When I last wrote, we were leaving Evergreen Lake Park in Conneault, OH, to drive up I-90 to I-86 (NY's Southern Tier Expressway) and head east across New York State. There are parts of that trip that are amazingly beautiful, particularly the stretch that goes south of the Finger Lakes region in west central NY. There is some excellent road. There is one of the most beautiful rest areas we have ever seen on an Interstate Highway. And there is LOTS of construction on the route with the concrete safety barriers providing minimum width for the lanes through which you drive.
If you've never driven a larger vehicle, you may not be able to appreciate just how much stress there is in driving a 8.5' wide (that 102" if you're wondering) vehicle down a lane that feels like it is 10 feet wide. I don't know what width interstate highway lanes really are in construction areas. It's probably more like 12 feet wide (which is the standard width) but it sure seems narrower than that, probably because of the concrete safety barriers on either side). It requires full attention to the road all the time. I've gotten used to driving in construction zones, but there is still a lot going on and you don't want to make a mistake. That can get expensive! So concentrate, concentrate, concentrate.
Some of the interstate roads we drove in NY were rough, being bouncy and rocky at the same time. When the roads are particularly rough, you really have to be careful when opening cabinet doors. Things might have shifted during the bouncy ride and you may just have a coffee cup or a bottle of soap or ... well there are all sorts of things packed in these cabinets ... and one of them may just come falling toward your heard if you're not careful in opening the overhead compartment doors. It kind of reminds me of an airplanes overhead storage after an extraordinarily turbulent flight. You don't know what's going to come out of there when the door is opened!
So we bounced our way across the southern tier of counties in NY. Wouldn't the NY Thruway have been closer and faster? Maybe, but it would also have been a whole lot more expensive. The Thruway is a toll road and they make you pay for the privilege of beating yourself to death on its bumps and jars. It's an expensive toll way. And the gas at the toll road oases is sky high. So we elected to travel on NON-toll roads.
Tuesday night when we got to Binghamton, NY, we were supposed to head NE up I-88 to Albany. However, we needed to stop for the night and so we found a site that was listed in the Passport America member's guidebook. Passport America is a membership club for campers and RV owners that makes it possible to camp for up to 50% off of standard rates. That's usually restricted to Sun - Thurs. nights since weekends can fill up at many RV parks and they can charge full rate fees. You pay about $50 per year to belong and usually the savings pay for that in just a stop or two. I recommend them highly. It is one of the memberships we will keep for year after year.
Anyway, we were looking for Forest Lake Park in Windsor, NY, so we had to stay on I-86 toward New York City. We found the exit for the park easily but the park itself was up (and down) in the hills. We threaded our way up and down narrow country roads for several miles, each road getting narrower than the last. Oh, did I fail to mention that by this time it was raining buckets?!
Finally we found our way to the campgrounds and everything was totally dark! There were several campers (trailers mostly) in the park but no lights. It looked like nobody was home. The office was locked. The main house looked empty. Now what do we do? Did I mention that it was pouring buckets? Thankfully a gentleman drove up at that moment. I thought he was going to be the owner or manager or caretaker. Nope. He was just a resident. However he did know the telephone number of the owner. The NEW owner. So I got the number, called the owner, got the wife in the family on the phone and she said they were over 10 minutes away from the park ... at their home. BUT her husband was driving home from his job (his job? The camp isn't his job?) and would be coming by there shortly and she'd give him a call.
Finally, a man in a truck pulls up. It's the owner. He takes me in the empty house which is going to be the office. It seems that he has owned the camp for every bit of two weeks. I may have been his first overnight customer. I'm not sure. He certainly did not know how to register me or give me a receipt or how to assign me to a campsite. Instead, he took me for a ride through the campground in his truck to look at potential sites. Did I mention that it was pouring buckets? The poorly maintained roads were potholed and covered with running water. The sites he showed me were saturated with water and it was standing in some places. I finally selected a campsite that looked like we were camped in the middle of a pond with water all around us (that's a slight exaggeration but only slight). Fortunately there was a good gravel base beneath the coat of water all over the ground.
To top it all off, the new owner had dropped the Passport America affiliation and they no longer gave the 50% discount. ARGGGH! After all that, we were paying full rate in a dump, in a FLOODED dump.
It rained most of the night. But the following day dawned clear and sunny and, as Mary said, the camp was really a pretty little place with lots of potential and ought to be a good campground someday IF the new owner worked at it. I sure hope he does. I wonder if he will. He seems to be a nice guy but he doesn't know the first thing about running a campground (and admits it) but thought that the land and the lake would be an excellent investment. And the camp came with it. That's not necessarily the best rational for becoming a campground owner.
The next morning, we managed to make our way out of the mud and the muck and the mire and get back on the road, traveling back roads to get to I-88 so we could head north. Our goal was King Phillips Campground in Lake George, NY, just a few miles north of Glens Falls, the home of the Adirondack Balloon Festival and Mary's sister Barb and her family. We were actually arriving at King Phillips CG a day earlier than we had planned but we didn't want to stay where we were at Forest Lake so I called ahead and asked if we could come in a day early. We could.
We got to Lake George on Wednesday afternoon, September 19, and got ourselves set up. King Phillips Campground was a wonderful contrast to our home of the previous evening. It is a neat, clean, well organized business that takes good care of their facilities and their customers. We'll probably be back there to camp sometime.
That evening, we ran down to visit Barb and family for a while, got the low-down on the Balloon Festival schedule and activities, and headed back "home" to King Phillips where we would be living for the next few days.
The trip continues in the next installment. By the way, there will be more pictures as the rest of this stage of our journey is described.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Home is headed for WI for a few more weeks
It used to be that as a trip was coming to an end I'd think about "heading for home." But since "home" (in the phraseology of the RVers) is "where you park it," I have to say where "home" is heading. And right now, we are headed back to Wisconsin for about three more weeks of this fall.
We have kids with birthdays and anniversaries and we want to see the.m and we want to see the grandkids. We also have some Red Cross training to take. And a doctor's appointment and ... Well, you get the idea. There is unfinished business. Isn't that always true in life? As long as we are living, there is some kind of "unfinished business" to be taken care of. So we're going to take care of some of it and, I'm sure, will leave some of it unfinished for the next time we're in WI.
Let me bring you up to date on the peregrinations of Forrest and Mary. When I last left you, we were at the Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, IN. And a delightful place it was and we'll stop there again (probably in a couple of days). However, we left Elkhart on the morning of Sept. 16 with plans for a short day's drive. We were stopping at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Some of are old enough to remember when the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland would catch on fire and burn. Yes, the river would burn! There was so much flammable pollution in the river (or on the surface of it) that the river would catch on fire and burn for days. Today, the Cuyahoga River and the Valley along it is a beautiful national park! The valley and river have been cleaned up and the river is clear and clean.
We weren't planning an extended visit to the park. It is long and narrow and could easily take several days to explore. It would be fun to take a LONG walk along the Ohio and Erie Towpath Trail which follows along the route of the Ohio and Erie Canal, a vital transportation link in the pre-Civil War days in Ohio, enabling canal boats to take cargo and passengers to Lake Erie from towns along the length of the canal all the way down to the Ohio River.
We stopped at the Boston Store Visitor's Center near Peninsula, OH. There we had an interesting discussion with a volunteer about the role of bats in the Cuyahoga Valley, saw some static displays on the history of canal boat building, and walked a 1/2-mile or so along the Towpath Trail. A Monday in September was definitely NOT the best time to be visiting this park. They were already cutting back on services and activities in preparation for fall and winter when the number of visitors greatly declines. However, we agreed that this park will be on our "list" for a revisit during some summer trip through northern OH.
The "list" grows longer daily. There is always so much more to see than we allow time to see it. But as we slow down and stay places longer we know that we'll take some items off of that list as we take the time to thoroughly explore an area. Like many newbie full-timers, we are busy going instead of taking time to sit. By the way, we KNOW that it costs a lot less to sit and explore than it does to drive from place to place and just get a glancing look at an area, but we are trying to be certain places on certain days this fall and that means we have to keep moving.
After our visit to CVNP, we stopped for the night in Brunswick, OH, at Willow Lake Park. It was an okay place to stop for the night, but I'm not sure it will be very high on the list of campgrounds we revisit. However, that may not be very fair to the park since a quick overnight spot is definitely not the best way to judge a campground. It was pleasant enough but, I admit, failed to make enough of an impression on me that I even remembered its name. I had to go back and look it up to write this post.
On September 17, we drove from Willow Park to Evergreen Lake Park in Conneault, OH, stopped overnight and then headed on across the little part of Pennsylvania that was on our route before we pointed our RV across the Southern Tier Expressway in New York state. There were several things in the vicinity of Evergreen Lake Park that we could have taken the time to see, but we had decided that we wanted to move on into New York and maybe get to Glens Falls a day earlier than we had planned so we could do some more things in that area. Northern Ohio definitely has some interesting places that we want to see in the future so we'll just keep on adding to the ever growing "list" of places we'll return to investigate in more depth.
I'll leave you there for the moment and continue the journey later as we travel across southern New York.
We have kids with birthdays and anniversaries and we want to see the.m and we want to see the grandkids. We also have some Red Cross training to take. And a doctor's appointment and ... Well, you get the idea. There is unfinished business. Isn't that always true in life? As long as we are living, there is some kind of "unfinished business" to be taken care of. So we're going to take care of some of it and, I'm sure, will leave some of it unfinished for the next time we're in WI.
Let me bring you up to date on the peregrinations of Forrest and Mary. When I last left you, we were at the Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, IN. And a delightful place it was and we'll stop there again (probably in a couple of days). However, we left Elkhart on the morning of Sept. 16 with plans for a short day's drive. We were stopping at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Some of are old enough to remember when the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland would catch on fire and burn. Yes, the river would burn! There was so much flammable pollution in the river (or on the surface of it) that the river would catch on fire and burn for days. Today, the Cuyahoga River and the Valley along it is a beautiful national park! The valley and river have been cleaned up and the river is clear and clean.
We weren't planning an extended visit to the park. It is long and narrow and could easily take several days to explore. It would be fun to take a LONG walk along the Ohio and Erie Towpath Trail which follows along the route of the Ohio and Erie Canal, a vital transportation link in the pre-Civil War days in Ohio, enabling canal boats to take cargo and passengers to Lake Erie from towns along the length of the canal all the way down to the Ohio River.
We stopped at the Boston Store Visitor's Center near Peninsula, OH. There we had an interesting discussion with a volunteer about the role of bats in the Cuyahoga Valley, saw some static displays on the history of canal boat building, and walked a 1/2-mile or so along the Towpath Trail. A Monday in September was definitely NOT the best time to be visiting this park. They were already cutting back on services and activities in preparation for fall and winter when the number of visitors greatly declines. However, we agreed that this park will be on our "list" for a revisit during some summer trip through northern OH.
The "list" grows longer daily. There is always so much more to see than we allow time to see it. But as we slow down and stay places longer we know that we'll take some items off of that list as we take the time to thoroughly explore an area. Like many newbie full-timers, we are busy going instead of taking time to sit. By the way, we KNOW that it costs a lot less to sit and explore than it does to drive from place to place and just get a glancing look at an area, but we are trying to be certain places on certain days this fall and that means we have to keep moving.
After our visit to CVNP, we stopped for the night in Brunswick, OH, at Willow Lake Park. It was an okay place to stop for the night, but I'm not sure it will be very high on the list of campgrounds we revisit. However, that may not be very fair to the park since a quick overnight spot is definitely not the best way to judge a campground. It was pleasant enough but, I admit, failed to make enough of an impression on me that I even remembered its name. I had to go back and look it up to write this post.
On September 17, we drove from Willow Park to Evergreen Lake Park in Conneault, OH, stopped overnight and then headed on across the little part of Pennsylvania that was on our route before we pointed our RV across the Southern Tier Expressway in New York state. There were several things in the vicinity of Evergreen Lake Park that we could have taken the time to see, but we had decided that we wanted to move on into New York and maybe get to Glens Falls a day earlier than we had planned so we could do some more things in that area. Northern Ohio definitely has some interesting places that we want to see in the future so we'll just keep on adding to the ever growing "list" of places we'll return to investigate in more depth.
I'll leave you there for the moment and continue the journey later as we travel across southern New York.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Playing Catch-UP!
I simply didn't realize how much time I let go by before posting anything! I didn't mean to ignore those of you who follow along with us in our travels. The last time I wrote was August 26 when we were in Indianapolis for the FMCA Family Reunion. Now it's September 15. What happened?!
We had a great time in Indianapolis, going to seminars, having a good entertainment evening (and one that wasn't), and touring new coaches of all price points. The $1.7 million coach we saw did seem a bit over the top compare to our little Terra, but it was just too much. Not too much money but too much bling and shine. And it was BIG! (Forty-five feet compared to our thirty-four feet.) The seminars were quite educational. We booked two months of our winter time in FL (more on that later).And we bought a brand new mattress for our coach. It was very plain that the OEM mattress was just flat cheap ... and not very good. They saved weight and money and neither saving served us well. So we bought a new mattress and is it ever better! Thank you Denver Mattress!
The highlight of our visit to Indy was an opportunity to connect with Bob and Deb Norman who live nearby. We've met them at the Fleetwood Rallies for the past two years and have enjoyed hanging out with them. Bob and I will never agree on politics, but that's alright. We do appreciate the faith perspective each of us brings to life and we have a good time in the RV world. Bob and Deb, we both had a great time and are glad you made the effort to come up to FMCA. (Deb's father was in the hospital for a number of days before they came up to Indy and would later pass away. Deb, you have our love and sympathy!)
One of the most interesting things that happened took place on the day AFTER the rally when we were getting ready to leave the Indiana State Fairground. I had arranged to get the coach weighed at 9:30 that morning so we weren't hurrying to get ready to leave. (Getting the coach weighed is vital for folks like us who have almost everything they own in the RV. Do we have the load balanced? Do we have too much weight in the coach? That, of course, is very dangerous.) When I went to take one of the final steps to leaving our camping site, retracting the hydraulic jacks that stabilize the coach, the system would not come on. I tried and retried and checked all the steps I needed to follow but nothing was happening. So ... I walked over to a small group that was standing nearby in front of their RVs and apparently getting ready to leave and I asked if any of them knew anything about the hydraulic system for the jacks. And one of said "I'll be over in a minute."
One of the things I have always heard about RVers is that they are ready and willing to help one another. I did not get the name of either one of the men who helped me (or their wives who kept Mary entertained while we were working on the jacks) but I sure did appreciate the time they took to try to help me. The women told Mary and the men told me to not let this get us upset, that things like this happened to RVs and that if we were going to live in one we just had to get used to it.
We (the fellows helping me and myself) wound up calling Fleetwood's customer service and they told us how to manually retract the jacks (a task that is somewhat messy and a little bit hard to do but one I'm glad that I now know what needs to be done to accomplish it). So we got the jacks retracted and could head for the weighing session (a full 1-1/2 hours late). Fortunately they could still get to me and the results were great. We are underweight and reasonably well balanced, left to right and front to back. Thank you, unknown fellow RVers, for the help you rendered. I hope I cross paths with you again along the road.
Heading for home, we stopped off at one of our favorite campgrounds, the Champaign Sportsman's Club, in Mahomet, IL. This is a small, simple campground with basic facilities, but it is quiet and family-like. I've been there three times down. And it is on Lake of the Woods. And three out of the four jacks worked. The fourth just wouldn't go down.
We arranged to take the RV into Finnegan's RV in South Beloit, IL, a local dealer from which we have had very good service. The problem with the jacks? An electrical connection that had separated on ONE of the four jacks. It was simple to fix but cost more than a few dollars since it took some time to find and the labor cost was all that it involved. I'm glad nothing more serious was involved.
So, with the house sold and new folks living there, where did we go? What did we do for a place to stay? We went to Hidden Valley RV Resort near Milton, WI, between Beloit and Madison. That we we could go see the kids AND go to our storage units in Beloit and visit some friends. By the way, we drove past the old house and neither one of us felt bad about not having it as home. It did seem a little strange to not be able to stop in, as we have done in past years, and do the wash and pick up a few things we needed.
After we moved out of the house, we had all of our remaining belongings in the RV and in two storage units in the Beloit-area. So during the two weeks we were home, we sorted and gave to Good Will and other places and moved things from the RV to storage and from storage to the RV. NOW we have only one storage unit. And we have a few more things in the RV and a few fewer of some things with us.
One of the fun things that we did during the two weeks we were at Hidden Valley RV Resort was to go to near-by Edgerton's Chilimania. It was a genuine chili cook-off competition plus a salsa-making competition. We tasted some twenty or so salsas and nearly thirty different kinds of chili. Wow! Some of it was hot, some of it was very taste-filled, all of it was good. Thank you, Edgerton, for a fun day!
Today, after two weeks at Hidden Valley, we headed east. We're going to Glens Falls, NY, and the Adirondack Balloon Festival. We'll also get to visit with Mary's sister, Barb and her family, and Mary's brother, Dennis. Tonight, we stopped off at the Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana. It was in a good place at the right time to stop but one of the real reasons that we stopped here was that I had read Nick Russell of The Gypsy Journal speak so favorably of the times he had stopped here for a while. Thank you, Nick! I can well imagine that we'll stop here again. Tomorrow, however, we'll move further east, stopping at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park for a day. Do you remember when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it would catch fire and burn for days? It's all cleaned up and, I understand, is a beautiful place to visit. We're looking forward to checking it out.
We had a great time in Indianapolis, going to seminars, having a good entertainment evening (and one that wasn't), and touring new coaches of all price points. The $1.7 million coach we saw did seem a bit over the top compare to our little Terra, but it was just too much. Not too much money but too much bling and shine. And it was BIG! (Forty-five feet compared to our thirty-four feet.) The seminars were quite educational. We booked two months of our winter time in FL (more on that later).And we bought a brand new mattress for our coach. It was very plain that the OEM mattress was just flat cheap ... and not very good. They saved weight and money and neither saving served us well. So we bought a new mattress and is it ever better! Thank you Denver Mattress!
The highlight of our visit to Indy was an opportunity to connect with Bob and Deb Norman who live nearby. We've met them at the Fleetwood Rallies for the past two years and have enjoyed hanging out with them. Bob and I will never agree on politics, but that's alright. We do appreciate the faith perspective each of us brings to life and we have a good time in the RV world. Bob and Deb, we both had a great time and are glad you made the effort to come up to FMCA. (Deb's father was in the hospital for a number of days before they came up to Indy and would later pass away. Deb, you have our love and sympathy!)
One of the most interesting things that happened took place on the day AFTER the rally when we were getting ready to leave the Indiana State Fairground. I had arranged to get the coach weighed at 9:30 that morning so we weren't hurrying to get ready to leave. (Getting the coach weighed is vital for folks like us who have almost everything they own in the RV. Do we have the load balanced? Do we have too much weight in the coach? That, of course, is very dangerous.) When I went to take one of the final steps to leaving our camping site, retracting the hydraulic jacks that stabilize the coach, the system would not come on. I tried and retried and checked all the steps I needed to follow but nothing was happening. So ... I walked over to a small group that was standing nearby in front of their RVs and apparently getting ready to leave and I asked if any of them knew anything about the hydraulic system for the jacks. And one of said "I'll be over in a minute."
One of the things I have always heard about RVers is that they are ready and willing to help one another. I did not get the name of either one of the men who helped me (or their wives who kept Mary entertained while we were working on the jacks) but I sure did appreciate the time they took to try to help me. The women told Mary and the men told me to not let this get us upset, that things like this happened to RVs and that if we were going to live in one we just had to get used to it.
We (the fellows helping me and myself) wound up calling Fleetwood's customer service and they told us how to manually retract the jacks (a task that is somewhat messy and a little bit hard to do but one I'm glad that I now know what needs to be done to accomplish it). So we got the jacks retracted and could head for the weighing session (a full 1-1/2 hours late). Fortunately they could still get to me and the results were great. We are underweight and reasonably well balanced, left to right and front to back. Thank you, unknown fellow RVers, for the help you rendered. I hope I cross paths with you again along the road.
Heading for home, we stopped off at one of our favorite campgrounds, the Champaign Sportsman's Club, in Mahomet, IL. This is a small, simple campground with basic facilities, but it is quiet and family-like. I've been there three times down. And it is on Lake of the Woods. And three out of the four jacks worked. The fourth just wouldn't go down.
We arranged to take the RV into Finnegan's RV in South Beloit, IL, a local dealer from which we have had very good service. The problem with the jacks? An electrical connection that had separated on ONE of the four jacks. It was simple to fix but cost more than a few dollars since it took some time to find and the labor cost was all that it involved. I'm glad nothing more serious was involved.
So, with the house sold and new folks living there, where did we go? What did we do for a place to stay? We went to Hidden Valley RV Resort near Milton, WI, between Beloit and Madison. That we we could go see the kids AND go to our storage units in Beloit and visit some friends. By the way, we drove past the old house and neither one of us felt bad about not having it as home. It did seem a little strange to not be able to stop in, as we have done in past years, and do the wash and pick up a few things we needed.
After we moved out of the house, we had all of our remaining belongings in the RV and in two storage units in the Beloit-area. So during the two weeks we were home, we sorted and gave to Good Will and other places and moved things from the RV to storage and from storage to the RV. NOW we have only one storage unit. And we have a few more things in the RV and a few fewer of some things with us.
One of the fun things that we did during the two weeks we were at Hidden Valley RV Resort was to go to near-by Edgerton's Chilimania. It was a genuine chili cook-off competition plus a salsa-making competition. We tasted some twenty or so salsas and nearly thirty different kinds of chili. Wow! Some of it was hot, some of it was very taste-filled, all of it was good. Thank you, Edgerton, for a fun day!
Today, after two weeks at Hidden Valley, we headed east. We're going to Glens Falls, NY, and the Adirondack Balloon Festival. We'll also get to visit with Mary's sister, Barb and her family, and Mary's brother, Dennis. Tonight, we stopped off at the Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana. It was in a good place at the right time to stop but one of the real reasons that we stopped here was that I had read Nick Russell of The Gypsy Journal speak so favorably of the times he had stopped here for a while. Thank you, Nick! I can well imagine that we'll stop here again. Tomorrow, however, we'll move further east, stopping at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park for a day. Do you remember when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it would catch fire and burn for days? It's all cleaned up and, I understand, is a beautiful place to visit. We're looking forward to checking it out.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
From Decatur to Anderson to Indianapolis
We finished up our repair work in Decatur on Thursday ... or so we thought! We got up slowly on Friday morning since the previous two mornings had both been up at 5 and down to the repair shop at 6. We weren't in a hurry, anyway, since we were only going down the road a little ways to Anderson, IN. We were just killing time until heading for Indianapolis on Sunday.
Imagine my surprise when, just before 11 am, after we had hooked up the tow car and Mary had run down to the office to turn in our parking pass, I reached over, grabbed my seat belt, pulled it across me, and discovered to my great dismay that the technician on Thursday afternoon had neglected to reinstall the seat belt BUCKLE and support! There was NOTHING to which to fasten the seat belt! Apparently the tech, in all of our excitement over finally getting the missing pedestal in from the parts depot, forgot to take the seat belt buckle assembly off of the old pedestal and transfer it to the new one.
I suppose some of you who know me best can imagine the fuming I was doing as I walked the length of Buildings 1 and 2 at Fleetwood Repair to tell someone about this latest development. Steam was probably rising from my ears as I rapidly walked the length of the parking lot to the office. Service advisor Julie said that technician Jim wasn't at work on Friday and they didn't know what happened to the missing part but that they'd look for it. Uh huh. Yeah! And just what am I supposed to do? Well, the answer was simple. Wait. And, oh, by the way, everyone was taking lunch break at 11 am! Say what?!
Amazingly, technician Bob showed up in about 15 minutes with the missing buckle assembly. It took every bit of two minutes to reinstall it. Where had the part been? Well, in cleaning up after Thursday's work, the replaced parts had been thrown in the trash bin! But it seems that Fleetwood recycles everything it can and the defective pedestal had been thrown in the metals trash bin for recycling ... and the recycling had not yet left the repair facility! Halleluhah! So he dug through the trash, found the part, took it off the pedestal and walked the length of Buildings 1 and 2, found us sitting in the parking lot, and reinstalled the seat belt buckle assembly so I could fasten the seat belt and legally drive. All of this, by the way, while he was supposed to be on his lunch hour (or half hour). Now that was good customer service and I hope Fleetwood recognized his efforts on our behalf. And thank you, Julie, for getting him right on looking for the part.
After that, the rest of the day went easily. We drove down I-69 to Anderson, IN, home of Anderson University and headquarters for the Church of God, Anderson, IN. There we had arranged to stay at the Timberline Valley RV Resort for Friday and Saturday nights.
This was a pleasant little family oriented campground along the White River. And it was nearly full! (I'm glad I had called the day before and made a reservation.) It seems that the Honda Goldwing Motorcycle club was having a big rally of their own for the weekend. There were several dozen beautiful Honda Goldwing motorcycles all decked out in lights! They did a nighttime ride around the RV park showing off their finery. It was quite pretty. And for someone used to Harley Davidsons, Wisconsin's own motorcycle of choice, the Goldwings were amazingly quiet. You could even carry on a conversation as they "purred" by. In addition to the Goldwing riders, there were quite a few motor coaches on their way to Indianapolis and the FMCA Homecoming rally.
Every day in the life of a full-time RVer is not a vacation day. We still have our domestic days and it was time for one. Saturday was a day of grocery shopping and clothes washing. We did have time for a walk around the RV park and over to an island that was part of the grounds. Mary took some pictures of the White River and the scenery.
After a working day on Saturday, we were up early on Sunday morning. We had been assigned an arrival time at the Indiana State Fairgrounds of 8 am until noon. We had to be there in that time period or lose our place in line for a camping site. That meant no church for us and that wasn't what we preferred but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. So we headed south down I-69 to Indianapolis.
The Indiana State Fairgrounds is HUGE! Of course, there are some 8,000 of us expected to be at the rally and it takes a lot of space to hold us. It was impressive to see all the coaches that are already here and there are many more to come tomorrow. Yesterday and today were "early arrival" days. Monday is the real arrival day. I'll try to get some pictures that give a hint of the number of coaches that are around here.
The place we are assigned, Lot LL, Street 5, is a long way from the area where the seminars and displays are located. Fortunately, there will be shuttle buses and trams to move us around. A rally is all about meeting friends, making new ones, and going to educational seminars and seeing displays of useful (and not so useful) products and displays of brand new RV coaches. There will MANY of them here at this rally of all brands. And some of the big names are debuting new coaches here at the show.
In addition to all of the above, we have been getting some things in place for our schedule. We know that after our stay in Indianapolis, ending Friday morning, we will be heading back to the Beloit area for about two weeks, camping at Hidden Valley RV Resort, Milton (Newville, for those of you who know the area). We've still got some business to take care of.
Then we'll head across country towards New York where we'll camp at King Phillips Campground, Lake George, NY, for the Adirondack Balloon Festival, September 20-23. While we're there, of course, we'll visit Mary's sister Barb and her family in Glens Falls (which is the real reason we're heading to New York).
After that, who knows where we'll go, EXCEPT we have reserved a space for December 31 - January 21 at the Sunset Isles RV Resort at Cedar Key, FL. We also know that we will be working out the details of a trip or two back to WI in the wintertime, one for Christmas with the kids and grandkids, and another for son Vini's graduation from Herzing University with his Bachelor's in Graphic Design.
Imagine my surprise when, just before 11 am, after we had hooked up the tow car and Mary had run down to the office to turn in our parking pass, I reached over, grabbed my seat belt, pulled it across me, and discovered to my great dismay that the technician on Thursday afternoon had neglected to reinstall the seat belt BUCKLE and support! There was NOTHING to which to fasten the seat belt! Apparently the tech, in all of our excitement over finally getting the missing pedestal in from the parts depot, forgot to take the seat belt buckle assembly off of the old pedestal and transfer it to the new one.
I suppose some of you who know me best can imagine the fuming I was doing as I walked the length of Buildings 1 and 2 at Fleetwood Repair to tell someone about this latest development. Steam was probably rising from my ears as I rapidly walked the length of the parking lot to the office. Service advisor Julie said that technician Jim wasn't at work on Friday and they didn't know what happened to the missing part but that they'd look for it. Uh huh. Yeah! And just what am I supposed to do? Well, the answer was simple. Wait. And, oh, by the way, everyone was taking lunch break at 11 am! Say what?!
Amazingly, technician Bob showed up in about 15 minutes with the missing buckle assembly. It took every bit of two minutes to reinstall it. Where had the part been? Well, in cleaning up after Thursday's work, the replaced parts had been thrown in the trash bin! But it seems that Fleetwood recycles everything it can and the defective pedestal had been thrown in the metals trash bin for recycling ... and the recycling had not yet left the repair facility! Halleluhah! So he dug through the trash, found the part, took it off the pedestal and walked the length of Buildings 1 and 2, found us sitting in the parking lot, and reinstalled the seat belt buckle assembly so I could fasten the seat belt and legally drive. All of this, by the way, while he was supposed to be on his lunch hour (or half hour). Now that was good customer service and I hope Fleetwood recognized his efforts on our behalf. And thank you, Julie, for getting him right on looking for the part.
After that, the rest of the day went easily. We drove down I-69 to Anderson, IN, home of Anderson University and headquarters for the Church of God, Anderson, IN. There we had arranged to stay at the Timberline Valley RV Resort for Friday and Saturday nights.
This was a pleasant little family oriented campground along the White River. And it was nearly full! (I'm glad I had called the day before and made a reservation.) It seems that the Honda Goldwing Motorcycle club was having a big rally of their own for the weekend. There were several dozen beautiful Honda Goldwing motorcycles all decked out in lights! They did a nighttime ride around the RV park showing off their finery. It was quite pretty. And for someone used to Harley Davidsons, Wisconsin's own motorcycle of choice, the Goldwings were amazingly quiet. You could even carry on a conversation as they "purred" by. In addition to the Goldwing riders, there were quite a few motor coaches on their way to Indianapolis and the FMCA Homecoming rally.Every day in the life of a full-time RVer is not a vacation day. We still have our domestic days and it was time for one. Saturday was a day of grocery shopping and clothes washing. We did have time for a walk around the RV park and over to an island that was part of the grounds. Mary took some pictures of the White River and the scenery.
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| The White River, near Anderson, IN |
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| White River |
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| Trail on Island at Timberline Valley RV Park |
After a working day on Saturday, we were up early on Sunday morning. We had been assigned an arrival time at the Indiana State Fairgrounds of 8 am until noon. We had to be there in that time period or lose our place in line for a camping site. That meant no church for us and that wasn't what we preferred but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. So we headed south down I-69 to Indianapolis.
The Indiana State Fairgrounds is HUGE! Of course, there are some 8,000 of us expected to be at the rally and it takes a lot of space to hold us. It was impressive to see all the coaches that are already here and there are many more to come tomorrow. Yesterday and today were "early arrival" days. Monday is the real arrival day. I'll try to get some pictures that give a hint of the number of coaches that are around here.
The place we are assigned, Lot LL, Street 5, is a long way from the area where the seminars and displays are located. Fortunately, there will be shuttle buses and trams to move us around. A rally is all about meeting friends, making new ones, and going to educational seminars and seeing displays of useful (and not so useful) products and displays of brand new RV coaches. There will MANY of them here at this rally of all brands. And some of the big names are debuting new coaches here at the show.
In addition to all of the above, we have been getting some things in place for our schedule. We know that after our stay in Indianapolis, ending Friday morning, we will be heading back to the Beloit area for about two weeks, camping at Hidden Valley RV Resort, Milton (Newville, for those of you who know the area). We've still got some business to take care of.
Then we'll head across country towards New York where we'll camp at King Phillips Campground, Lake George, NY, for the Adirondack Balloon Festival, September 20-23. While we're there, of course, we'll visit Mary's sister Barb and her family in Glens Falls (which is the real reason we're heading to New York).
After that, who knows where we'll go, EXCEPT we have reserved a space for December 31 - January 21 at the Sunset Isles RV Resort at Cedar Key, FL. We also know that we will be working out the details of a trip or two back to WI in the wintertime, one for Christmas with the kids and grandkids, and another for son Vini's graduation from Herzing University with his Bachelor's in Graphic Design.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Waiting for the Part!
The last time I wrote, I mentioned that we were on the way to the Fleetwood Repair facility in Decatur, Indiana. We got here Tuesday afternoon, signed in, and were assigned spot number 1 in the Fleetwood "campground." Those of you who follow Mary's group on facebook (where are forrest and mary? ... it's a "secret" group so if you want to be part of it write her) have seen her picture of the "campground." For those who haven't seen the picture and who are unfamiliar with this camping joy, let me share the picture with you.
Thrilling, isn't it? If it looks like a parking lot, that's because it IS a parking lot, a gravel parking lot with electrical outlets, lots of electrical outlets.
We kind of feel like the poor cousin of the family since most of the coaches here are the BIG fancy diesel pusher coaches of Fleetwood and American Coach (which is the upper crust of the Fleetwood products). Thirty-eight, forty, forty-two, and forty-five foot long coaches abound. We have a thirty-four foot-long RV. We're small compared to the others!
Coaches at the repair facility have to be dropped off at 6 a.m.! Which means we have to get up at 5 a.m. Now I'm used to getting up at that hour, but Mary isn't, particularly since she retired. We get up anyway. I think they prefer to not have the owners in the bedroom trying to sleep while they are working on the motorhome. The first morning (Wednesday) I got to the office at 6:05 and the service tech had already called my name before I got there and when he didn't find me went off in search of the coach in slot number 1. I did get back to the coach (1/2 block away) about the same time he did.
Anyway, he drove the coach away to repair stall number 8 and we went back to the office. There we were issued our protective glasses and told we were welcome in the service area as long as we wore the safety glasses and had closed toed shoes on our feet (we did). A service writer then went through what we were asking to be done, we signed off on it, and the Fleetwood repair techs took over.
Wednesday we decided to explore, looking for some good water for kayaking. We're NOT whitewater kayakers. Class 1 rapids are all I've ever tried to handle, so we were looking for a lake to paddle around in. We found Salomonie Lake, a US Army Corps of Engineers impoundment leased to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Lake Salomonie is a bit low on water, something like 12-14 feet lower than the normal pool height. That meant that power boats were not on the lake and that the fishermen and the paddlers were having a field day!
These two pictures will give you some ideas of the lake. It is long and narrow and being low on water is even narrower than usual. We paddled for 1-1/2 hours to about the middle point of the lake and then turned around and returned to our put-in boat ramp. It wasn't the most thrilling lake we've been able to paddle around in, but it was water and we had fun!
Wednesday we returned to the "campground" and found our coach back in its number 1 slot. Much of the work had been completed, BUT we also discovered that the driver's seat was missing! Uh oh! It is really hard to drive one of these coaches without a driver's seat. There was a plastic chair in place for the driver to bring the motorhome from the repair bay, but it definitely wasn't legal for street driving.
When we checked in Thursday morning (today), we learned that when the driver's seat pedestal had to be removed to replace the poorly installed carpeting that one of the bolts holding the seat to the pedestal had been determined to have been installed cross-threaded and that absolutely ruins the bolt. They had to order a replacement part from the main Fleetwood factory which just happened to have one. Unfortunately, corporate bureaucracy and red tape nearly held up delivery of the part. Fortunately we knew one of the Fleetwood management people in the facility (he was the one who had facilitated our trip to the Decatur repair shop) and we rattled his cage, so to speak, and he went off saying, "Let me find out what's going on" (or what's NOT going on in our case). Thank you, Larry Rodgers, for your successful intervention! And thank you to the other Fleetwood techs who worked on the coach and fixed things the way they ought to have been fixed in the first place. All of which means that they finished the job, although we decided to stay put for the night and head out in the morning being more rested and refreshed.
Thursday evening we decided to take in the city of Decatur and went downtown to a special event, A Taste of Decatur, where 3 restaurants and 2 ice cream shops were selling their wares. We watched the dancers of the "Razz m'Jazz" dance school perform about a hundred dances (probably more like a dozen but who's counting?), ate pizza and ice cream, and listened to the local high school band play a couple of numbers (and they were pretty good, too). And THEN we got to participate in the special event of the night, the FIRST annual Decatur Sculpture Walk. We looked at ten of the twelve sculptures that had been prepared for the event, with many of them being on-street sculptures and a few being inside sculptures.
When we returned to the luxurious Fleetwood campground, er, parking lot, we took a short walk looking at the other coaches and then we did what some people think RVers do best ... talk. We talked to a couple sitting out beside their motorhome and three other couples walked by at various times and joined the conversation. RVers can be really nice people.
Friday, it's on to the Timberline Valley RV Park in Anderson, IN, where we'll sit for a couple of nights before heading to the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) homecoming in Indianapolis starting next week.
Glad you're along for the ride!
Thrilling, isn't it? If it looks like a parking lot, that's because it IS a parking lot, a gravel parking lot with electrical outlets, lots of electrical outlets.
We kind of feel like the poor cousin of the family since most of the coaches here are the BIG fancy diesel pusher coaches of Fleetwood and American Coach (which is the upper crust of the Fleetwood products). Thirty-eight, forty, forty-two, and forty-five foot long coaches abound. We have a thirty-four foot-long RV. We're small compared to the others!
Coaches at the repair facility have to be dropped off at 6 a.m.! Which means we have to get up at 5 a.m. Now I'm used to getting up at that hour, but Mary isn't, particularly since she retired. We get up anyway. I think they prefer to not have the owners in the bedroom trying to sleep while they are working on the motorhome. The first morning (Wednesday) I got to the office at 6:05 and the service tech had already called my name before I got there and when he didn't find me went off in search of the coach in slot number 1. I did get back to the coach (1/2 block away) about the same time he did.
Anyway, he drove the coach away to repair stall number 8 and we went back to the office. There we were issued our protective glasses and told we were welcome in the service area as long as we wore the safety glasses and had closed toed shoes on our feet (we did). A service writer then went through what we were asking to be done, we signed off on it, and the Fleetwood repair techs took over.
Wednesday we decided to explore, looking for some good water for kayaking. We're NOT whitewater kayakers. Class 1 rapids are all I've ever tried to handle, so we were looking for a lake to paddle around in. We found Salomonie Lake, a US Army Corps of Engineers impoundment leased to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Lake Salomonie is a bit low on water, something like 12-14 feet lower than the normal pool height. That meant that power boats were not on the lake and that the fishermen and the paddlers were having a field day!
These two pictures will give you some ideas of the lake. It is long and narrow and being low on water is even narrower than usual. We paddled for 1-1/2 hours to about the middle point of the lake and then turned around and returned to our put-in boat ramp. It wasn't the most thrilling lake we've been able to paddle around in, but it was water and we had fun!
Wednesday we returned to the "campground" and found our coach back in its number 1 slot. Much of the work had been completed, BUT we also discovered that the driver's seat was missing! Uh oh! It is really hard to drive one of these coaches without a driver's seat. There was a plastic chair in place for the driver to bring the motorhome from the repair bay, but it definitely wasn't legal for street driving.
When we checked in Thursday morning (today), we learned that when the driver's seat pedestal had to be removed to replace the poorly installed carpeting that one of the bolts holding the seat to the pedestal had been determined to have been installed cross-threaded and that absolutely ruins the bolt. They had to order a replacement part from the main Fleetwood factory which just happened to have one. Unfortunately, corporate bureaucracy and red tape nearly held up delivery of the part. Fortunately we knew one of the Fleetwood management people in the facility (he was the one who had facilitated our trip to the Decatur repair shop) and we rattled his cage, so to speak, and he went off saying, "Let me find out what's going on" (or what's NOT going on in our case). Thank you, Larry Rodgers, for your successful intervention! And thank you to the other Fleetwood techs who worked on the coach and fixed things the way they ought to have been fixed in the first place. All of which means that they finished the job, although we decided to stay put for the night and head out in the morning being more rested and refreshed.
Thursday evening we decided to take in the city of Decatur and went downtown to a special event, A Taste of Decatur, where 3 restaurants and 2 ice cream shops were selling their wares. We watched the dancers of the "Razz m'Jazz" dance school perform about a hundred dances (probably more like a dozen but who's counting?), ate pizza and ice cream, and listened to the local high school band play a couple of numbers (and they were pretty good, too). And THEN we got to participate in the special event of the night, the FIRST annual Decatur Sculpture Walk. We looked at ten of the twelve sculptures that had been prepared for the event, with many of them being on-street sculptures and a few being inside sculptures.
When we returned to the luxurious Fleetwood campground, er, parking lot, we took a short walk looking at the other coaches and then we did what some people think RVers do best ... talk. We talked to a couple sitting out beside their motorhome and three other couples walked by at various times and joined the conversation. RVers can be really nice people.
Friday, it's on to the Timberline Valley RV Park in Anderson, IN, where we'll sit for a couple of nights before heading to the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) homecoming in Indianapolis starting next week.
Glad you're along for the ride!
Monday, August 20, 2012
It's REAL! We're FULL-TIME RV'ers!
I HAVE to write something tonight even though I don't have any pictures to go with it!
This is our first "official" day on the road as FULL-TIMERS! It is mind-boggling to realize that this is a reality. We took a two day trip to Green Bay this weekend to visit with Mary's sister, Kitty, and brother, Dennis, but went back "home" to Beloit to finish cleaning out the house, so today is the REAL first day of a new stage of life for Mary and I.
Let me back up. The house in Beloit sold the first of this month (at least that's when we accepted the offer to purchase) with a projected closing date of August 24. So we frantically shelved our plans for the month of August and set about cleaning out the house. We had two BIG garage sales, gave away all sorts of stuff to Good Will and Caritas (the local food/clothes pantry), and gave a few things to our kids. The last week, however, has been a mad dash to the finish. Thanks to Lamarr Pulliam and his crew for their last day visit to the house for a major haul-away of all the trash!
Last Wednesday, we moved the remaining possessions that weren't going in the RV to a storage unit. It is stuffed full to the brim! We still have a smaller storage unit to review and condense and we'll do that in a couple of weeks when we go back to the Beloit area for a couple of weeks (Sept. 1-15).
One thing I know for sure is that we have too much stuff in the RV! We've got to pare the list down some (or a lot). I'll try to get us weighed soon to be sure we aren't overweight. An overweight RV is a hazard!
Right now, we are on the way to the Fleetwood factory in Decatur, IN, to get some warranty work done. From there, we'll go to Indianapolis and the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) international rally. Following that, we'll head back to the Beloit area as mentioned above. After a couple of weeks on going through what we put in storage, we'll head east towards Glens Falls, NY, and the Adirondack Balloon Festival in late September. It's not that we're ballooners or anything like that but Mary's sister, Barb, lives in Glens Falls and we thought it was a good excuse to go see her and her family. From there, who knows where we'll go and when we'll get there!
Don't think that life will be a perpetual vacation for us. It won't. There will be many routine days with routine tasks like doing the wash, cleaning the house, and other such domestic matters. I won't have to cut the grass, nor will Mary. That's good. But there are many other things we'll take care of on a regular basis. We will get to see new places and do new things. This first year we may even move around a bit more than we will in future years, just to see where we want to be and when.
I will continue to do my life-coaching and mentoring work. We both will be looking into various places to volunteer and make a difference. And we'll put the kayaks into as many different bodies of water as we can and probably hike a few trails along the way. And I hope we'll get to see lots of friends and family scattered across the US of A and make some new friends to add to the group.
Enough for tonight. It's time to rest and relax. I'll be talking at you some more soon!
This is our first "official" day on the road as FULL-TIMERS! It is mind-boggling to realize that this is a reality. We took a two day trip to Green Bay this weekend to visit with Mary's sister, Kitty, and brother, Dennis, but went back "home" to Beloit to finish cleaning out the house, so today is the REAL first day of a new stage of life for Mary and I.
Let me back up. The house in Beloit sold the first of this month (at least that's when we accepted the offer to purchase) with a projected closing date of August 24. So we frantically shelved our plans for the month of August and set about cleaning out the house. We had two BIG garage sales, gave away all sorts of stuff to Good Will and Caritas (the local food/clothes pantry), and gave a few things to our kids. The last week, however, has been a mad dash to the finish. Thanks to Lamarr Pulliam and his crew for their last day visit to the house for a major haul-away of all the trash!
Last Wednesday, we moved the remaining possessions that weren't going in the RV to a storage unit. It is stuffed full to the brim! We still have a smaller storage unit to review and condense and we'll do that in a couple of weeks when we go back to the Beloit area for a couple of weeks (Sept. 1-15).
One thing I know for sure is that we have too much stuff in the RV! We've got to pare the list down some (or a lot). I'll try to get us weighed soon to be sure we aren't overweight. An overweight RV is a hazard!
Right now, we are on the way to the Fleetwood factory in Decatur, IN, to get some warranty work done. From there, we'll go to Indianapolis and the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) international rally. Following that, we'll head back to the Beloit area as mentioned above. After a couple of weeks on going through what we put in storage, we'll head east towards Glens Falls, NY, and the Adirondack Balloon Festival in late September. It's not that we're ballooners or anything like that but Mary's sister, Barb, lives in Glens Falls and we thought it was a good excuse to go see her and her family. From there, who knows where we'll go and when we'll get there!
Don't think that life will be a perpetual vacation for us. It won't. There will be many routine days with routine tasks like doing the wash, cleaning the house, and other such domestic matters. I won't have to cut the grass, nor will Mary. That's good. But there are many other things we'll take care of on a regular basis. We will get to see new places and do new things. This first year we may even move around a bit more than we will in future years, just to see where we want to be and when.
I will continue to do my life-coaching and mentoring work. We both will be looking into various places to volunteer and make a difference. And we'll put the kayaks into as many different bodies of water as we can and probably hike a few trails along the way. And I hope we'll get to see lots of friends and family scattered across the US of A and make some new friends to add to the group.
Enough for tonight. It's time to rest and relax. I'll be talking at you some more soon!
Thursday, July 05, 2012
It's HOT
We got to the Lone Point Corps of Engineers Campground on Lake Shelbyville in IL on Sunday July 1. As can happen when you pick a campsite online, the one we had reserved was not a great site to park a motorhome. But the nice gatekeepers for the campground suggested several alternatives in case I didn't like the one we were going to (maybe they knew it wasn't going to work). So we wound up in a nice site close to the boat launch and near the front gate. And we got a more expensive site than the one we reserved and paid for without paying any extra cost (the U.S. government computer system couldn't figure out how to charge us for the upgrade). So we have a full hook-up site (water, electric and sewer connections) instead of only an electric connection.
It's been an "interesting" week, one of those weeks where "interesting" is a way to say it has been a difficult week. First of all, it has been HOT! Most days this week in south central IL have been over 100 degrees. I sure am glad for a coach with two air conditioners! When we stayed inside, it was comfortable (even cold if we turned the temperature control too low). However, we didn't come here to sit inside an air conditioned coach. We came here to paddle our kayaks around in a large lake. We've gotten to do that twice by getting out early in the morning and staying out until the sun and heat got unbearable (or when the recreational boaters got too obnoxious). In the heat of the day, any effort outside produced drenching sweat.
The first couple of days of the week, however, were marred by the discovery Monday morning that the awning motor had burned out in the extended position. The switch appears to be defective and not cutting off when it is released (it is a spring-loaded switch and is supposed to return to neutral when released. It didn't. So first of all I called General RV in Huntley, IL, to see if they can get the coach in for service. I get to take it in on Saturday (day after tomorrow). The real challenge of the week, however, was retracting the extended power awning without any power being available to move it! Now keep in mind that this is an 18-foot awning that extends about eight feet from the side of the coach. It is heavy and it is about 9-10 feet high in the air. We do have a ladder with us. One ladder. Two would have been nice. We had to try to release the awning's frozen motor and then manually roll it up. Unfortunately the directions provided by the manufacturer did not work. At all. They said remove one specific screw and the awning could be rolled up. Uh uh. Nope. Not at all.
If you're going to be an RV'er, you have to develop some ingenuity. I'll admit that the mechanical side of things is not necessarily my strong point. John Clark (my father) could probably have solved the problem in a few minutes. He was that way, a born mechanic. Unfortunately his sons did not inherit that gene. So Mary and I tried various means of rolling the awning up. Finally, brute force accomplished the deed and we got the roller filled with awning to lock into place on the side of the coach. Except the screws that I needed to put back in place could not be reinstalled. The holes absolutely refused to line up. I did check with a local RV dealer. They could get to me in about two weeks. What we did was to fasten the arms of the awning to the frame on the side of the coach with zip ties so they wouldn't flop down on while we were driving. AND then we taped the end of the rolled up awning with duct tape to (hopefully) keep the air from unrolling it while we drive home on Friday and then to the dealer who will fix it on Saturday. We'll find out tomorrow if our jury rig will work. If it doesn't ... .
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| A Bay on Lake Shelbyville at Lone Point COE Campground |
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| Lake Shelbyville from Lone Point Campground |
The first couple of days of the week, however, were marred by the discovery Monday morning that the awning motor had burned out in the extended position. The switch appears to be defective and not cutting off when it is released (it is a spring-loaded switch and is supposed to return to neutral when released. It didn't. So first of all I called General RV in Huntley, IL, to see if they can get the coach in for service. I get to take it in on Saturday (day after tomorrow). The real challenge of the week, however, was retracting the extended power awning without any power being available to move it! Now keep in mind that this is an 18-foot awning that extends about eight feet from the side of the coach. It is heavy and it is about 9-10 feet high in the air. We do have a ladder with us. One ladder. Two would have been nice. We had to try to release the awning's frozen motor and then manually roll it up. Unfortunately the directions provided by the manufacturer did not work. At all. They said remove one specific screw and the awning could be rolled up. Uh uh. Nope. Not at all.
If you're going to be an RV'er, you have to develop some ingenuity. I'll admit that the mechanical side of things is not necessarily my strong point. John Clark (my father) could probably have solved the problem in a few minutes. He was that way, a born mechanic. Unfortunately his sons did not inherit that gene. So Mary and I tried various means of rolling the awning up. Finally, brute force accomplished the deed and we got the roller filled with awning to lock into place on the side of the coach. Except the screws that I needed to put back in place could not be reinstalled. The holes absolutely refused to line up. I did check with a local RV dealer. They could get to me in about two weeks. What we did was to fasten the arms of the awning to the frame on the side of the coach with zip ties so they wouldn't flop down on while we were driving. AND then we taped the end of the rolled up awning with duct tape to (hopefully) keep the air from unrolling it while we drive home on Friday and then to the dealer who will fix it on Saturday. We'll find out tomorrow if our jury rig will work. If it doesn't ... .
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Time Flies When You're Busy and Having Fun!
WOW! My last post was June 24 and here it is July 4. A whole lot has happened in the intervening time. Let me bring you up to date on the travels and travails of Forrest and Mary.
We left Blackhawk COE (US Army Corps of Engineers) Campground on the Mississippi River and drove to within 20 or so miles of home in Beloit and camped at Blackhawk Valley Campground on the Kishwaukee River. It was a nice one night stop and from there we headed on to Goshen, IN, and the Fleetwood Motorhome Association Rally. Why did we stop so near home and not go there? It seemed more fun to keep on camping instead of getting caught up in whatever was happening at home. And it was even closer to Goshen than Beloit.
We got to Goshen, IN, on Tuesday, June 26, and got assigned to a site. Before we could even get registered, we ran into Bob and Deb Norman from Franklin, IN. We first met Bob and Deb at last year's FMA Rally in Shawnee, OK, and they quickly became friends. It was a delight to renew our friendship at Goshen and we hope to see them again late in August at the FMCA Rally in Indianapolis. They are a great couple of folks with interesting stories to tell. And while we were still getting set up on our site who shows up but Keith and Jan Penner from Texas whom we also met last year in Shawnee. We had a great time visiting with them too and know we'll see then again down the road. It didn't take long, either, to run into Hugo and Donna Lusten from AZ. We first met Hugo and Donna in DuQuoin, IL at our first FMA Rally, when they were parked right behind us and we saw them again last year in Shawnee when they were parked right beside us. Great folks.
The FMA rally ran from Wednesday through Saturday night. On Wednesday, we actually got to tour the Fleetwood factory in Decatur, IN. It was a two hour bus ride to Decatur, but the tour was interesting and informative. Of course, Fleetwood thinks they have the most effective and efficient way of making motorhomes of anyone in the industry. Uh huh. They didn't ask me my opinion on that. (More about that later.)
RV rallies consist of educational seminars, displays (trying to sell you something), coach displays (also trying to sell you something), social events to meet up with old friends and make new ones. Brian and Melanie Low of Holland, MI, were new friends we met and had a good time getting to know. RV rallies also provide you with a chance to get some service work done at reasonable rates for labor and parts (unless, of course, they are covered by a warranty).
The big news of the rally was that we did NOT buy a new coach, having done that last year. However, our friends, Hugo and Donna bought a new coach, an Excursion 33C diesel. It was a real beauty and we were so happy for them. They used to own a 2007 Fiesta 26 very similar to our first coach. Keith and Jan Penner also owned a Fiesta and, lo and behold, they showed up at the rally in a new Tioga! The Fiestas are falling fast!
Mary cornered one of the Fleetwood reps at a listening session they were holding and told him that if he were to come over to our coach and say he was proud of what he saw she'd call him a liar! That evoked an immediate response from Larry Rogers and almost before we could get back to the coach he was on our doorstep. He agreed that a patched carpet did not look good (it was delivered from the factory that way and we didn't see it where it was covered up). There were a few other things we could point out that should not have been wrong on a new 2012 coach. Consequently, some time in late August or early September we are going back to Decatur to the Fleetwood factory to get some extra work done to improve our coach's construction. We're looking forward to that.
We left Goshen on Sunday, July 1, and drove over to Lake Shelbyville Lone Point COE Campground. I'll pick up there next time I can write. Have a happy 4th of July!
We left Blackhawk COE (US Army Corps of Engineers) Campground on the Mississippi River and drove to within 20 or so miles of home in Beloit and camped at Blackhawk Valley Campground on the Kishwaukee River. It was a nice one night stop and from there we headed on to Goshen, IN, and the Fleetwood Motorhome Association Rally. Why did we stop so near home and not go there? It seemed more fun to keep on camping instead of getting caught up in whatever was happening at home. And it was even closer to Goshen than Beloit.
We got to Goshen, IN, on Tuesday, June 26, and got assigned to a site. Before we could even get registered, we ran into Bob and Deb Norman from Franklin, IN. We first met Bob and Deb at last year's FMA Rally in Shawnee, OK, and they quickly became friends. It was a delight to renew our friendship at Goshen and we hope to see them again late in August at the FMCA Rally in Indianapolis. They are a great couple of folks with interesting stories to tell. And while we were still getting set up on our site who shows up but Keith and Jan Penner from Texas whom we also met last year in Shawnee. We had a great time visiting with them too and know we'll see then again down the road. It didn't take long, either, to run into Hugo and Donna Lusten from AZ. We first met Hugo and Donna in DuQuoin, IL at our first FMA Rally, when they were parked right behind us and we saw them again last year in Shawnee when they were parked right beside us. Great folks.
The FMA rally ran from Wednesday through Saturday night. On Wednesday, we actually got to tour the Fleetwood factory in Decatur, IN. It was a two hour bus ride to Decatur, but the tour was interesting and informative. Of course, Fleetwood thinks they have the most effective and efficient way of making motorhomes of anyone in the industry. Uh huh. They didn't ask me my opinion on that. (More about that later.)
RV rallies consist of educational seminars, displays (trying to sell you something), coach displays (also trying to sell you something), social events to meet up with old friends and make new ones. Brian and Melanie Low of Holland, MI, were new friends we met and had a good time getting to know. RV rallies also provide you with a chance to get some service work done at reasonable rates for labor and parts (unless, of course, they are covered by a warranty).
The big news of the rally was that we did NOT buy a new coach, having done that last year. However, our friends, Hugo and Donna bought a new coach, an Excursion 33C diesel. It was a real beauty and we were so happy for them. They used to own a 2007 Fiesta 26 very similar to our first coach. Keith and Jan Penner also owned a Fiesta and, lo and behold, they showed up at the rally in a new Tioga! The Fiestas are falling fast!
Mary cornered one of the Fleetwood reps at a listening session they were holding and told him that if he were to come over to our coach and say he was proud of what he saw she'd call him a liar! That evoked an immediate response from Larry Rogers and almost before we could get back to the coach he was on our doorstep. He agreed that a patched carpet did not look good (it was delivered from the factory that way and we didn't see it where it was covered up). There were a few other things we could point out that should not have been wrong on a new 2012 coach. Consequently, some time in late August or early September we are going back to Decatur to the Fleetwood factory to get some extra work done to improve our coach's construction. We're looking forward to that.
We left Goshen on Sunday, July 1, and drove over to Lake Shelbyville Lone Point COE Campground. I'll pick up there next time I can write. Have a happy 4th of July!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Peaks and Mounds
Sunday, June 24, 2012. Today was a hot one. We are still camped at the Blackhawk Park just outside DeSoto, WI. We drove 30 miles south to Prairie du Chien and had a great visit with a good friend today.
 | |
| Where We Are On the Mighty Mississippi |
We went to Pikes Peak! Pikes Peak StatePark, Iowa, that is. It's named after the same Zebulon Pike for whom
the western Pikes Peak is named. He did a lot of the early exploring
and mapping for the US Army in the westward expansion of the United
States. Pikes Peak State Park is on the Mississippi River with
gorgeous views out over the river from very high bluffs. It is
located right at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin
Rivers near McGregor, IA, and across from Prairie du Chien. After
looking off the bluffs and over the rivers, we took a walk in the
woods to the “Crows Nest” (another lookout) and Bridal Veil
Falls.
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| Confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers from Pikes Peak SP, Iowa |
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| Bridal Veil Falls, Pikes Peak SP, Iowa |
After our visit to Pikes Peak State
Park, we drove into McGregor, IA, and had lunch at the “Old ManRiver Brewery (and Restaurant)” where they promised brewery tours
after church on Sunday. We passed on the tour and went straight to
lunch. It was a good thing too, since it too forever and a day to get
our meals. The service was prompt from the wait staff taking our
order, but there must have been only one cook in the kitchen since we
had a LONG wait until our food was served. I guess it was worth the
wait, however. I had a pulled pork BBQ sandwich that was quite good,
but I have to say it did NOT compare to Whitt's BBQ in Murfreesboro,
TN, which will always be the standard against which I measure all
BBQ. Mary has some kind of Salmon sandwich and our friend had a
Philly. Both reported that their food was good.
From lunch, we drove just a little
north to Effigy Mounds National Monument. Effigy mounds are the
earthen mounds built by early Native Americans in the shape of
animals which had special significance to them. Effigy Mounds has a
number of bear mounds and some bird mounds. There are also other
kinds of mounds to be found. The real highlight, however, of our trip to Effigy Mounds was our relative close encounter with a very young fawn (deer). It was so young that it still had its spots. We were within ten feet of it. We spooked it into running but it only ran a few feet and then tried to hide. We walked on and later, as we returned on the same piece of trail, managed to spot the young deer as it lay where it had tried to hide from us. Can you see it? Its eyes are visible in the center of the photo and you can see its body in the left center.
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| Fawn in the Bushes |
After seeing some of the sights of
Prairie du Chien (second oldest city in WI), we headed back to the
campground and a slow evening. Tomorrow we'll head east, planning to
get to a campground south of Rockford, IL, which is about halfway to
our Tuesday destination of Goshen, IN.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
First Trip of the Rest of Our Lives
Mary retired June 12 of this year. I
retired two years ago. Now we have the chance to really live up to
the “Retired, RVing, and Rambling” name of this blog! To that
end, yesterday (Friday, June 22) we started out on the first trip of
the rest of our lives. This one is a shortie, nothing too ambitious,
that'll come later. Right now WI; (2) attending the 2012 Fleetwood
Motorhome Association rally in Goshen, IN; and (3) taking a days to
just hang out, relax, and kayak at Lake Shelbyville, IL.
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| View from Blackhawk Campground across the Mississippi River |
We're camped between LaCrosse and
Prairie du Chien, WI, right along the Mississippi River at the
Blackhawk Corps of Engineers campground right along Pool 9 on the
Mississippi River. We'll camp here Friday through Monday and then
move on toward Indiana for the rally.
The truly exciting part of this trip
may well have occurred on the very first day. I used Google Maps to
chart our route from Beloit to Blackhawk Park. Google, ARE YOU CRAZY?
The first part of the route was easy and made sense going from Beloit
to Madison to Dodgeville. From there we took US Hwy 18 west to
Fennimore. We should have stayed on 18! But Google said go north
through Boscobel up Hwy 61 and then stay on 61 to 171. WI 171 is a
highway that goes ACROSS the Kickapoo Valley, that is, it goes UP and
then DOWN and then UP and finally DOWN into the Mississippi River
Valley. Okay, this is Wisconsin. What's the big deal? Well, the road
down to Gays Mill on the Kickapoo River has a LONG 10% grade on a
winding two-lane road and a LONG upgrade out of the valley and then a
descent into the Mississippi Valley complete with more 10% grades.
Get the idea? In a thirty-four foot long, 22,000 pound motorhome,
this is not high speed driving, just enjoy the scenery, kind of road.
We took it easy (some would say slow) and made it safely. I'm still
getting the feel of the RV on steep and winding grades, either up or
down. It really would have been easier to follow 18 over to Prairie
du Chien and then up WI 35, “The Great River Road.” Google, WHY?
Like most (all?) Corps of Engineers
campgrounds, the Senior Pass sold by the US government gets us ½ off
of the very reasonable rate. If you don't have one and you are 62 or
older, the $10.00 fee for the lifetime pass is well worth the effort
to get one. They are sold at all sorts of federal recreational
facilities, COE Parks, National Parks, US Forest Service, and others.
I think you can now get them online too, but for $20.00 (still
lifetime) with the other $10.00 covering processing fees.
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| Flooded Campsites |
Blackhawk is not the best COE
campground I've ever used, but it's a good decent campground on the
backwaters of the Mississippi. Right now, it is a slightly flooded campground since the river's up (more on that below). We've got 30-amp electric (but no
water hookup) and a decent gravel back-in site. The sites here are a
little close together, but our neighbors seem pretty quiet so we'll
be fine.
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| The Mississippi River is definitely FULL! |
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| Forrest's Yellow and Mary's Blue Kayak |
Today we went out kayaking, another
first of the season. Since I had rotator cuff surgery on my left arm
on February 1, this is the first kayaking trip we've taken this year.
I wasn't sure how my arm (which is doing remarkably well) would do,
but we paddled about an hour and a half and BOTH shoulders are sore
so it's not just the left shoulder and arm that need to be
strengthened and worked out. Time and effort will take care of that.
We did NOT go out into the flow of the Mississippi River. The advice
here at the campground from the fee collectors was that the river was
flowing fast and hard due to the floods in Minnesota. We elected to
stay in the “lakes” that make up the backwaters here near the
camp. And it was a pleasant and easy paddle.
Tomorrow, we'll get to visit our
friend, Scott. It'll be good to see him. It's been a few years. And
then Monday, it will be back on the road when we drive all the way to
Rockford, IL! (Rockford is about 20 miles south of Beloit so it's
almost like going home.) We will camp there overnight and then head
for Goshen, IN, and the FMA rally.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
It's Summer in Tennessee!
I'm going to write just a short post today. I'm back on the road for my first trip of the spring. This is a solo trip. Mary is still teaching and they just expect her to show up every day during the school year (would you believe it?!).
I'm headed "home" for the annual Shelton Cemetery gathering in rural Rutherford County, Tennessee. Every year on the Sunday before Memorial Day, Sheltons and friends gather to remember those of their families who are buried there in Shelton Cemetery. The cemetery is located up Eaton Hollow (pronounced "Holler" if you're from Middle Tennessee) and looks out over the valley where my great-grandfather and my grandfather and their families farmed for many years. We'll also get to have a gathering of the Shelton cousins on Monday, thanks to cousin Linda (Shelton) McGill and her husband, Lynn, who have invited us to their place in Franklin.
I left home in Beloit Thursday and drove far LESS than I intended to. I was aiming to reach the Rend Lake area and the Corps of Engineers campgrounds in that area, a 6 or so hour drive. However, the winds were so terrible that after only making slow progress I put into the Champaign Sportsman's Club in Mahomet, IL, which is at Lake of the Woods.
If you're ever looking for a camping spot in the Champaign, IL, area, I recommend this place. Mary and I visited it for an overnight on the way home on our trip to the south two summers ago and found it a nice quiet place to stay. The host is really a helpful and friendly guy. And it's not too expensive to stay there ($18.00 for the night). The campground was almost full (it is the Memorial Day weekend, after all) and I could only get an electric, no water, site, but that was alright. I had enough water on board to take care of me for the night with no problems and the electric was the 30 amps I needed. I even had a water view out the back of the coach (it was just a slough off of the lake but it was water).
I drove on from CSC and made it into Two Rivers Campground in Nashville, TN, yesterday afternoon. This park too is almost full, but I have a water and electric site for the next several days. The campground is only about two miles from the Grand Ole Opry but I won't be going. We had a small happy hour yesterday and a band played for a couple of hours last night. Another band will be playing tonight. So there's some built-in entertainment.
Why didn't I stay somewhere closer to Murfreesboro? Simple. Brother Ransom is staying at the Wyndham Resort near Opryland so I stayed where he and I could get some time together.
It's hotter than "blue blazes" as they'd say here in TN. Record-setting heat in the mid-90s. Tomorrow at the cemetery could easily see 95 degrees! I'm glad my motorhome has good air conditioning! It is really making a difference on a super hot day.
I've not done much today other than housekeeping. And that has to be done sometimes. I slept late, made a leisurely breakfast, checked email and facebook, and did the other kinds of stuff that had to be done (like sweeping, washing dishes, and washing me). I'm not trying to post any pictures today. There's not much to be seen but a long row of various kinds of rv's.
-forrest
I'm headed "home" for the annual Shelton Cemetery gathering in rural Rutherford County, Tennessee. Every year on the Sunday before Memorial Day, Sheltons and friends gather to remember those of their families who are buried there in Shelton Cemetery. The cemetery is located up Eaton Hollow (pronounced "Holler" if you're from Middle Tennessee) and looks out over the valley where my great-grandfather and my grandfather and their families farmed for many years. We'll also get to have a gathering of the Shelton cousins on Monday, thanks to cousin Linda (Shelton) McGill and her husband, Lynn, who have invited us to their place in Franklin.
I left home in Beloit Thursday and drove far LESS than I intended to. I was aiming to reach the Rend Lake area and the Corps of Engineers campgrounds in that area, a 6 or so hour drive. However, the winds were so terrible that after only making slow progress I put into the Champaign Sportsman's Club in Mahomet, IL, which is at Lake of the Woods.
If you're ever looking for a camping spot in the Champaign, IL, area, I recommend this place. Mary and I visited it for an overnight on the way home on our trip to the south two summers ago and found it a nice quiet place to stay. The host is really a helpful and friendly guy. And it's not too expensive to stay there ($18.00 for the night). The campground was almost full (it is the Memorial Day weekend, after all) and I could only get an electric, no water, site, but that was alright. I had enough water on board to take care of me for the night with no problems and the electric was the 30 amps I needed. I even had a water view out the back of the coach (it was just a slough off of the lake but it was water).
I drove on from CSC and made it into Two Rivers Campground in Nashville, TN, yesterday afternoon. This park too is almost full, but I have a water and electric site for the next several days. The campground is only about two miles from the Grand Ole Opry but I won't be going. We had a small happy hour yesterday and a band played for a couple of hours last night. Another band will be playing tonight. So there's some built-in entertainment.
Why didn't I stay somewhere closer to Murfreesboro? Simple. Brother Ransom is staying at the Wyndham Resort near Opryland so I stayed where he and I could get some time together.
It's hotter than "blue blazes" as they'd say here in TN. Record-setting heat in the mid-90s. Tomorrow at the cemetery could easily see 95 degrees! I'm glad my motorhome has good air conditioning! It is really making a difference on a super hot day.
I've not done much today other than housekeeping. And that has to be done sometimes. I slept late, made a leisurely breakfast, checked email and facebook, and did the other kinds of stuff that had to be done (like sweeping, washing dishes, and washing me). I'm not trying to post any pictures today. There's not much to be seen but a long row of various kinds of rv's.
-forrest
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Happy New Year to all our RVing friends and to our family who follow our travels and travails!
Mary and I are both hoping that 2012 will bring us as good and enjoyable a year as 2011 did. We had a wonderful long summer of travel, camping, sightseeing, and kayaking. We saw old friends and made some new ones and both old and new friends brought us a great deal of enjoyment.
In our summer of travel we first went to two different places in Iowa, one where we lived for seven years in the early days of my United Methodist ministry (after some 15 years of Baptist ministry). That was at the Churdan and Lanesboro United Methodist Charge and we lived in Churdan. We were able to worship with the Churdan church and visit some dear friends from our time there. We also visited some friends from our days in Perry, IA, who have since moved to Reinbeck. It was great to see all these people who have been part of our life for many years.
After Iowa, we traveled through Missouri, stopping for a night in Peculiar, and then headed on into Oklahoma. We camped at a nice COE campground in eastern OK and then headed to Shawnee for the Fleetwood Motorhome Association Rally. Now that was an eventful week! We met some friends from the previous year's rally and made some new friends. We learned new things in educational seminars (on different aspects of RV living). We bought some handy things and we looked at LOTS of new motorhomes. Before the week was over (actually as the week was coming to an end), to our great surprise, we bought a NEW 2012 Fleetwood Terra 34E Class A Motorhome!
It actually wasn't easy to say goodbye to our 2006 Fiesta 26Q, our very first motorhome. It was a great choice as a first RV and will always hold a special place in our memories. However, the Terra 34E is proving to be a great home on wheels. In making this move, we went from 27' with no slides to 34' with two slides. That was a lot of increase in square footage.
After Shawnee, we drove across OK to the panhandle of Texas after a short stop in Oklahoma City to get some warranty work done on our NEW motorhome. That would be our first of multiple stops for warranty work we would have to get done. One of the things we learned in this experience is that RV manufacturers seem to rely on dealer service departments to finish the last 5-10% of the manufacturing and quality checking process. We have repeatedly been assured that this is not uncommon at all.
In TX we visited the Palo Duro Canyon State Park, just south of Amarillo. From there we headed into New Mexico. Fourth of July was at Brantley Lake State Park in southeastern NM where we also visited Carlsbad Caverns. We drove from there to Las Cruces where we played tourist while some more warranty work was done on the coach. We got to see White Sands Missile Range Museum and the White Sands National Monument while we were there.
From Las Cruces, we drove to Albuquerque where we spent several days seeing the sights and visiting a dear friend from my days as Housing Mediator for Small Claims Court in Dane County, WI. Next, we drove north to Santa Fe where we camped for a week and traveled around in the "toad," our Honda Fit Sport. We also went to Taos while we were camped in Santa Fe.
After three weeks in NM, we headed north to Colorado where we stopped in Salida for several days along the Arkansas River. There we were able to get in some hiking and enjoyed watching the white water and stunt kayakers playing in the river. We also got to ride the Royal Gorge Railroad route up into the Royal Gorge on the old route of the Denver and Rio Grande Western RR. In the course of taking that trip, we decided that one of our RV goals would be to ride every operating tourist railroad in the US (there are MANY of them!).
We headed home after Colorado enjoying the leisurely travel that an RV affords. We camped in Nebraska and Iowa on the way home. After a short while at home in Beloit, WI, we headed out on phase 2 of our summer, heading first into NW WI. We rode another tourist RR and kayaked with some friends from our days in Baraboo, WI. Then we went over to Eagle River and kayaked several of the lakes over there. Another of our goals is to kayak in every one of the chain of lakes around Eagle River and Three Lakes. There are something like 27 lakes in the chain that are joined together.
After a few days camped near Green Bay so we could visit Mary's sister, Kitty, we finally headed for home in Beloit just before it was time for Mary to return to her teaching and librarian duties in Madison. All told we were on the road nine of the twelve weeks that were available for travel in the summer of 2011.
Over the next few months, I'll be working at planning the trip that begins in the summer of 2012. It is my hope and intention to write about that planning so others can follow the development of the trip and maybe even make some suggestions about places to go and see during that trip. The 2012 trip is going to head toward the Northeastern United States. We'll hit the Fleetwood Motorhome Association Rally at the end of June in Indiana. From there we'll head further east. We will definitely make stops in the Adirondack Mountains in or near Saranac Lake where we lived for five years when we were first married. We'll try to connect with some friends remaining in the area from those days. We'll also plan to visit Barb and Mike Hemken in Glens Falls, NY (another of Mary's sisters) plus visiting some other friends in NY. From there, we don't know where we'll go or how long we'll be gone. We will come back to WI at some point to do some more kayaking in the lakes of the chain around Three Lakes. As we encounter tourist RRs we'll also take some trips to continue to reach that goal. So if you've got some "must see" places in the NE states, I invite you to make your recommendations and suggestions of places worth a visit.
Happy NEW YEAR to all of you. I look forward to traveling with you or having you travel with us through what I'm able to write about our rambling and rving in retirement. The big question of the year is whether or not Mary will join me in retirement and what we'll do after that if she does. Full-timing is definitely a consideration.
~forrest
Mary and I are both hoping that 2012 will bring us as good and enjoyable a year as 2011 did. We had a wonderful long summer of travel, camping, sightseeing, and kayaking. We saw old friends and made some new ones and both old and new friends brought us a great deal of enjoyment.
In our summer of travel we first went to two different places in Iowa, one where we lived for seven years in the early days of my United Methodist ministry (after some 15 years of Baptist ministry). That was at the Churdan and Lanesboro United Methodist Charge and we lived in Churdan. We were able to worship with the Churdan church and visit some dear friends from our time there. We also visited some friends from our days in Perry, IA, who have since moved to Reinbeck. It was great to see all these people who have been part of our life for many years.
 |
| Our FIRST RV, 2006 Fleetwood Fiesta 26Q |
 |
| The NEW RV, 2012 Fleetwood Terra 34E |
After Shawnee, we drove across OK to the panhandle of Texas after a short stop in Oklahoma City to get some warranty work done on our NEW motorhome. That would be our first of multiple stops for warranty work we would have to get done. One of the things we learned in this experience is that RV manufacturers seem to rely on dealer service departments to finish the last 5-10% of the manufacturing and quality checking process. We have repeatedly been assured that this is not uncommon at all.
In TX we visited the Palo Duro Canyon State Park, just south of Amarillo. From there we headed into New Mexico. Fourth of July was at Brantley Lake State Park in southeastern NM where we also visited Carlsbad Caverns. We drove from there to Las Cruces where we played tourist while some more warranty work was done on the coach. We got to see White Sands Missile Range Museum and the White Sands National Monument while we were there.
From Las Cruces, we drove to Albuquerque where we spent several days seeing the sights and visiting a dear friend from my days as Housing Mediator for Small Claims Court in Dane County, WI. Next, we drove north to Santa Fe where we camped for a week and traveled around in the "toad," our Honda Fit Sport. We also went to Taos while we were camped in Santa Fe.
After three weeks in NM, we headed north to Colorado where we stopped in Salida for several days along the Arkansas River. There we were able to get in some hiking and enjoyed watching the white water and stunt kayakers playing in the river. We also got to ride the Royal Gorge Railroad route up into the Royal Gorge on the old route of the Denver and Rio Grande Western RR. In the course of taking that trip, we decided that one of our RV goals would be to ride every operating tourist railroad in the US (there are MANY of them!).
We headed home after Colorado enjoying the leisurely travel that an RV affords. We camped in Nebraska and Iowa on the way home. After a short while at home in Beloit, WI, we headed out on phase 2 of our summer, heading first into NW WI. We rode another tourist RR and kayaked with some friends from our days in Baraboo, WI. Then we went over to Eagle River and kayaked several of the lakes over there. Another of our goals is to kayak in every one of the chain of lakes around Eagle River and Three Lakes. There are something like 27 lakes in the chain that are joined together.
After a few days camped near Green Bay so we could visit Mary's sister, Kitty, we finally headed for home in Beloit just before it was time for Mary to return to her teaching and librarian duties in Madison. All told we were on the road nine of the twelve weeks that were available for travel in the summer of 2011.
Over the next few months, I'll be working at planning the trip that begins in the summer of 2012. It is my hope and intention to write about that planning so others can follow the development of the trip and maybe even make some suggestions about places to go and see during that trip. The 2012 trip is going to head toward the Northeastern United States. We'll hit the Fleetwood Motorhome Association Rally at the end of June in Indiana. From there we'll head further east. We will definitely make stops in the Adirondack Mountains in or near Saranac Lake where we lived for five years when we were first married. We'll try to connect with some friends remaining in the area from those days. We'll also plan to visit Barb and Mike Hemken in Glens Falls, NY (another of Mary's sisters) plus visiting some other friends in NY. From there, we don't know where we'll go or how long we'll be gone. We will come back to WI at some point to do some more kayaking in the lakes of the chain around Three Lakes. As we encounter tourist RRs we'll also take some trips to continue to reach that goal. So if you've got some "must see" places in the NE states, I invite you to make your recommendations and suggestions of places worth a visit.
Happy NEW YEAR to all of you. I look forward to traveling with you or having you travel with us through what I'm able to write about our rambling and rving in retirement. The big question of the year is whether or not Mary will join me in retirement and what we'll do after that if she does. Full-timing is definitely a consideration.
~forrest
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Back on the Road
August 8-11
Outside Sarona, WI
Here we sit at Whitetail Ridge Campground and RV Park located between Sarona and Shell Lake, WI. For those who need a quick lesson in WI geography, that's located in the northwestern part of the state, north of Eau Claire up Highway 53. We left home on Monday, drove up here and camped for these four nights. Tomorrow we'll head a few miles south to New Auburn to connect with our friends Mark and Gloria Carlson from Baraboo. They have a lake home outside New Auburn where we'll spend the weekend. By leaving here before the weekend, we'll miss out on the opportunity to see Gilbert Brown and Santana Dodson of the Green Bay Packers who'll be here for a fundraising camp for a charitable foundation.
We came up here to Whitetail Ridge to be near Spooner and the Wisconsin Great Northern Railway. One of our traveling goals is to ride each of the operating tourist railroads in the U.S. That will take quite a while since there are hundreds of them! This was a 2-1/4 hour ride on about twelve miles of railroad. We started out in a regular passenger car that had been remodeled for the "dinner train" that the WGN runs (we were just on the noon train and that is NOT a dinner train). The conductor, being a friendly fellow, stopped to chat with us after the train got underway and then sat down and we had quite the conversation with this retired railroader who now volunteers two days a week as a conductor for the WGN. Just as we were reaching the north end of the run, he came back to our seat and quietly asked would we like to ride in the engine on the ride back! We certainly would! So we were led through the next car and told to sit tight and wait. After the train stopped, we were escorted to the engine. Here's a picture of the S-1 Switch Engine that was powering the train for the day. After that is a picture of me standing in the doorway of the engine, the engineer's area, and me sitting in the fireman's seat.
The train ride itself was just a jaunt through the northern Wisconsin woods with regular glimpses of the road and many trees along the way. We went past the Namekagon River but didn't get to cross it.
We also went to Spooner's very fine Railroad Memories Museum located in what remains of the old Spooner train station.
There were thirteen rooms of railroad history and memorabilia. It was truly a fine place to visit.
The train trip was on Tuesday. On Wednesday we had a slow morning ending with me on an hour long coaching call with my mentor coach. This was the final session of my year-long course of study for International Coach Federation certification (I still have to get enough hours of coaching in to qualify for that certification but have gone a long way toward it!). Then we went up to Spooner again to see the Canoe Museum that is located there. It was interesting but was a bit overpriced at $4.00 per person for a two room museum. They did have some very beautiful and interesting canoes and the best part of the visit was the opportunity to go into the shop area where they were both refurbishing old canoes and building some new ones. These are finely crafted wood or wood and canvas canoes so they are truly works of art!
Today, Thursday, we put our kayaks in Long Lake (the largest lake in Washburn County, WI) and paddled around for a couple of hours. We got plenty of sun and water and had a good time.
We came back to the campground for lunch and in mid afternoon ran out to
Shell Lake for ice cream, which we enjoyed sitting near the Shell Lake
beach looking out on (what do you expect) Shell Lake! It's a tough life but somebody's got to do it!
This catches you up with us. Tomorrow we move on. We'll go to New Auburn, then over to Eagle River, down to Green Bay, and finally to Baraboo where we'll finish our summer's travels. But that won't be for a while yet, so follow along with us as we go!
August 8-11
Outside Sarona, WI
Here we sit at Whitetail Ridge Campground and RV Park located between Sarona and Shell Lake, WI. For those who need a quick lesson in WI geography, that's located in the northwestern part of the state, north of Eau Claire up Highway 53. We left home on Monday, drove up here and camped for these four nights. Tomorrow we'll head a few miles south to New Auburn to connect with our friends Mark and Gloria Carlson from Baraboo. They have a lake home outside New Auburn where we'll spend the weekend. By leaving here before the weekend, we'll miss out on the opportunity to see Gilbert Brown and Santana Dodson of the Green Bay Packers who'll be here for a fundraising camp for a charitable foundation.
We came up here to Whitetail Ridge to be near Spooner and the Wisconsin Great Northern Railway. One of our traveling goals is to ride each of the operating tourist railroads in the U.S. That will take quite a while since there are hundreds of them! This was a 2-1/4 hour ride on about twelve miles of railroad. We started out in a regular passenger car that had been remodeled for the "dinner train" that the WGN runs (we were just on the noon train and that is NOT a dinner train). The conductor, being a friendly fellow, stopped to chat with us after the train got underway and then sat down and we had quite the conversation with this retired railroader who now volunteers two days a week as a conductor for the WGN. Just as we were reaching the north end of the run, he came back to our seat and quietly asked would we like to ride in the engine on the ride back! We certainly would! So we were led through the next car and told to sit tight and wait. After the train stopped, we were escorted to the engine. Here's a picture of the S-1 Switch Engine that was powering the train for the day. After that is a picture of me standing in the doorway of the engine, the engineer's area, and me sitting in the fireman's seat.
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| Wisconsin Great Northern S-1 |
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| In the doorway of S-1 Switch Engine |
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| Engineer's Console for S-1 Switch Engine |
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| On the fireman's seat of an S-1 Switcher |
We also went to Spooner's very fine Railroad Memories Museum located in what remains of the old Spooner train station.
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| Spooner Railroad Memories Museum (with F-7 of Wisconsin Great Northern in the background) |
There were thirteen rooms of railroad history and memorabilia. It was truly a fine place to visit.
The train trip was on Tuesday. On Wednesday we had a slow morning ending with me on an hour long coaching call with my mentor coach. This was the final session of my year-long course of study for International Coach Federation certification (I still have to get enough hours of coaching in to qualify for that certification but have gone a long way toward it!). Then we went up to Spooner again to see the Canoe Museum that is located there. It was interesting but was a bit overpriced at $4.00 per person for a two room museum. They did have some very beautiful and interesting canoes and the best part of the visit was the opportunity to go into the shop area where they were both refurbishing old canoes and building some new ones. These are finely crafted wood or wood and canvas canoes so they are truly works of art!
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| Just what the sign says! |
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| In front of the workshop at the Canoe Heritage Museum (volunteer is restoring a 1930s era wooden canoe) |
Today, Thursday, we put our kayaks in Long Lake (the largest lake in Washburn County, WI) and paddled around for a couple of hours. We got plenty of sun and water and had a good time.
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| Long Lake |
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| Long Lake |
This catches you up with us. Tomorrow we move on. We'll go to New Auburn, then over to Eagle River, down to Green Bay, and finally to Baraboo where we'll finish our summer's travels. But that won't be for a while yet, so follow along with us as we go!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Days 37-41
23-27 July 2011
Howard, CO, and home
It always happens at the end of a trip! We head for home and get there and I don't take time to wrap up the narrative which leaves a loose end hanging. I'm going to try to correct that this time (although we've already been home for several days and I'm just now taking the time to write).
We are home in Beloit for a few days. We'll be back on the road in a week doing some exploring of Northern WI and visiting some good friends. We're looking forward to being back on the road.
But let's catch up with where we were and what we were doing. Saturday, 23 July, we drove over to Canon City (Blogger doesn't seem to have the Spanish en-ye character or at least I can't find it so hear Canyon when I write Canon in this sentence) to ride the Royal Gorge Route Railroad. This three hour train excursion leaves Canon City on tracks of the former Denver and Rio Grande Railway and travels twelve miles through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River and then back the twelve miles to Canon City. It is an AWESOME ride. The Gorge itself is spectacular and for an old rail buff (be REAL careful with the "old"; I just mean a long-time rail buff) like myself it was a real treat to ride the trail and see the story unfold along the tracks.
I'm only going to post a few pictures with this part of the story. My next goal is to post a series of pictures from the places with visited. But here's the Royal Gorge ride:
Sunday the 24th was kind of a wind-down, catch-up day. We went to church at the First United Methodist Church of Salida, CO. The pastor there is the Rev. Margaret Gillikin who, as a student pastor when she was at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, served a WI Conference church (I think she said at Brandon, WI). She gave a splendid message, one of the best I've heard in a long time, and it was a delight to meet her. After church we checked in at the Arkansas River to watch the kayakers and waterboarders ride the waves of the rapids. It was fun watching them. Although I enjoy my kayak (and we're going to try to take them with us on the next trip), what there were doing was far beyond my abilities or interests at this time in life. Performance stunt kayaking is for the young not the gently aging! We watched forward flips, reverse flips, rolls, turns, and wave riding and were simply amazed at their abilities. Here's a link to the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, a Colorado State Park. We enjoyed watching them. Can you tell?
Monday saw us leaving Banderas Bunkhouse and heading out on the road again. We had to come down from the Colorado mountains (we were in the Sangre de Cristo range which we had also been in when we were in Santa Fe, NM) and head east. There was a good bit of construction on part of the route, but it wasn't a major difficulty. It just slowed us down. The new coach is not a speed-demon in the mountains (read: we climb up pretty slow, like a loaded semi) but it does manage the downhill grades pretty well with the engine brake helping control down-shifting of the transmission and keeping the driver's foot off the brakes. So we came out of the mountains and through the Front Range of Colorado, drove through a part of Kansas, and arrived the Johnson Lake State Recreation Area outside Lexington, Nebraska, fairly late in the evening, having traveled well over 450 miles (which is a LONG day for an RVer). Johnson Lake won't be our favorite stop of the trip (the facilities are a bit sparse), but it was an excellent spot to stop for the night, enjoy a nice evening and a pretty lake, and get on the road the next morning.
On Tuesday, we drove across Nebraska and into Iowa, in fact, most of the way across Iowa, stopping for the night at the Kellogg RV Park in Kellogg, IA, which also happens to be the home of the "Iowa's Best Burger Cafe." Of course, we had to sample the burger to see if it really was. Now I don't know if it is really the BEST burger in Iowa, but I can tell you that they make a mighty good burger! Now this is a stopping place that we want to remember. It is a decent day's drive from home in Beloit and has good facilities for the traveler and the owners are very nice to deal with. They've got it all, pull-through sites, full-hookups (IF you want them; we just went for W/E [that is, a water and electric hookup site]), a cafe with good food and ice cream, and a gas station. They even had TREES! Many of the western campgrounds are sorely lacking in good shade trees so we enjoyed being back in the shade.
Wednesday, 27 July and Day 41 of our trip, saw us getting home to Beloit. The new coach FILLS the driveway! I probably could have fit a 36 or maybe a 37 footer into the drive, but if we'd bought a 40 foot coach it would have stuck out into the street. Thirty-four feet was a pretty full driveway! Of course, the coach doesn't live at home. After unloading, we drove it (the next day) to it's full-time parking place in a storage lot.
It was quite a trip! We had a lot of fun, only a few frustrations (mostly due to dealing with McClain's RV over the purchase of the coach, but don't get me started on them!). It's nice to be home, but we're both looking forward to heading out again in a week after we take care of some business and family matters. I see you on down the road. Thanks for following our adventures and travels.
--Forrest and Mary
23-27 July 2011
Howard, CO, and home
It always happens at the end of a trip! We head for home and get there and I don't take time to wrap up the narrative which leaves a loose end hanging. I'm going to try to correct that this time (although we've already been home for several days and I'm just now taking the time to write).
We are home in Beloit for a few days. We'll be back on the road in a week doing some exploring of Northern WI and visiting some good friends. We're looking forward to being back on the road.
But let's catch up with where we were and what we were doing. Saturday, 23 July, we drove over to Canon City (Blogger doesn't seem to have the Spanish en-ye character or at least I can't find it so hear Canyon when I write Canon in this sentence) to ride the Royal Gorge Route Railroad. This three hour train excursion leaves Canon City on tracks of the former Denver and Rio Grande Railway and travels twelve miles through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River and then back the twelve miles to Canon City. It is an AWESOME ride. The Gorge itself is spectacular and for an old rail buff (be REAL careful with the "old"; I just mean a long-time rail buff) like myself it was a real treat to ride the trail and see the story unfold along the tracks.
I'm only going to post a few pictures with this part of the story. My next goal is to post a series of pictures from the places with visited. But here's the Royal Gorge ride:
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| A view from the train of The Royal Gorge Route |
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| Rafters on the Arkansas River IN the Royal Gorge |
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| The Royal Gorge Bridge, 1053 feet above the floor of the Gorge |
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| The Royal Gorge Bridge again |
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| The train and the river on the return route |
Sunday the 24th was kind of a wind-down, catch-up day. We went to church at the First United Methodist Church of Salida, CO. The pastor there is the Rev. Margaret Gillikin who, as a student pastor when she was at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, served a WI Conference church (I think she said at Brandon, WI). She gave a splendid message, one of the best I've heard in a long time, and it was a delight to meet her. After church we checked in at the Arkansas River to watch the kayakers and waterboarders ride the waves of the rapids. It was fun watching them. Although I enjoy my kayak (and we're going to try to take them with us on the next trip), what there were doing was far beyond my abilities or interests at this time in life. Performance stunt kayaking is for the young not the gently aging! We watched forward flips, reverse flips, rolls, turns, and wave riding and were simply amazed at their abilities. Here's a link to the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, a Colorado State Park. We enjoyed watching them. Can you tell?
Monday saw us leaving Banderas Bunkhouse and heading out on the road again. We had to come down from the Colorado mountains (we were in the Sangre de Cristo range which we had also been in when we were in Santa Fe, NM) and head east. There was a good bit of construction on part of the route, but it wasn't a major difficulty. It just slowed us down. The new coach is not a speed-demon in the mountains (read: we climb up pretty slow, like a loaded semi) but it does manage the downhill grades pretty well with the engine brake helping control down-shifting of the transmission and keeping the driver's foot off the brakes. So we came out of the mountains and through the Front Range of Colorado, drove through a part of Kansas, and arrived the Johnson Lake State Recreation Area outside Lexington, Nebraska, fairly late in the evening, having traveled well over 450 miles (which is a LONG day for an RVer). Johnson Lake won't be our favorite stop of the trip (the facilities are a bit sparse), but it was an excellent spot to stop for the night, enjoy a nice evening and a pretty lake, and get on the road the next morning.
On Tuesday, we drove across Nebraska and into Iowa, in fact, most of the way across Iowa, stopping for the night at the Kellogg RV Park in Kellogg, IA, which also happens to be the home of the "Iowa's Best Burger Cafe." Of course, we had to sample the burger to see if it really was. Now I don't know if it is really the BEST burger in Iowa, but I can tell you that they make a mighty good burger! Now this is a stopping place that we want to remember. It is a decent day's drive from home in Beloit and has good facilities for the traveler and the owners are very nice to deal with. They've got it all, pull-through sites, full-hookups (IF you want them; we just went for W/E [that is, a water and electric hookup site]), a cafe with good food and ice cream, and a gas station. They even had TREES! Many of the western campgrounds are sorely lacking in good shade trees so we enjoyed being back in the shade.
Wednesday, 27 July and Day 41 of our trip, saw us getting home to Beloit. The new coach FILLS the driveway! I probably could have fit a 36 or maybe a 37 footer into the drive, but if we'd bought a 40 foot coach it would have stuck out into the street. Thirty-four feet was a pretty full driveway! Of course, the coach doesn't live at home. After unloading, we drove it (the next day) to it's full-time parking place in a storage lot.
It was quite a trip! We had a lot of fun, only a few frustrations (mostly due to dealing with McClain's RV over the purchase of the coach, but don't get me started on them!). It's nice to be home, but we're both looking forward to heading out again in a week after we take care of some business and family matters. I see you on down the road. Thanks for following our adventures and travels.
--Forrest and Mary
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