Is It Breezy In Here?

 

My last stop was in Indianapolis, Indiana. Last time I came thru here, a couple of years ago, I was pretty impressed with the town. It just seems like a very livable town. I had several touristy things to see, but I pretty much vegged out. After a couple of days of doing nothing, I thought I had better get out of the camper and at least do something. I decided that I was going to go to the Antique Fan Museum – not the fancy Victorian lady fans, but actual mechanical fans. I figured it would probably take me about 15 minutes to see it all – due partly to lack of interest and also – how many fans can there be in a museum? I mean you have blades that whir around and move air – what else can you say? Boy, was I wrong.

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:

Way Out West in Indianapolis

 

As I start my slow trek westward, back toward Minnesota, it turns out that Indianapolis is right smack dab in the way. Indianapolis has a state park located downtown on the canal. There is lots to do in the park – they have walking paths, museums, bikes and kayak rentals, IMAX – it is impressive that Indiana allocated all this land and planned this out. The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art called to me. I wanted to see Hard Twist: Western Ranch Women Photographs but the exhibit closed three days before I got there. It was a small museum, but they had some big names there: Remington, O'Keefe, Thomas Hart Benton among others. Looking at the landscape art really made me want to go back out west again. As one friend told me – some people are just never satisfied where they are at.

I need to go here.

Not a photograph

The American Indian artifacts were cool – they were mostly western tribes catagorized by area: Alaskan, Californian, Pueblo. I suppose that makes sense given the name of the museum. Besides the traditional baskets, blankets and moccasins, there was also contemporary art also.

A Day At The Races

The Grand Design National Rally is over. People are pulling out left and right. I have decided that I need to stay one more day at the Fairgrounds for the simple fact that it is Labor Day Weekend. Given my normal lack-of-planning, I had not given that much thought. Of course this means I have no place to stay because all the people who plan ahead have reserved campsites leaving nothing for us seat of the pants type people.

That said, it was an exciting day. This morning there was a horse show. They were judging baby horses of the Dutch Harness breed. I had never heard of this breed and it was fascinating. They are tall, elegant and fancy horses. Besides that, who doesn't love looking at babies. 

Look at the lift of that little guy's front legs.  Pretty fancy.

I don't think this was his most photogenic side.  I'm thinking he might be part giraffe.

Later, at the fairground race track there was harness racing. I've never seen this in person and I loved it. I need to know more about this sport. The only problem is that each race is over so quickly. They were only going once around the track.

The horses all start off following a truck with big metal wings. They start off about a quarter of the track before the starting line. The truck and horses go faster and faster until they cross the starting line and the truck takes off allowing the horses to race. During this time, if something goes wrong such as a driver interferes with another or a horse trips, the drivers start yelling recall and they all have to start over again. The offending driver is penalized by having to start at the back of the pack. There was a rookie driver who fouled another driver and had to move from third starting position to the last starting position. When the race started, he moved his horse to the outside and as they turned down the home stretch he made his move, passed all the other horses and won. It was thrilling. Yup, going to have to get into this a bit more.

I also went to the RV/MH Hall of Fame where they had many campers on display. These campers demonstrated how the camper evolved from tents you pulled behind your car to the modern day RV.

I must admit, the campers from the thirties were my favorites. Most of these were hand made in somebody's garage and the workmanship was stellar. It was like doing house tours of old houses but these all had wheels on them. Some of these campers even came complete with the musty smell of your grandma's old house. 

You can't really read the sign over the door.  It says something like Low Entry - Watch Your Head. 

 It is posted both on the outside and the inside of the door.  Guess who smashed their head on the doorframe?

1935 Travel Trailer

The exterior is "genuine leatherette" over plywood and the roof is coated canvas stretched over tarpaper

Isn't this just the cutest little thing ever?

Pretty futuristic

It's A Grand Design Thing

I am so out of practice with this traveling thing. It has been almost a year since I hit the road. Life...and death.... sort of got in the way of the road. Yes, I did drive the new fifth wheel back up to Minnesota, but that was just a cross country dash. I don't think it really counts in the grand scheme of things.

I am the first to admit it – I am a lousy packer. Who else packs a steam iron to go on a weekend trip? I have. I just never seem to get it right. If I am traveling someplace warm and it is minus degrees as I pack, I pack nothing but cold weather clothes and vice versa. This wasn't going to happen to me again – as I got ready for this trip, I packed just about everything in the house. My nice new-to-me spacious, roomy fifth wheel? Not so roomy now. Oh well.

This time I'm traveling with multiple companions. There is, of course, Miko – the dog who loves to be there once we get there but is terrified of riding in a vehicle. Also along for the ride is JoggerCat – my Bengal cat. Jogger is not terrified of riding in the truck – he is just plain ornery and has to yell at me every time the radio comes on or I speak or even if the speed I am traveling down the highway changes. I think I may soon go deaf. He does settle down eventually, at least for a moment or two.

Our first night out, we stay at a Walmart in Ottawa Illinois. I have never been spent the night in a Walmart with such a crowded overnight crowd. I counted 30 semis and about 6 Rvs. Granted about half of the semis were just the truck part, not the trailer part, but they all kept their trucks running all night long. For those people who like to sleep with white noise, this would be Nirvana. I'm not one of those people. I was a little worried about my RV battery. It doesn't seem to be getting charged from the truck as we drive down the road. I keep getting a 'check trailer wiring' message on my truck.

I am heading to Goshen Indiana for the national Grand Design RV Rally. Grand Design is the maker of my fifth wheel. We are at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds where they have crammed in over 500 Rvs. That means that there are probably over 1000 people here. This is not my usual scene here being the quiet, unassuming child that I am. This is my very first RV rally put on by a manufacturer. I'm thinking that there are way too many old people here until I realize that they are all my age. Ouch. But...I'm here for the experience and we shall remain open to the experience.

In the center field of the racetrack

Another section

This was my parking section.  All the other sections were parked all nice and in neat, tidy rows.  

My section was sort of a free for all.

That is Not me in the picture

The first hurdle is parking this rig. They put me on the end of a row but as I'm parking I am blocking the entrance to 'C' section. I am supposed to hurry up and disconnect my truck so all the people that are now waiting to park can get past me. Remember that 'check trailer wiring' message that I was getting. What that meant was that my Fifth Wheel battery was not getting charged as I went down the road. So when I tried to lower my levelers there was not enough battery power to lower them, which meant that I could not disconnect the truck from the trailer which means that that ever growing crowd has to wait to park . Talk about pressure. They had to call a service technician to see if he could help. Evidently there is a wire in Chevy trucks that needs to be hooked up to the truck battery so that the Fifth Wheel battery will charge. He had this fixed in 20 seconds.

The thing about Grand Design Rallies is that you can put in service requests to have items fixed on your rig and in most cases they will fix them free of charge. These are not minor little issues either. Fridge doesn't work? We will replace it for you. Your springs have flattened out? We will put new springs in.

I was a little late to the game – I only had one minor thing that I wanted fixed. One minor thing until I realized what was possible. Even so, I was one of the lightweights in the group as far as maintenance items go. I had the following fixed/replaced

• a brand new water pump -old one wasn't working
• a brand new air doughnut that goes on my hitch
• a brand new solar connector where you plug in your portable solar panels

I probably spent way too much money but I was able to put slide toppers on two of my three slides. I also upgraded my TPMS(Tire Pressure Monitoring System) and bought some SnapPads for my levelers. I had to buy these because they were discounted Rally prices. What else could I do?

The Rally was interesting. There were seminars on RV Life, field trips and I learned a lot just hanging around people's fire pits. Because I was stationary for a week I did a lot of maintenance items that you just never seem to get around to when you move around a lot. I am so very impressed with Grand Design, the products they put out and the service techs. Every single one of those techs from the cute young Amish boys to the roughneck grizzly old rednecks were so incredibly talented, helpful and polite. Although I am a little disappointed that I did not win any of the spiffy door prizes. 

They fed us each night - as I said Masses and Masses of people

A note on the fairgrounds:  The fairgrounds were very much into stuffing jeans and boots with flowers.  They also had mannequins all dressed up in various places.  It was a little disconcerting at times.

What Did You Have ForBreakfast OR Spiritual Health, Brawny Machines And A Little Dash Of Bix

I was raised on Kellogg cereal. Is there any other type of cereal? Looking at the map, I see Battle Creek, ancestral home of Kellogg's. How cool would it be to do a factory tour? I must say, I'm rather disappointed that there are no factory tours to be had. I did find something called Kellogg's Discovery Center which was interesting in it's own way. Back in the olden days (1800s) people thought fresh air and sunshine would make you sick. Fresh vegetables would kill you. In NYC, a guy on a street corner ate three tomatoes. People thought he was trying to commit suicide. Dr. Kellogg was all about health and exercise. He created a sanitarium where he could put his ideas into practice. He invented many machines that are still in use today in many gyms.

Discovery Center parking lot - evidently this was Not the hottest ticket in town

Some of Dr. Kellogg's inventions

Some of the machines we could try for ourselves. 

This foot vibrator was very relaxing although I could feel it all the way up to my fillings

One day, one of his patients at the sanitarium came to him and said “Dr. Kellogg, you owe me $10. I was eating this dry hard toast that you gave me and I broke my false teeth”. Dr. Kellogg immediately started working on an alternative to the toast and came up corn flakes. Ta-da!!!!

Dr. Kellogg also was a 7^th Day Adventist and Battle Creek is where this religion came to be. I spent maybe a half hour in the Discovery Center and then I got a tour of the Historical Adventist Village which took about an hour and a half. I was really curious about what the religion was about and asked my personal tour guide to give me a quick run-down on their basic beliefs. They believe in good health practices, the trinity and when you die, you just go on mouldering in the grave until the second coming when all true believers will rise up out of the grave. I must have asked a lot of questions about the Adventists because my tour guide gave me a book all about the Adventists which should answer any other questions I might have.

Spent a few days in Indiana at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I spent time last year here, but I stayed in the Indiana Dunes State Park where there were hookups. This time I'm in the National Lakeshore where there are no hookups at all. That would be fine because I am pretty self-sufficient, but it has been raining for the last couple of days and my solar is having a hard time keeping up. Miko and I just sort of vegged out – did a couple of hikes, found some ice cream but basically just putzed around.

Sometimes lily pads aren't all that pretty

My next big challenge was getting from Indiana around Chicago. I absolutely will not drive through Chicago which means I always end up going the long way around . I was hoping to stay at Starved Rock State Park where I had stayed at previously. The problem was that it was Sunday of a three day weekend and all the weekend warriors had taken every available camping spot. I ended up in the Quad Cities – Davenport, Rock Island, Moline and maybe East Moline? I had decided to stay at the Illiniwek Forest Preserve and as I drove up – it was packed. Not with campers but with a Renaissance Festival – jousting, flute playing, much hilarity. Illiniwek was a lovely park. On one side was the mighty Mississippi and on the other side was a huge bluff with some beautiful hiking/mountain biking trails. Miko and I would go hiking every morning up on these trails for a couple of hours.

Miko in a gnarly tree trunk

Moline is the home of John Deere. I, again wanted to do a factory tour, but you had to reserve a spot 48 hours in advance which was not going to happen, given my tendency to not commit to a plan. I did the second best thing though which was to go visit the John Deere Pavilion. I learned how John Deere got his start – he was a failed blacksmith who came to this Midwest area from Vermont to try to find work to pay off his creditors. New England soil is hard and rocky while Midwest soil is rich and damp. Farmers in the Midwest would have to stop every few feet to clean the muddy mess off of their iron plows. Mr. Deere fashioned a polished steel blade that cut like butter through the dirt and thus, the John Deere company was born.

While that was interesting, the great thing about the Pavilion was that there was so many interactive displays. I got to go into a simulator and operate a back hoe. I couldn't quite get the hang of driving a bulldozer. I built gears that twirled. I hand cranked videos (although some little kid butted in and wanted to play also – I guess I was in the children's area, but still....). I also got to climb into a few cabs of various John Deere machines.

If you squint real hard, you can see me driving me a big honkin'   machine.  So big it doesn't fit all the way in the picture

Davenport is also the birthplace of Bix Beiderbecke , a famous jazz cornetist. He came up in the late twenties/early thirties. I knew nothing about him except his name, but some of my friends in the music biz thought he was the bee's knees. I really dislike the type of jazz where everybody seems to be playing a different melody at the same time, but Bix seemed to be more of the big band type of jazz which is way cool.

Pretty prolific guy

They wanted you to feel like you were actually listening to Bix as he played at Hudson Lake

I also tried to go on a chocolate factory tour, but even though the building's operating hours stated they were open, all was dark – so no factory tour. I guess factory tours were not to be for me.

Wisconsin has a bar on every corner - Davenport has a chiropractic office on every corner

I spent four days in the Quad Cities. I am learning to slow down. I am learning that I don't have to be doing something touristy every single moment. I still have a long way to go, on this slowing down stuff, but I think I am beginning to get a glimmer of how this works. My time on the road is winding down - I'm sad that I have to go back.  My time was way too short but I'm also thrilled to head home and reconnect with all that is near and dear to me. 

Into The Past - How Far Can We Go?

It is time to leave Watkins Glen. Shoulda stayed longer, shoulda hiked the Gorge again. Shoulda, Coulda.

Down in southern New York, there is a little town called Corning which hosts a giant Museum called the Corning Museum of Glass. This is a must-see for anybody who likes glass. This museum is like the Disneyland of Glass, without the rides and the mouse ears. The gift shop alone was bigger than my house.

The first area you enter is the Contemporary Art + Design(1990-2015) area which showcases artists who are stretching the boundaries of what we think glass should be into what glass could be. Some of it was just plain ugly – whoops – perhaps I'm not cool enough to see the artistic vision that was sought after. Some of it was weird and entertaining and some of it was beautiful.

Hard to see but a lot of lacy glass

The other major gallery was called 35 Centuries of Glass which was fascinating. They had glass samples from well, 35 centuries ago up to fairly contemporary times. The displays were really well done and it flowed from country to country and glass making method to glass making method. I was especially enamored of the paperweight displays – I have a small collection at home and it was wonderful to see samples from the major paperweight houses.

I'm walking through the many centuries and what do I come across but an actual window from the Darwin Martin House that I toured in Buffalo.  That was rather special how everything seems to be tied together.

Interspersed between all the galleries were several different demo labs. I sat in on a basic how to make a blown pumpkin. What was interesting, besides the glass blowing, was the audience. There was a huge Chinese contingent so they had a translator. The English speaker guy would talk rather in a monotone and then the Chinese woman would speak. She was jumping up and down, laughing, doing her own little demo of what the glass blowers were doing. I couldn't understand a word, but she was probably the most entertaining part of the whole demo. There were several other demos throughout the day that sounded interesting (glass breaking demo – huh?) but none of them fit into my schedule.

Hassidic Jew and Roman Catholic Chess Set

Some people have sometimes called me obsessive - I think of myself as being very focused and rather a completist.   Case in point - I think I need to visit all 400-some National parks, monument, historical sites, battlefields etc. I mean, all these sites belong to me (and America) - I need to check them all out, make sure that they are doing all right.  I do get  a kick out of them.  Now I have that Junior Ranger thing going also.  But, after spending a few weeks chasing after these National Sites, I get to a point where I just don't care anymore.  I know the next trip I take, I will be right back at it, but I am pretty much done with the whole National scene at the moment.  I had about six more sites on my radar for this trip and I just decided I don't need to go see them.  Enough is enough.

So, I made a right turn somewhere in Pennsylvania and headed for southeastern Indiana.  It is sort of on the way home, isn't it?  The reason?  I was heading to the land of my ancestors - my people settled in Metamora Indiana in 1811.  I thought I should go find out what was up with them. 

The library in Brookville has quite an extensive genealogy department and I spent several days digging through their collection.  It was very satisfying.  My timing was really great also as when I was there, they had a genealogy conference going on which was much fun.  What is not to like talking about lost dead people and how to find them, plus there were a lot of munchies. 

I also mixed it up a bit and visited a few graveyards to pay my respects to these new found family members.  What was fun was that I visited one graveyard on a Sunday morning.  The church, which I think was a Pentecostal church was getting their religion on.  They had a band and there was a lot of whooping and hollering and some really good music.  Almost made me get down on my knees and raise my hand to the sky. 

GGG-Grandma and Grandpa

Half of Duck Creek Cemetery taken out the car window - I looked at every single one of these stones up close and personal

Shipshewana

Greetings from Shipshewana, Indiana.

Shipshewana – what a lovely name to say. We are at the top of Indiana, right dab smack in the middle of Amish Country. I am staying in one of those dreaded RV parks(Shipshewana South Campground)  where the rigs are piled right on top of one another. The park isn't all that bad and it is fun to watch all the Amish buggies going by. In fact, this park is just down the road from the local grocery store, so we are sort of on an Amish super highway, horses and buggies all lines up outside the grocery store.

Why am I here you ask? Because I am here for a meeting of my fellow Peeps, the people who have the same type of RV as I have. I have a Jayco Precept and one of the other owners decided that we should have an informal get-together. There aren't that many Precepts in the world – they are a fairly new model so finding a bunch of us in one place is rather unique. There are about 18 of us here and I have the distinction of having the oldest Precept here. There are a couple of brand new 2017 models and it is fun to see the changes that have been made in the last few years. What sweetened the pie for me is the fact that we get to do a tour of the Jayco factory and actually see how they are built. I am a sucker for factory tours.

Precepts all lined up in a row

The tour was really fascinating. When you walk in, you get one of those orange vests that construction workers wear and some safety glasses. They also gave us some transmitters that we put in our ears so we could actually hear our guide talk. That was nice because the inside of the factory was really loud and with thirty some folks all strung out, it made it possible to actually hear what was being said.

Jayco gives it's employees a quota that they have to meet every day. As soon as that employee meets that quota, they can go home. It doesn't matter if they meet it at 2:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m. They get to go home. I don't know if I have ever seen people move so fast. Up and down ladders, jumping through different parts of the chassis – these people are a blur. Somebody asked the guide about quality control and the guide said that each employee is their own quality control agent which might explain the plethora of issues that crop up with these RVs. Don't get me wrong, I think Jayco, overall, is a quality product compared to other RVs but I think they could do a lot better. Anyway, we saw the whole build process from soup to nuts as they say. I wish we could have spent a little more time there in certain areas, but an hour or so was all we had.

Jayco is always interested in hearing from it's customers what works and does not work with their RVs.  A few years back, one of our people asked Jayco why the front of the RV always looks like it is frowning.  They must have taken that to heart because the new 2017s are now smiling.

Frowning

Smiling

The interesting thing about all of us Precept owners getting together is that we could compare notes and help each other out. I learned some new things that will make my life easier on the road. It also made me really appreciate my rig after hearing some of the stories. It was nice meeting people who I had only known online and actually putting faces on the screen names. All in all, they were lovely people and I was really happy to meet them all. Is this where I mention the fact that I have a missing hubcap and although Bob thought that with all these Precepts here, one might magically appear on my rig one night, it never quite happened.

Fellow Travelers

Photo credit: Tinman

I also had a free day and decided to spend it in two spots. One was the Menno-Hof Center. A while back, a Mennonite preacher got tired of answering the same questions that the tourists were always asking about the Amish/Hutterites/Mennonites also known as Anabaptists. Anabaptist means to rebaptise (voluntary adult baptism after a declaration of faith). So the three religious groups got together and built a center where all of these questions could be answered. It is appropriately located in northern Indiana because this is where one of the largest Anabaptist groups in the world exists. This was a fascinating place – they dealt with the history of the Anabaptists all the way thru current day policies and culture. They also had a Tornado room where you sat and watched on a video a tornado approaching while being pelted with wind and the floor actually shaking. The actual purpose of this room was to talk about how the Mennonites try to serve their communities in times of stress.

The other place I visited was the Guggisberg Deutsch Kase Haus Cheese Factory. Besides having about 30 different types of cheese which you could sample, they also had jams, homemade candies, beef sticks – it was a stomach's little slice of heaven. I bought a cheese called Swiss on Rye, which was a soft cheese with caraway seeds. I wish I had bought a lot more of that cheese. I wonder if they do mail order

Indiana Sunset