With Cam away on work trips for the next two weeks we had decided that Monday, 20 June was an excellent day for us to head out of Durham on our road trip. We like to form a bit of a plan but this is always adapted as we go along. We have about twenty days to get to Glacier National Park where we have a booking. This is a distance of about 2500 miles, without any side trips, but we like to see things along the way and have 2-3 overnight breaks so this is bound to increase. So after a leisurely start to the day we finally pulled out around 1.30 pm heading for Charleston in West Virginia. This trip took us through North Carolina, then into Virginia and into West Virginia. We made a couple of short stops at rest areas along the highway - cars towing have to park with the trucks. We always look so small lined up beside the big ones. We take it leisurely and eventually arrived around 8 pm and as this was just an overnight stay in an industrial city we "boon docked" in Walmart. Boon docking is the American term for dry camping (no services at all) with no cost. Interestingly there is a website set up where private individuals can offer their properties for people to stay "boon dock" overnight. We have never stayed at one of these. Next morning we made our first change to our plan - we decided to miss out Indianapolis and make our way to Northern Indiana so that we could visit the Amish community in the Elkhart area. We really enjoyed seeing the Amish way of life in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania last year so I was particularly keen to see more. We stayed in Goshen and next morning we commenced the two part Heritage Trail. This well marked trail, with accompanying CD's, took us along many country roads and through a number of the smaller country villages all with Amish heritage and culture. The sides of the roads are quite marked where the horses and buggies trundle along. With many stops at the various Amish and Dutch shops along the way with lots of sampling and dare I say purchases of various items from bread, nuts, cheeses, fudge, popcorn, jelly beans (about the size of six normal jelly beans), antiques, amazing handcrafts from wood and fabric, various fruit and vegetables we finally finished half of the heritage trail. Next day we completed the second half of the trail. This time our first stop was at an old corn mill, Bonneyville Mills, that was built around 1832 and 95% of the building and the machinery is original and still in working condition and used to mill corn for sale to visitors. We had the process explained to us, with an example of the milled corn, and the grinders were set going for us. It was very interesting. The mill is set in a lovely park with many walking trails and picnic facilities. Of course, it is covered in snow for a few months of the year and during the winter the mill is not operational. Quilting is a very popular activity and there are many, many quilt shops. In addition there was a three day quilt festival on. The quilts are beautiful and if you are a quilter, you would be in quilters heaven! In addition to the fabric quilts there are quilt gardens (planted out to resemble a quilt) and paints wall hangings. They are all very impressive. Of course, all along the way we saw the Amish people out and about in their buggies, or shopping etc. Tourists are asked not to photograph the people so sorry no photos but a search on Google will provide. However photos of the buggies is fine and it was interesting to see them hitched up at McDonalds, Aldi, and other various fast foods and shops. Elkhart and the surrounding area here in Northern Indiana is known as the RV capital of the world as there are many manufacturers and the RV's are transported throughout all of the US and Canada. It has been interesting to see the row upon row of completed units and also the truck cabs with the chassis waiting for the motorhomes to be built. It looked as though some of these units had been waiting a while with the long grass around them. There is also an RV Museum and Hall of Fame so for something different we spent a couple of hours here checking out the RV's of the last one hundred years. It was enjoyable but we can't say it was fantastic. The weather has been great with sunny days and temperatures around 28-31. We had an electrical storm one night with heavy rain but other than that we have missed all the rain and flooding that has occurred and reported in West Virginia. We have been really lucky. So Friday morning we were up early as we planned to head to our next stop being Chicago which is about two hours drive north west. We pulled out of the camp at 9 am (really quite a record for us) and just two miles down the road we came to a sudden stop. Driving through an intersection we were collected by a vehicle. Fortunately our car was not involved however the caravan was. It was hit on the driver's side and has damaged a number of panels and also the axle. We were not going to Chicago obviously. So we have had our first encounter with the US Police, who I must say were very friendly, and our caravan had to be put on to a flat deck and be towed to the yard waiting on the claims adjuster (assessor) to view on Monday or Tuesday. So we must wait on a decision whether it will be repaired, and if so how long that will take, or written off. We were not happy but accidents do happen and fortunately no one was hurt. So with no caravan, we are still in the Elkhart area. We stayed in a hotel on Friday night, and have now moved to a cabin in a camping ground. Hopefully we will know more about the caravan's fate in a couple of days. If the van is to be repaired we may buy a tent (we have everything else we would need) and travel north around the Great Lakes area in Michigan. If it is going to be weeks we may just head on to Glacier National Park with a tent and come back and collect the van when it is finished. If a write off, we need to consider do we buy again? Decisions, decisions, decisions. One thing for sure is that we are not giving up - we intend to continue our travels. So we will update more next week when we are sure we will be much clearer on our plans. However in the meantime there is an awesome ice cream shop within walking distance of the camp!