Jack and Scooter

We left Delphi about 11 this morning, knowing that we would not have far to go.  Unfortunately, we didn't plan on our GPS not having the latest maps.  When we got to Lafayette, the home of Purdue University, we spent some pleasant hours trying to decide where Hwy 25 ended and Hwy 28 started, and why are we on Happy Hollow Drive?  After a few miscues and some discussion as to how smart the GPS actually is, we somehow found ourselves on Interstate 74 going west toward Champaign, IL.  Near Champaign we turned south on I57 and found ourselves in site 2a of Camp Lakewood RV Park in Effingham, IL  Whew! Good thing it was only 194 miles....I shudder to think how lost we might have been if it had been more.

After setting up, we went into the local WalMart for some much needed groceries and a quick look around town.  Pretty much the typical town, with motels and restaurants clustered around the interstate highways.  We did, however, find a Ruby Tuesday restaurant to eat dinner at, 'cause they have one of the best chain restaurant salad bars that we've seen. YUM!

We needed to take Pris on a walk when we got back to Nessie (she had already had her walk today), so we strolled down by the lake.  Lake Pauline is a pretty little lake, some 30 odd acres of surface area, no swimming allowed, just fishing (what, alligators?).

About 1/2 way around the park, we met Jack and Scooter.  Jack is a retired Air Force bomber driver, and Scooter is his dog.  Now you've got to know that Jack has been retired from the military for 42 years, just about twice as long as he served.  He and his wife are from St Pete, Florida, and travel around the east coast visiting family.  Mostly his 6 kids, his cousins ("at least one cousin in 17 states east of the Mississippi"), his wife's family ("not my doin', it's all her kin"), and the divorced spouses of several cousins because they have large yards "we can park in".  Jack regaled us with stories for about an hour while we tried to keep our dogs from wandering off, and during the course of the conversation, it came up as to how Scooter got his name.

You see, Scooter came to Jack a bit late in life, at a time when Jack had just lost his two brothers to cancer.  Scooter had been mistreated, and his rescue gave Jack a purpose and a goal.  One of the things that Scooter and Jack had to deal with was a bad case of intestinal parasites (Scooter, not Jack).  So Scooter would drag himself around the living room carpet trying to scratch his bum while the parasite treatment was working.  Hence the name Scooter.....

Only in the south.

Covered Bridges of Carroll County

A gorgeous day today, a bit cool, only in the mid 60's, but wonderful all the same.  We wanted to finish seeing the interesting sights in this area, so we headed off to Flora, IN, and then south to Bolivar where the Adams Mill is open to the public.  This 3 story building, 4 if you count the attic, was a working mill for many years.

The mill is surrounded by beautiful grounds, and in fact, there was a wedding, a church service, and a family picnic held this morning.

Adjacent to the mill is the Adams Mill Covered Bridge, built over the Wildcat River in 1872.

A little farther down the road we came to the Lancaster bridge:

Even though the sign said "Weight Limit 3 tons", we made it over the bridges just fine even though James (our pickup) weighs over 9000 lbs!  I'm glad I didn't see the sign until we were over the bridges...

So after a loop that took us to Flora, Bringhurst, Cutler, Fossville, Owasco, and Pyrmont, we made it back to Delphi late in the afternoon.  In honor of having to pack up tomorrow, Donna "agreed" to dinner out, so we stopped at one of two restaurants open on a Sunday night in Delphi...both are pizza places, and we chose Manicals by a coin toss.  The pepperoni pizza was very good, made Chicago style, and a perfect end to a not-so-stressful day.

Tomorrow we're outta here, heading southwest toward St. Louis.  Wish us luck!

1832 to 1956

The weather this morning was superb.  After the rain of the last few days, the sky was crystal clear and the temps were in the 50's.  A bit cool, but it is September, and Fall is fast approaching in the mid-west. After a great breakfast of eggs, bacon, and the last of the sweet breakfast bread we bought at a Bakery in Middlebury, IN (we've been hoarding it), we stepped out our door, walked 100 feet, and were immediately in 1832 Indiana.

The Wabash and Erie Canal Association has done a magnificent job of re-creating and preserving a small part of life along a canal in the 1830's.  The useful life of the nations canal system was just a few years, as the railroad provided all-weather transportation at a quicker pace, but during those 20 odd years, the canals were the lifeblood of the country.  On this particular canal, you could go from Topeka to New York via the Erie Canal in 15 days for $8.50.  Pretty good deal, I think!

We also learned a bit about the Native Americans that lived in the area, and their relationship with the settlers.  We have a special friend that has a connection to Chief Tecumseh, so when we saw this poster, we had to take a picture.

There were several Native Americans named Tecumseh, so this may not be the correct person, but it's interesting to note the name.

A great addition to the Canal Park is the Reed Case house. Built in the Federal style popular in those days, where there is a central entry door with equally sized rooms on either side of the door.  The upstairs mirrors the downstairs with 3 bedrooms; one small bedroom in the center and two equally sized bedrooms on each side. Reed Case was a building contractor for the canal construction in Carroll County, and became a successful businessman.  The family still lives in the area and has donated many period antiques to the association for display in the house.

When we taking a ride on the refurbished canal boat, a nice red 56 Chevy drove by, so we had to find out where it came from.

Turns out, there was a car show downtown at the courthouse.

Big and tall, old and small, they had 'em all.  From a Tri-Power Pontiac, to a 54 Corvette, to a '39 Ford pickup, to an ancient Whizzer motorcycle, there was quite a selection!

There was one particular vehicle that interested us....

This RV comes fully equipped.  Donna seems to be looking for a place to put the coffee pot...

Back at the RV in Canal Park, we roasted some bacon wrapped Jalapeño peppers (thanks for the recipe, Jill and Chuk!), and settled down with a good old-fashioned barbecued hamburger with homemade french fries.  Now for the Dutch Apple pie!

Delphi, Indiana

Anyone who has enjoyed the experience of working on his or her own GM automobile has run across the name Delphi over the years.  This GM division originally had responsibility for many of the electronic components used in cars and trucks and eventually expanded to have a number of manufacturing plants world-wide. During the "restructuring" of the last few years, the infrastructure of the division became fragmented and was separated from GM.  The name continues as a stand-alone supplier of parts to the automobile, truck, and commercial markets.

So what, you say?  Good question, and I don't have any idea what the connection is, other than it's a cool, if ancient, name.  We find ourselves in Delphi, Indiana this evening, the home of the Wabash and Erie Canal.  The canal is one of many built in pre-steam railroad days to transport goods and people across the eastern and midwestern US. There is only a short section of this particular canal left, and it's here in Delphi, maintained by a dedicated staff of volunteers.  They provide canal boat rides in an accurate historical setting that gives visitors a taste of life on the canals in the 1830's, and keep a museum and interpretive center open that explains the harsh world of the tow-men, the canal construction crews, and the animals that actually pulled the boats.  The center also tells of the tremendous amounts of money made by the entrepreneurial souls who risked their fortunes to build the waterways. Most canal systems have been filled in over the years, so it's interesting to see an actual canal in its original state.

We pulled into Delphi about mid-afternoon, found our site at Canal Park (one of 3 full hookup sites provided by the park), and settled in to wait out the rain that had been chasing us all day.  The rain didn't set any records like yesterday in South Bend, but it was steady all day.  The rv site is adjacent to the interpretive center, and is paved with limestone, a common rock in this area, so we were somewhat protected from the wind and soggy ground.  We are lucky to have a bit of shade (if the weather ever clears), and still have a full view of the southern sky (gotta have the satellite tv, ya know).

We'll cruise the park tomorrow and some of the extensive walking/biking trails around the area and report back.  Happy Days!

"Just a Shower"

The weather was cloudy when we got up this morning, but not raining, so after coffee we took off to Hill Truck Center in Elkhart.  Hill is a Freightliner Repair Facility and authorized to work on motorhome chassis as part of Freightliner's Oasis Network.  We had some minor wheel issues, and Eric in the service department jumped right on it and took Nessie into the "hospital". Donna and I left for breakfast at Cracker Barrel (chicken fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, sausage and bacon...you know the drill).  An hour later, the skies had opened up and we were smack in the middle of a midwest lightening and thunder storm.

We made our way back to Hill Truck, where Eric had checked out the suspension and pronounced it A-OK, and had made an appt at a tire shop up the street to have the front tires balanced.  Off we went to Carters Tire (still raining and storming) and Shawn took us right in.  We wanted to give his guys a bit of time, so we went to Starbucks for a cuppa java.  After an hour or so, we returned to the tire shop and Shawn and the boys had completely rebalanced the two front tires and found that they had been a few ounces off originally.  They did a dynamic balance and distributed the weight on both sides of the tire instead of just on the inside like they were before.  Freightliner picked up the tab, and we should be good to go.  Eric at Hill has asked us to run Nessie up and down a local road to check the tires and then drop in to his office to finalize the paperwork.

That will have to happen tomorrow morning, because it rained here like I've never seen. All afternoon the lightening and thunder and rain continued.  The roads were rivers and the grass in the rv park is soaked.  The local news has said that it rained over 3 inches today!  Toto, we're not in California anymore!

No pix today due to the weather, but we'll get some tomorrow, as we're heading to a little town with a semi-famous name.

We're Outta Here!

Got our last few pieces and parts this morning, said goodbye to the Newmar staff that we've developed a close kinship with, and fired up Nessie for the first time in 10 days to hit the road.  After all this time, it took us a bit of time to re-acquaint ourselves with the creaks and groans of a motorhome rolling down the road.  After 20 odd miles of Hwy 19 north.....we had arrived at our destination for the day!

We have an appointment at Hill Truck Sales in Elkhart tomorrow to have a couple of issues with the chassis addressed.  Nothing fancy....the front tires appear to be out of balance, and while we're there, I want to get a set of filters and belts for the engine; I'll need them eventually.

So with the afternoon to kill, we decided to go back to the RV/Motorhome Hall of Fame.  We noticed as we came into town that there were hundreds of RV's of every type and size scattered all over town.  Turns out that the industry is having a "dealers only" show, exhibiting the 2014 models. Seems perfect, as most of the country's rv's are made within 50 miles of Elkhart.

The Hall of Fame had some interesting exhibits, from the very old:

To the unusual:

To the "What were they thinking?":

This guy was built on a Cadillac chassis, with Oldsmobile power.  It is a custom unit, in case you didn't know...

Donna and I remembered the Shasta trailer we once owned....

Seems to be a lot smaller than we remembered....

We left the RV/Motorhome/Exhibit Hall and headed back to the rv park. We're staying at the Elkhart Campground, on CR 4 just north of the Indiana Toll Road.  It's a nice place, but a bit overpriced.  I seem to say that a lot lately.

A slight wrong turn put us in Michigan on the way to Edwardsville.  We drove along through farmland until we came across this place:

Billed as the biggest fishing store in the state, we had a difficult time finding a parking place, so we headed back to Elkhart.  We'll have to check this out later.

Off to Freightliner tomorrow.  Oh, what will the 'morrow bring...

Shipshe Again

We're still killin' time in Amish country before we move to Elkhart tomorrow.  We've been waiting for some last minute parts from Newmar so we decided to go to the Shipshewana Flea Market.

It's billed as the largest in the state, and it probably is.  We spent 3 hours strolling the grounds and checking out the cool stuff.

 Our best find was a shop selling wooden baskets:

It looks like it's woven, but it really is made of solid cherry wood cut on a scroll saw in a "wavy" pattern and held together with vertical wooden slats.  Each layer or level of the cherry is cut precisely from the same flat piece of wood, so the grains all match.  These baskets, of all sizes and styles, are made by a family (not Amish) that lives 2 1/2 miles from downtown Shipshewana on a farm.  The 3 sons developed the prototypes, and now their dad makes the projects.  We talked to Jared, one of the sons, and a really nice young man, who invited us to their shop, and to also look at their work online at www.teaberrywoodproducts.com. Evidently the website is a catalog only, and orders must be made by phone.  Check it out because they have some great pieces, and it's an all american, family enterprise.

As we were leaving, we saw this sign at the entrance to a nearby store:

It's Amish country!

One interesting shop in the Flea Market was one selling ice cream made with the use of a gas engine to run the ice cream makers:

The ice cream was delicious and the use of the engine was clever.  Later, when we got back to Nappanee, we stopped at Rocket Science, an ice cream store where the ice cream is made from real cream, flavorings of your choice (fruit, chocolate, etc), stirred in a bowl and then flash frozen with liquid nitrogen in front of your very eyes!

You can combine any ingredients to make your own concoction, or choose from one of their recipes.  As you can see, the shop is run by a young Amish girl who didn't talk much, but smiled every chance she got!  BTW, the ice cream was delicious here also!  Malted Chocolate Malt:  Chocolate with malt and Milk Duds stirred in...Yum!

We heard heard from Newmar late this afternoon that our parts are in, so after picking them up in the morning, we'll say goodbye to Nappanee.  Our stay here has been very good; we've met a lot of people, discussed a lot of RV'ing problems and pleasures, and have had a chance to meet with a number of wonderful people in the Newmar organization.  They have all been very understanding and courteous. I'm sure a few more things will pop up that need professional attention, so we will most likely be back here in the future.