We visited the RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. After our errands around the Elkhart area, we didn't get to the museum until about 4pm, and it closed at 5pm. We asked if we could start seeing it and come back to complete our visit in the morning, and the lady at the desk agreed to allow us to do that. There were so many displays and it was really quite interesting!
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| Front of the building |
We started by seeing the movie that gave us an overview of all there was to see.
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| Then we went to the "Go RVing" Hall - which recognizes the joint activities of the industry to promote RVing. https://gorving.com/ |
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| The next area had lots and lots of RVs from the past.... |
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| One of the early ones... |
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| The "kitchen" side |
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| The sleeping area |
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| The storage area - slid out from the side - so it had slide outs! |
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| Popular Mechanics had an article about this rig... |
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| (the rest of the article was not included...) |
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| "The Camping Outfit in Use, with the Shower-Bath Shelter, or Dressing Room, Set Up at the Rear of the Berth. Lower View An Inviting Bookshelf is Located at the Head of the Bed." |
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| "Ample Drawers for Clothing and Room for Toilet Articles and a Suitcase" |
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| "The Shower Bath is Supplied with Water Warmed by the Engine Which Flows by Gravity from the Tank under the Roof" |
The shower was a wee bit public, don't you think?
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| "All the Conveniences of Home: The Collapsible Automobile Camping Outfit Showing the Berth Made Up, the Chest of Drawers, the Kitchen Equipment, and the Dining Arrangement. |
Look how properly they are dressed, with white tablecloth and napkins! How come we don't look like that when we're camping, Honey???
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| "The Camping Outfit Closed" |
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| "At Each Side of the Head of the Bed Is a Window That Furnishes Ventilation in Addition to the Window in the Rear" |
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| The path through the museum was marked by black rubber mats cleverly cut into curves and with the white dotted line of a roadway indicated! |
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| Some of the rigs along the way - I'm looking in the Tennessee Traveler |
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| I thought this "fresh water tank / running water supply" was neat! I can't remember exactly which RV it was in... |
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| When we had the Safari Trek, I thought that the name "Bounder" was an appropriate description of how it felt going down the road... Miss Doozie is a bit more grounded/solid to the road. |
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| 1985 Fleetwood Bounder |
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| Some more of the units on display |
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| Note two axles - one at each end (back one is hard to see because of the glider in front of it). I guess this did not catch on because the front wheels / axle needed to turn, but it seems to me that it would be a lot more stable. |
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| Inside the Lindbergh trailer - note the hand pump at the sink |
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| Fancy, isn't it??? |
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| Since we had looked at captain's chairs earlier on Friday, I found this Driver's Seat to be interesting! |
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| It was an extra cost accessory.... |
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| It looks just like a piece of furniture that you might have in a house - and it did not seem to be fastened down to the floor in any way - that would not seem very safe to me! |
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| This looked a lot more like a home that would be placed on a lot and left there than one that you would move around the country for camping... |
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| I think my brother told me that he had known someone who had one of these and maybe he had worked on it... |
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| Even though it has two axles in the back, since it was front wheel drive, I guess they were both just single-wheel per side axles and just for carrying the weight - neither would be "duals". |
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| FMCA display at the museum. We also belong to this group - last year (I think it was) they voted to include self-contained units (trailers/5th wheels) so they are trying to go more by their initials (FMCA) so as not to emphasize "Motor Coach" anymore. (They used the example of AARP as an organization that goes by its initials because its name no longer is descriptive of its membership.) |
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| There was a balcony on the second floor from which you could overlook the RV displays... Go RVing is over to the right... |
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| RV displays below... |
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| ... and to the right... |
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| ... older units right below - the one on center right is the telescoping one. |
As you can probably tell, there were a lot more units than those for which I have posted pictures! I figured that our blog readers would get all they could stand from just this many pictures!
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