Elkhart and Michigan City, IN

Early in the morning, I called around and found a RV mechanic who could replace batteries. He was located in Elkhart, IN, the "RV Capital of the World. It would take me 1.5 hours to drive back the way we came. But first, I really needed a long non-RV shower, so on the way out, I stopped at Planet Fitness in Gary, IN. I joined PF in Bowie a couple of weeks; the black level membership allows me to use any PF outside my home PF gym for a total of 10 times a month.

In Elkhart, Bryan, the owner-mechanic of Custom RV Repair checked my RV's battery and found it to be in excellent condition. He said a battery's charge would not normally last overnight supporting the devices in the RV. I asked "What about the second battery?" Brian said, "You have only one battery". He had another mechanic check again, said there was no space for another battery. I called my go-to expert Jerry, who confirmed that Thor Rize standard specs included 2 batteries. Jerry and Brian had a conversation on my phone, Jerry said he's never come across such a case. Then I called Thor Customer Service (their manufacturing plant is at Wakarusa, close to Elkhart) who confirmed that there should have been two batteries in my RV. How did the RV managed to pass QC checks? And, Camping World grossly misdiagnosed my RV problem. Thor CS agreed to make it right and will approve a claim to install the 2nd battery as part of warranty even though my RV's warranty expired three months ago. But, it would take about 3 days for the claim to be approved, parts to be delivered, and with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, it would be a week before the work can start. Since we had camping reservations and a schedule to follow, I arranged to come back to Elkhart on my return trip in July. Which meant that I will have to cope with low battery power for most of the trip. Bryan, his two other mechanics and Jerry gave me tips on that.

After a quick lunch in Elkhart, I drove the 1.5 hrs back to Indiana Dunes NP. Nadine texted that she was in Washington Park, Michigan City, so I met here there. It was a very pretty park with parking spots right next to the beach, but there were warnings about dangerous conditions due to the weather. We walked along the pier, saw three young men fishing, one of them showed us the steelhead trout he caught.

It started raining heavily. After the rain let up a bit, we drove back to the Visitor Center for the night.