto the frost heave portion of the road, I could feel the front tires starting to wiggle as we entered onto the darker portion of the soil in the pictures. I recognized that things were softer than they looked, and we kept our speed up and slithered across the quicksand and popped out on the other side. OK. We were at the campground for several days, and by the time it was time to leave, the road had dried out and we had no trouble at all getting back to the highway.

While we were at Jamestown, we visited their old town. There wasn't much to it, but they did have a giant buffalo.

The buffalo didn't look so big in that last picture, but look closely at this next picture to get a better idea of how big it is.

 

There were quite a few old buildings that had been moved to this location from all over the county and they were interesting to look into.

They had a small buffalo herd located on a hillside between the old town and the freeway, but all of the buffalo were hiding in the trees down in the creek bottom. This is what the big buffalo looks like from a long ways away. 

When we left Jamestown, we moved further east, and spent the night at a really nice county park in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.  We have found in the northeast, a lot of the small towns have county parks with RV hookups, and we have enjoyed staying in the small parks.  We were the only people staying in this park, except for one of the rigs that belongs to the work campers that cared for the park.

The park was on a beautiful lake that had a nice boat ramp and a small fishing pier.

We only stayed at this park one night and then continued east to the town of Winona, Minnesota, where we went to visit with our friends, Tom and Enid.  They took us on a nice tour around the town, and we visited Tom's hangar at the airport, as well as a beautiful overlook of the city and the Mississippi River.

One evening they took us out to dinner to their favorite restaurant.  Tom said he always gets the pan fried Walleye and so that is what we had because we had never had it before.  It was delicious and if you ever have a chance, try it!

We then continued our trip eastbound and our next stop was Madison, Wisconsin.  En-route, we stopped for fuel, and we can't remember whether we shared our diesel fuel secret with those of you that travel and use diesel fuel. We belong to a group of travelers that belong to an organization called Open Roads.  It is some type of a co-op that brings together RVers into one big conglomerate. They then negotiate trucker- style fuel discounts at numerous truck stops in large fuel stations across the country. We have been members for many years and it doesn't cost anything. One condition was that you connect a bank account to your Open Roads account so that the fuel that you buy is immediately deducted from your bank account.  

Click HERE for a link to Open Roads

 

The following picture shows you the pump price and the price we paid through Open Roads.  Open Roads does charge a small fee on each transaction, but it is clearly described when you sign up and it is so small that it is insignificant compared to the savings you have over the course of the trip.

 

 After leaving Winona, we continued on to Madison, which is the capital of Wisconsin. As we drove around town, we found the state capitol and figured we'd go check that one out too. We are glad we did.

 

 Compared to the concrete skyscraper in North Dakota, this looked beautiful. Once we found a place to park, we walked to the building and found that we were able to walk right into this building as well, although most of the offices were occupied and taking care of business. 

 

When you first walk into the building, the view is spectacular no matter which direction you look. There are actually six entrances to the building that all enter directly into the rotunda area. From there, you can walk to various offices. When we first entered, we took a picture of the first thing that we saw. This became important later.

 

 You can see from the above picture, there is a mural on the wall between the two arching hallways, moving away from the center of the rotunda. There were actually six of these arching hallways, all leading to various offices. Between each arching hallway was a mural. As we wandered around the capitol building for about an hour, pretty soon, all of the archways looked the same. After we felt that we'd seen everything, it was time to leave and the problem is, we could not remember which archway we needed to exit through to get back to our car.

 

 Fortunately, we had taken the initial photograph of the mural on the wall when we first came in, so we called up the picture on our phone, and then walked around the circular center of the rotunda until we re-created the picture. Then we knew that was the archway that we had entered through and when we exited, there was the pathway to our car.

 

  The previous picture showed a view of the inside of the dome at the capital. It looks quite elaborate, but a picture just doesn't show the amazing detail that is present throughout the building. Hopefully, the following two videos can help explain just how amazing this building was.

 

  When we finished at the Capitol, we returned to our motorhome, which was in a beautiful RV park.

 

 After returning to the motorhome, while looking for something stored under the motorhome, we found that there was a compartment door that would not open. We decided to fix that before we continued on our way to Napanee, Indiana, where we were going to visit the factory where our motorhome was built. 

 

The only way to unlock the stock compartment door was to access it from the other side of the motorhome. I was reminded of my claustrophobia as I crawled through the belly of the motorhome to get to the stuck door latch. Fortunately, it was an easy fix.

 

 We will continue to keep you posted on our travels and we hope you stay in touch, 

 

Tom & Suzie