Iowa!

We had stayed at the small KOA near LaSalle, Indiana last night. It is a lovely little park that we would have stayed at for another night, but they did not have any space. It was kind of interesting to see that this morning almost everyone had left, but to know they will be completely full again by tonight!

As we left Indiana, we kept looking at the fields of corn, trying to see if we could detect the damage from the drought. Some of the fields look stunted with short stalks.

We drove all except the last few miles on Interstate 80 (fortunately no longer a toll road). After we crossed the Iowa state border (the Mississippi River), we stopped at their Welcome Center to pick up an Iowa map. I do like the signs at their rest area!

I was surprised to see this historical plaque at the rest area. I knew about the Mormon handcarts, but hadn't realized they had started this far east. The mid-eighteenth century migration of Mormon converts was the direct result of Mormon missionaries in Europe. To think they walked all the way from here to Salt Lake City pulling hand carts with all their belongings. The sign went on to tell of the success of the first three groups, but how the 4th and 5th groups started too late in the summer and lost many of their number to snow and cold in the mountains.

We drove as far as North Liberty, Iowa to Colony Country Campground. Isn't that a neat hex sign on their office building?

This is another very neat, very nice small campground with just 45 RV sites. We will only stay here the one night as we are looking forward to meeting up with our friends at Adventureland near Altoona tomorrow.

Cheers for Stuart's Service!

Auntie Violet has been feeling a bit cantankerous lately. She's let us know by pushing out the bedroom slide (slide #2) as we've traveled down the road. She doesn't push it very far, just about two inches. We stop after about an hour or so and push the button to put it back in, then she's usually pretty good about it until we get to our next location and by then it's out about two inches again...

Knowing she was having a bit of a problem, we deliberately scheduled a stop in Elkhart, Indiana so that we could visit STUART'S SERVICE, an authorized HWH repair shop. We had stopped there last October on our way through so that they could install some new hydraulic hoses for us.

We made an appointment for 10:30 this morning and headed to County Road 6 in the midst of scattered rain showers.

Chuck Stuart and his crew very quickly took Auntie Violet into the shop and found that she had a leaking valve. They very quickly adjusted it, then added more hydraulic fluid to replace what she had lost. They then kept her for a another 30 minutes to make sure that the valve would not leak again.

We cannot say enough positive about Stuart's Service. They know what they are doing and take care of things very professionally. We were charged for only one half hour of shop time plus the cost of the hydraulic fluid.

By noon we were back on the road. We took Interstate 80/90 across the remainder of Indiana and on into Illinois. There were ten lanes of traffic! There were a few times when we were hemmed in by semi trucks on both sides and in front and back -- not the most pleasant driving!

We are re-tracing a bit of our route from last fall, but will veer off in order to visit Iowa and Wisconsin which are two of the four states we have not yet covered in the "lower 48."

We settled in at the LaSalle/Peru KOA for the night. This is a very pretty nice little park near Utica, Illinois. We'd like to have stayed for a couple of nights, but they are booked solid for the weekend. We'll head on to N. Liberty, Iowa tomorrow.

Printing..?!

It was supposed to be a quiet day today. I was going to pack for my trip to Elkhart, Indiana tomorrow (I did the necessary laundry yesterday.) and print off the packet of materials that had been sent the meeting.

First Hurdle: The files were all sent .ftp! I haven't seen anything in that format for more than twenty years! We used to use it way back when before email to access the Internet. Of course, the directions that came with the files did not work! I finally went on line and downloaded FileZilla File and was able to figure out how to open the files so that I could print them.

Second Hurdle: Three pages printed and the black ink portions tapered off to grey! No problem, I had a spare cartridge in the cupboard. Oops, two color cartridges, but NO BLACK! I knew I had seen an office supply store in the shopping center just up the road by Publix. Oops, guess I saw one somewhere else?

OK, don't panic. Plug office supply store into the GPS. It found an Office Depot about nine miles away (it was actually more like twelve as the GPS seems to calculate "as the crow flies"!). Uh, oh, looks like the address that the GPS says is an Office Depot is now only an empty store! Try again. The GPS finds a Staples. It didn't look to be too far away. Turns out to be way over in Winter Haven! When we get there, we find another empty store and I FREAK! Fortunately, Forry remains calm and spots the Staples store on the other side of the highway!

We park. I go in; see the sign for ink; grab the correct cartridge; pay for it; and go back out to the car. NO Forry! (I thought he was staying in the car to plot the closest way back home on the GPS.) Evidently, he followed me into the store and was looking around... I go back in and find him, the clerk laughs at us as we leave...

Home again (by now it's after 6 PM) and I put the new cartridge in the printer and print off all the pages. Looks like I should have bought another ream of paper while I was at Staples -- the stack is an inch high! Oh well, print off the Boarding Passes, write my blog and go pack. Tomorrow is another day!

Out and About

We were out and about today checking on how long it will take us to go from Mouse Mountain RV Park to Orlando International Airport for my flight to the Executive Board meeting in Elkhart, Indiana next week. It's a good thing we did as it took about a half hour longer than we had thought. My flight leaves at 5:30 AM on Thursday, so we're going to have to have a very early start!

We stopped on our way back for dinner at Crisper's, then picked up the tea bags and spot remover that I had forgotten to get when I got groceries last week. As we were driving home, we noticed that the magnolia trees are in bud --

These fat white buds sticking up so tall will open into beautiful flowers in a couple of days. I can hardly wait to see them --

As  we walked tonight, I did see a cactus plant -- and it had buds on it!

It looks as if it is a pretty old plant that has been in a pot for some time. There are several buds beginning to show --

We saw this Class C motorhome spinning in the breeze --

It has cooled down a great deal today. The thermometer read 77 degrees when we went out walking.

We Move and We See a NP

We were scheduled to leave Mouse Mountain RV Park today. Our month here in Lot 41C was up. We had been looking at maps and trying to decide where we should go. I was able to make a reservation for three nights at a park near St. Augustine (which I really want to visit), but after that they were full. We needed to find a city along the east coast with a fairly large airport. I have an Executive Board meeting in Elkhart, Indiana April 12-14th. The nearest airport is in South Bend and there are not a lot of flights...

We fussed about it for a while, checking out various places and finally decided it would be easier just to stay here and fly in and out of Orlando International. So yesterday we went to visit the office to see whether we could stay where we were. (Isn't this planter of vari-colored petunias outside the office pretty?)

It turned out that there was someone who had specifically requested Lot 41C coming in today... We were given our choice of a couple of other spots to move to and we chose to move to Lot H1. It's actually a pretty good spot. It's on a bit of a hill with a nice cross breeze. The park in St. Augustine was nice when I called to cancel, just said they hoped to see us when we moved on next month...

And since it's on the end of the row, we only have a neighbor on one side. It seems to be a pleasant neighborhood. We've already had a couple of people welcome us -- which is more than we ever had at 41C!

Last night I decided that if my throat was still sore today from the post-nasal drip, I was going to the Minit-Clinic at the nearby CVS Pharmacy. It's been almost two weeks and I figured it wasn't getting any better with tincture of time... The clinic has a delightful Nurse Practitioner named Cindy. She agreed that the post-nasal drip was bad and my ears were full of fluid. And she didn't like the sounds of my cough either. Then she heard Forry coughing out in the hallway and decided she should take a look at him as well. We both ended up walking out with prescriptions. Kind of a pricey afternoon, but I'm tired of not feeling good.

Sun Seekers RV Park

We've had to chuckle at people's reactions when we tell them we are staying at Sun Seekers Adult RV Park. I hadn't even thought about the name when we made reservations, but evidently the first thing that pops into people's minds is "nudist colony!" Well, it does have a white board fence along the front of it separating it from the highway. And there is a security gate...

The lady in the office told me they occasionally get inquiries on the telephone wanting to know about the "dress code." She said she didn't understand what they were getting at at first...

We were talking to our neighbors this afternoon after going for our afternoon bike ride. They are staying here for two months this winter and had stayed here last winter as well. We were talking about the number of trikes in the RV park and the woman said that indeed there was a rule against golf carts in this park (it's in the regs they give to long-term renters)! Now we know why there are so many trikes and bicycles.

The lady went on to say that they have a park model in an RV Park in Indiana where they live the rest of the year. She said in that park you are only allowed to have a golf cart if you can show that you have a handicapped sticker for your automobile. Hmm, I guess they don't have decorated golf cart parades (we've seen St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Christmas parades) in that park...

And Now We Are in Ohio!

Fall is definitely in the air and it is also getting chillier.  After weeks of Indian Summer with daytime temperatures in the the high eighties and nineties, a cold front has come through with rain, wind and a definite drop in the temperature. We had been thinking about going up to Maine and then coming down the east coast to eventually winter in Florida.  Because of our detour for repairs, it is getting late in the year to head north without thinking about the possibility of snow...

My friend Cathi sent me a page and one-half note of lists of places to see and things to do in Maine (where she used to live) and New England.  I also had a list of some other places I wanted to see as well as visiting out friend Wayne in Waldoboro, Maine.  After we sat and talked about it for a while, we decided that we would wait until Spring to visit New England when we wouldn't have to sweat out bad weather. Then we would head back to Washington visiting North Dakota and Nebraska on the way.  We had been thinking about driving to Alaska next summer, but we have been there twice (by air) and that may not be a priority.

So, with that decision made, we headed south into Ohio today.  We stopped at a Welcome Center and chatted with the friendly fellow on duty.  When he found that we had never spent time in Ohio, he suggested we head towards Chillicothe (south of Columbus) and do some exploring in that area.

The country we drove through today was a little more open then where we had been in Indiana.  There are STILL lots of fields of soybeans and corn -- and corn and soybeans!

One thing I did notice -- the majority of the houses in Ohio are square!  They may have dormers like this one, or they may have a porch attached, but they are square.

This perfectly square building is a county courthouse we saw on the way --

We passed some Amish farms and furniture marts along the way and saw evidence of Amish buggies along the road.  The one buggy we saw had white stripes on the back instead of the orange "slow vehicle" triangle on the ones we saw in Indiana.

 It was NOT a nice day to be driving today.  The cold front that came through brought last night's rain, but also brought gusty winds all day! Highway 23 south is two-lane part of the way, so that meant for extra concentration as well.  We drove longer then we usually like to in order to get to Sun Valley Campground outside of Chilliclothe.  We got here about 6:30, just before dark.

Today at Indy Lakes

It was a bit busier day today.  We got ahold of Stuart Service in Elkhart, Indiana and made an appointment with Chuck to work on our errant bedroom slide next Monday. Since we have a few days to get there (it'll only take one long day or two short ones), we decided to stay on here until Friday instead of leaving tomorrow. That way we can go to visit the Indianapolis Speedway Museum.  I thought Forry was going to go see it while I was in Washington, but...

We are starting to see more Fall color around the area.  This is the view today looking out over one of the ponds here at Indy Lakes --

Daughter Mary Mae sent a fat box of mail that arrived today, so I spent a few hours sorting through it and then paying bills.  Later this afternoon we took a drive to check out the Interstate Battery store.  We will be stopping there on our way out of town to have our six 6-volt house batteries replaced. On the way back, we stopped at the neighborhood China Buffet for supper.  I'd say that on a scale of 1-10, it was at most a 4.  It was clean and the food was hot, but everything tasted exactly the same -- and was deep-fried beside!

A VERY, VERY Lazy Day!

I was SO tired today!  We didn't get up until almost nine, I ate my yogurt, granola and blueberries; then fell asleep sitting on the sofa drinking my coffee...

I finally gave up and went back and laid on the bed and took a morning nap.  So you can imagine how much day there wasn't left by the time I was awake and functioning again.  I did get a couple of loads of laundry done, but it was starting to get dark when I was hanging the second load up.

I spent a bit of time on the computer looking for a recommendation from HWH on where to get the back slide fixed.  They are actually based in Moscow, Iowa. We were thinking if all else failed, we could go to the factory, but they gave us the name of a place they highly recommend in Elkhart. Indiana.  Stuart Service is only about a day's drive from here.  By the time we had gotten that figured out, it was too late to chat with them as they close at 3 PM Central time.  We'll do that first thing in the morning.

I did have a chance this afternoon to chat on the telephone with Sister Sherry.  My niece Daphne and her boys are there from Virginia visiting at the Touchet farm.  It was sure good to visit with her. I am so impressed with the delightful young women my nieces have become.