The Fort

 

Here we go again.

First off, a few administrative details. I was using something called Feedburner which would send out emails to you whenever I updated the blog. Google decided to discontinue that feature and I had to find something else. So, I am now using follow.it. I am hoping that the transition is smooth and no hassle to anybody. We shall see as this particular entry is my first use of follow.it.

When we last spoke, I had mentioned that there were repairs that needed to be done to my camper. I called a local dealer and I soon realized that they did not have it together. I decided that I might as well take it to the manufacturer, Grand Design, in Middlebury Indiana. Some of the repairs are major and who better to fix it, then the people who made the camper.

I loaded up my truck (minus Jogger and Miko) and headed to Indiana. I spent the night at an Elks lodge in Janesville, WI. I have never seen a parking lot as uneven as this one. It was like one of those giant slides they have in amusement parks, all wavy and twisted. I did not want to put my slides out because my camper was so unlevel that it would have really messed up the slides.

After dropping off the camper, I made it to my brother's house outside of Chicago. It was nice seeing him and his partner, they fed me, they housed me and they even fed my Junior Ranger obsession. There is a new National Monument in Chicago – The Pullman National Monument. It is a really new monument, only designated as a monument in 2015 by President Obama and the grand opening was September 2021. Given my history of scheduling mishaps, this was amazing that I was in the right place at the right time.

George Pullman founded the Pullman Palace Car Company to build luxury train sleeping cars. The park tells the story of one of the first planned industrial communities in the United States, the sleeping car magnate who helped create it, and the workers who lived there. The district is significant for its influence on urban planning and design, as well as its role in American labor history, including the 1894 Pullman Strike and Boycott. (NPS website)

The Administration Building - this is about all that is left of the Pullman factory

You could worship however, whoever you wanted just as long as it happened in the Green Church

Eventually, I picked up the camper. I had to have the floor replaced and to do that, they had to remove the slides. Major deal. My floor is now beautiful. They also fixed my front baggage door, the one I might have backed my pickup tailgate into. I love Grand Design, the manufacturer of my rig. There were a few wires that had to be reattached after I left the Service Center – I had to call a mobile tech, but Grand Design said that they will pick up the tab. I love Grand Design.

An Indiana sunset

So, now I'm officially back on the road. First stop – Fort Wayne Indiana. It is the home of the 2^nd largest genealogy library in the United States. I spent a day in the library looking up ancestors and realized my heart wasn't in it. I could be out exploring and so I did. I stayed at the Johnny Appleseed Campground where, it just so happens, is Johnny Appleseed aka John Chapman's grave.  

Across the street was the St. Joseph river.  Quite turbulent, it had been raining

Mid-America Windmill Museum in Kendallville, Indiana. I was pleasantly surprised at how interesting this was. Between 1865 and the 1930's, there were 94 windmill producers in the Kendallville area. They had a short movie explaining windmills and then you go into an 1899 barn that was built with pegs, not nails. There were interactive displays here where you could move windmills around by the push of a button– I was a Wind Goddess.

I'm not a big automobile enthusiast but since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped in at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. Holy cow!!!! I always thought that the thirties, the Depression era, were a time of extreme poverty for everybody. Evidently not – these cars were epitome of luxury. I think I lusted after every single car here. The collection is located in the Auburn Motor Companies Art Deco administrative/showroom building which is on the National Register of Historic Places and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005.

I loved, loved, loved this car.  Notice the secondary windshield in front of the back seat

There is a little known museum called the Karpelis Manuscript Library Museum. Mr. Karpelis buys wonderful old buildings (there is one in Duluth Minnesota) around the US and sends portions of his manuscript collection around to these 17 different buildings on a rotating basis. Mr. Karpelis is rumored to have over a million different manuscripts. The current collection in Fort Wayne is a series of manuscripts written by Alexander Graham Bell where he first talked about his new invention, the telephone to talking about setting up phone lines across the country. There was even an old phone book page for New York that had a total of 50 people listed. The one I found fascinating was a manuscript from 1587 with “Instructions For The Beginning Campaign Against The Invincible Spanish Armada”. It is utterly amazing to me that this manuscript has survived all these years.

I did get to the Fort Wayne Museum of Art where they had a nice display of Brilliant Cut Glass, but the stand out exhibit was a photography exhibit of Clyde Butcher, who is a conservation photographer ala Ansel Adams. I might have like Butcher's photos a little better than Ansel's, but maybe that is because they were huge and detailed.  https://clydebutcher.com/

I leave you with this Gordon Parks photo: