schellsontheroad2014.blogspot.com: 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.