Hello from a Rainy Soggy Elkhart

This blog will be short as there isn't too much to report this week.  Weather wise, I think we've had some sort of rain almost every day since last weekend.  Some days MUCH heavier than others but only one day where it stormed pretty hard and they were predicting pretty strong winds.  Of course, that was the day that we got the new jacks installed and as we were paying that bill and getting ready to drive back to the campground, it all broke loose and rained really hard with LOTS of wind and dust for about 30 minutes and then it was over.  Fortunately, the guy still had to give us a lesson on how the new system operates so by the time that was done, the storm was pretty well over but it was pretty ugly there for awhile.

Murphy has been a bit under the weather this week (too much gopher hunting I guess) and so we made a vet visit where he confirmed a parasite issue so he's been on meds all week and we're hoping now that all is well again.  He even got Dick up a couple of nights during the night which he has NEVER done before so we knew he was sick.

We gave the 'ok' to Haulmark so things are being built…..we hope.  We have a new dinette area being built and a new desk/entertainment center on the opposite wall.  We decided to go with Haulmark as they use Walnut and that is what the rest of the motor home wood is so we wanted to remain consistent. As much as we like the work of the Amish craftsman, they don't use Walnut.  They could get it for us but the price was pretty high compared to Haulmark.

On Wednesday while the jacks were being installed, we took a road trip to The John Dillinger Museum in Hammond, IN at one of their Travel Centers along I-80/94.  Not a huge museum but very well done and worth a stop if passing by.  They have various artifacts from his life on the farm during his childhood, to his adult life of crime during the Depression Era.  They have an exact replica of the wooden gun he used in the 'great escape' from Lake County Jail, they have his 'death' trousers, his lucky rabbit's foot and the saxophone case he left behind during one of his bank robberies just to name a few.   On the way home we stopped in South Bend for 'linner'.  We picked a place called 'Pitts Barbecue' that was excellent.  A mom/pop type place, very simply furnished with only a few wobbly tables, but you could smell the barbecue from down the street where we had to park.  When we mentioned we hadn't been there before, the owner got us a sample of one of his St. Louis ribs……..YUM!!!!  He has a little gold mine there, across the street from where he went to high school, and makes fresh everything he serves.  Not a huge menu but Dick's pulled pork sandwich and my brisket were excellent.  Even bought a jar of his homemade barbecue sauce that he poured into the jar right from the pan where he was cooking a fresh batch.

The rest of the week was spent cleaning out some drawers, cabinets, etc. as we will have totally different kind of storage when all this new stuff is done.  We also had a visit from one of our other full timing friends whom we met here at this campground several years ago.  They are in the area for some rallies as they are vendors selling various RV wares.

This week we have quite a bit on the schedule so more to report next week.  Tomorrow we will get a small awning fixed (hopefully an easy fix to just rewind) and then taking the rig to Haulmark where they will remove the sofa and part of the dinette in preparation for the new sofa on Thursday.  Wednesday the new window shades will be installed so it'll be a busy week plus my sister-in-law and her girlfriend are coming over for a couple of days from IL so I hope I can get some girl time with them.

Picture taking is only allowed in the small entrance to the museum
so I only have a couple to show you

"Duck Under Glass" on display at the Travel Center.
Part of the 2003 Streetscape Project in Highland where
48 of these feathered friends were put on display by
local businesses.

Elkhart 3rd Week Ahead

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!   To all the dads reading this blog, we hope you have a wonderful day and are able to celebrate with those you love.  To those dads no longer with us, like mine and Dicks, we love you and miss you every day.

We're making progress on this remodeling project……window coverings are ordered, Haulmark has drawn up the official plans for what they're going to do & we go tomorrow to review & say 'ok' or needs further modification.  The sofa has been measured and ordered so we're feeling a small sense of accomplishment.  We still have a couple of things we're searching for but the big items are being worked on.

This will most likely be a quiet week, except on Wednesday, when we take the rig to a place where they will be installing new leveling jacks.  We haven't been happy with the ones that were installed initially as they've never worked right.  Dick has been back & forth to that company about 5 or 6 times over the years and they work for a short time & then they don't.  Haulmark has been installing a different kind the last couple of years and are very satisfied with these so they were able to get us a smoking deal on a new set to be installed this week.  The same story with our awning……has never worked correctly, now using a different brand, and we will be able to get one of these as well for half price plus free installation.   Hurray!!!  All of this will take time to be built and installed so we've pretty well resigned ourselves to the fact that we'll be here most of July.

The weather here has been nice pretty for most of the last week except for Wednesday when we did have heavy rain most of the day but no storm, just a steady downpour.  We really can't complain so far…..and even the humidity has been low.  

On Thursday of this week, our former neighbors at the RV park in Sun City, stopped by for a visit en route to New York for part of the summer.  That was home to them for many years although they spent the winters in AZ.  A couple of years ago they sold the NY home and moved to AZ full-time buying a home in Sun City West and continuing to travel in their RV during the summer.  We had a nice visit and took them to the RV Hall of Fame here in Elkhart.  The number of RV units on display, dating back to 1913, and the history boards explaining the evolution of RVs is well done.  They even have on display, Mae West's 1931 customized House car (as they were known then), no doubt one of Hollywood's earliest mobile love nests.  We had been to this museum before but it was fun to see it all again with them.  After the museum, we had a nice dinner and then they retired to their motel before continuing to head east on Friday (they're not RVing on this trip east).

Friday we went to Goshen, IN to an RV rally being held at the fairgrounds there.  We needed certain RV supplies that are available at most rallies and it's nice to pick them up in person and save on the shipping charges.  Saturday yours truly did some shopping while Dick puttered around home with Murphy's supervision.

Murphy is still trying to catch a gopher and if we have the door open, he will sit for a long time just waiting for that gopher to come out of the hole outside our door.  Dick has filled the hole in numerous times but I guess he likes to tease Murphy and always comes back.  I just hope Murphy doesn't go through the screen one of these times.

Happy Trails and remember…….if you want the rainbow, you need to put up with the rain!

One of my favorite pictures of my dad!  He wore bib overalls 95% of the time,
loved to wear funny hats, and worked very hard as a farmer.
Love and miss you dad!

Yes, the bathroom sink is just above the toilet in this old motorhome on
display at the RV museum.  'Watch your head' is definitely in order here.

Very short bunk beds right next to the dinette in this old RV.

A bathtub!!  We 'assume' they had to bucket water to dump in the tub but not sure how they got it
out.  Some of these areas are roped off so you can't get up close to see for yourself.

Pretty nice looking old house car wouldn't you say but definitely
wouldn't pass today's standards.

Elkhart Update…..

Hello from a rainy soggy Elkhart this morning.  We have had beautiful weather this week with only one day, mid week, that was rainy and only up in the low 60's.  We loved it especially when we looked at the temperatures in Phoenix.  We're supposed to have rain on/off all day today and then they're predicting cooler temps this week with more rain coming our way.  So far the locals say that this has been an awesome start to summer and we think they're right.

We started the week by checking in with Haulmark and going over our list of 'wants/needs' for this RV remodeling project.  They are definitely busier than they were in 2010 when we had ours built and it was nice to see several completed and awaiting delivery to the dealers.  Haulmark has come a long ways since 2010 and we really like some of the changes they have made and it's nice to see them doing well, adding employees, but still maintaining their quality product.  Of course, with them being busier, we won't be able to to get in/out as quickly as we'd like but we told them we were ok with that because we wanted it all done right the first time.  Novel concept………     After our meeting with Haulmark, we went to a place called Bradd and Hall, to get more information on MCD Shades for the windows.  Like many RVers we don't like the day/night shades that most manufacturers put in so we're looking to do something different and these shades come highly recommended.  We saw some up close and personal, got a pricing sheet, looked at some other furniture items and then came home to wait for a satellite repairman to call and schedule some time to help get satellite back down (he had put it up on Sunday in hopes of maybe it would work but it only went half way up & stopped).

We noticed that some other RVing friends were here in the campground so after getting home we got together with them for some good conversation and then dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant here in the area.

Tuesday we were up early and went to an Amish furniture maker called Lambright who is well known for his comfort chairs.    Over the years he has expanded into gliders, sofas, love seats, side tables, and other things and all are custom made.  We had two of his chairs in our 5th wheel and loved them so we knew we wanted him to make our sofa.  It is such a pleasure to talk to someone who truly cares about their craft, doesn't want to be the biggest business in town and wants 100% to make his customer happy.   We found a style we liked and he's going to do something different with it than he normally does by putting a drawer under the middle section.  Each end will have a recliner position so no drawer can be there, but he liked our idea of the middle one being useful so he's going to do that for us.
We will have to take the coach out to him (he's about 20 miles from Elkhart) for measurements and then he'll start to build.  We will do that this week as he was not going to be there a few days last week.

We came home from Lambright and still hadn't heard from the satellite guy (we couldn't take the rig anywhere with the dish half way up) so Dick called the manufacturer, got some help from them in a couple of different calls, recalibrated it, and bingo it worked.  Yeah!!

Tuesday afternoon we went to another Amish RV furniture maker in Nappannee, IN about 20 miles the other way from Elkhart.  We had been struggling with what to do with the dinette area……table/chairs,  or another dinette but smaller.  Dinettes seem to be hard to come by and even though Haulmark could make another one for us, we didn't want to use the furniture maker they use, so after seeing what the gentleman in Nappannee does with wood, we decided to go that way.  Since it's more like a credenza, with a table that pulls out further, if needed, and chairs, we will use Haulmark because they use Walnut and that is what all of our other wood is.  The Amish folks don't normally use walnut though they can get it, they prefer to use cherry and stain it walnut.

Long story short, we will have Mr. Lambright make our sofa (he'll measure for it on Tuesday), and Haulmark will make our credenza/table, and redo our entire desk area, making what I call an entertainment center above the desk to enclose the TV, have some cabinets, shelves, etc.  We go back to Haulmark on Tuesday morning and they'll measure everything they're going to do and then we'll at least be making some progress.  We took the coach to Bradd and Hall on Thursday and they measured for the shades, we now have that quote, and once we say 'go' that will be at least two weeks as well.  The RV industry has definitely come back to life here and everyone seems to really be busy……which is a good thing after seeing how it was in 2010.

Murphy went to his favorite 'doggie day care' camp one day this week and of course had a blast.  He came home one tired dog and slept for 24 hours I think.  His other favorite thing to do while here is hunt for gophers!!!  It is quite a challenge sometimes to walk him because he knows where all the gopher holes are and wants to check them out.

Friday we took a ride up to White Pigeon, MI, a village of about 1500 people according to the sign.  There is an RV Surplus Store there called Bontragers.  There are several surplus stores in this area but we haven't been to this one and by far it is the largest we've ever been in.   In addition to RV surplus, they have mobile home supplies, and home improvement materials, all bought by the truckloads from suppliers in the Elkhart area.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of furniture items as we were looking for two chairs for the new table/credenza area.  It was still an interesting place to roam around and I think they had bins of every screw/nut/bolt ever made.  One of those kind of places that you say……if Bontragers don't have it, it isn't made.

The RV park here is busy as there are a couple of RV rallies in the area.  Again, it's nice to see people traveling again.  One of the small rallies was here at the park this weekend and it was a Rialta Club. These are smaller motor homes, several different manufactures, all built on a Volkswagen chassis.  Really fun to look at and would definitely be easy to maneuver in city traffic.  I'll post a picture below.

Have a good week and remember this……growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional!

Murphy on the hunt for a gopher!!

Camp K-9 where Murphy goes to day camp. The first time we took him
there we thought maybe they took them on a field trip, but this is just for
street advertising.  Very cute!

Sunrise over Lake Simonton near the campground
one morning when I walked

The Rialta Club motor home rally

Just one aisle of many many at Bontragers
RV Surplus

Hello From Elkhart, IN

We feel like this is becoming too much like 'home' here at this campground.  I'd have to go back and look at our records but I think we have been here for at least a short time during the summer for the last five or six years.  It is a nice campground, well maintained, very nice owners who have continued to improve it over the years.  It is not a 'resort' by any means but we are comfortable here and it's convenient for anything RV related in the area.  And Murphy LOVES it because it has lots of gopher holes to 'explore'.

Memorial Day in Rapid City brought the warmest day we'd had during those eight days and I'm betting the locals were more than pleased to know that the winter of 2013/2014 was over.  We went to one of our favorite restaurants there called The Firehouse Brewing Company which was Rapid's first firehouse in 1915.  They are best known for their hand crafted beers and their food is centered around an English pub fare style.  The decor is unique, it's right downtown, and just a fun place to stop if in the area.  Then we stopped at a place called the 'Call of the Wild' which is a free museum of wild animals at the Tourist Center/Mobil Station near our RV park.  I had seen the advertisement so I wanted to check out what it was all about and what a nice surprise.  The taxidermy mounts are skillfully crafted to show each animal in its truest sense, showing a realistic pose and expression.  There are brown bear, wolf, polar bears, antelopes, moose and many many more.  It is fascinating that it's in the same building as a convenience store, so you stop to fuel up, get a soda and while you're inside, you can take some time & tour the museum.  The gentleman who owns the convenience store is an avid big-game hunter and had a collection of trophy animals himself.  So he used the extra space at the store to open the museum and it helps the taxidermists show off their work.   It's not huge and probably 30 minutes would be sufficient but well worth it.

On Tuesday we left Rapid a bit later than usual because Dick had some difficulty getting the satellite dish to retract.  He ended up bringing it down manually and we'll have to have it checked out while we're here in Elkhart.  We went about 300+ miles that day, all on I-90, and so it was an uneventful driving day.

We spent the night at a Flying J and Dick had an interesting conversation with our 'trucker' neighbor.  We always notice when we're in that part of the midwest, all of the John Deere equipment being hauled 'wherever' since in my farming days, John Deere was the tractor of choice.   This guy had a cotton picker on his truck to be delivered to Tacoma, WA on Friday for shipment on a boat to China.  The driver said, China bought 300 cotton pickers and the boat will arrive in Tacoma on 6/12 to pick them up and take back to China.  Approximately 150 of them are already in Tacoma and these drivers are working on the last half of them.  Interesting!!!

Wednesday we arrived in Pender, NE midday for our appointment the next morning.  Dick went to the office to see if 'maybe' Blue Ox could get us in that afternoon and sure enough they could.  They came to our site, did the tow bar checkup, changed a couple of parts, and $35 (and that included the campsite) later we were good to go.  They provide a very nice little campground with full hooks at no charge if you're having work done so we went ahead and spent the night & left early Thursday a.m. for IL.  Pender is a little town of 1002 people (that's what the sign says as you enter town) and a sign in the middle of the main street at one intersection confirms that we were definitely in 'small town America'.  The sign was hand written asking for volunteers to help take memorial flags down at 1 p.m. at the cemetery that afternoon.  Pender celebrated their 125th town anniversary in 2010 and in honor of that anniversary many ladies made quilts and then they had a contest with someone being the winner for the best quilt.  Well, now the homes that made quilts all have a wooden sign in their yard displaying the pattern of the quilt that was made in that home.  A special little town in our eyes.

Thursday as we left Pender, we took some state highways winding through the countryside to make our way to the interstate and headed east to IL.  Those state roads provide a totally different view of the countryside vs. the interstates.  Another 300+ day and we could have easily went on into my brothers but we didn't.  We spent the night at the I-80 truck stop, the world's largest truck stop, according to the sign, in Walcott, IA.  It was a pretty 'noisy' night for sleeping because that truck stop can handle 800+ trucks and they come and go all night.  We have stayed here before and it is quite the place if you are ever in that part of IA it is worth a stop.

Friday we had an easy trip to Morris and my brother's farm.  He is in the midst of finishing up planting beans (corn is complete and looks great) and is also having another very large custom metal building built to store more of his machinery, so there was a lot going on there this weekend.  We were able to park in our normal spot so that we had hookups, but they all worked around us.  We were glad we hadn't planned to stay any longer than this morning because it was one busy place.   Dick worked on cleaning up the rig (weather was awesome), and I spent some time with my sister-in-law and her daughters doing 'girl' things before we all spent the evenings together over food and good conversation.

Today we made the three hour trip to Elkhart and tomorrow we'll start the process of planning, getting estimates, etc. for our RV remodel.  We have some friends who live in this area, some other people are here at the park that we know, and my sister-in-law wants to come see us while we're here, so it'll be a busy month I'm sure.

Big Horn Sheep

Alligator

Zebra & Bobcat

Giraffe, all of the above just a sampling of the wild
animals at the Call of the Wild museum

Sign in the middle of the street in Pender, NE 

John Deere Cotton Picker headed to China