Free at last, free at last

Our last real commitment for this trip was the final stop in Decatur, IN to get the last work done on the rig.  I am happy to report we have a new awning and the reefer works great.  They decided to change out the awning and not stretch it and we got two parts for the reefer.  We are fixed and outa’ here.  And Fleetwood did a great job.  On time and excellent work.  A pleasant experience. 
So we are on down the road driving through miles and miles of corn and soy beans.  We stopped in Rantoule, IL and went through the Chanute AFB museum.  Kind of neat but it pales in comparison to Wright Patterson.  The best part about Rantoule was the RV park.  It was an older trailer park that had been part of the Air Force base.  It had decent roads and some curbing which was the really neat part.  And now you’re thinking what in the hell is he talking about?  So to the point.  I was returning from the shower after nearly drowning in a thunder storm on the way over and watching the water run down the street.  So I’m thinking about the way we use to play in the water going down the gutters as kids after a rainstorm.  I must have been really enjoying the thought because when I got back to the RV Kat said what were you so happy about walking down the street?  So I explained one of the more simple and most enjoyable summer activities we use to pursue as kids. Bruce and Doug and I would race our little stick boats for probably a hundred yards or more until they disappeared down the sewer and then run back get a new ‘boat’ and start again.  We built gravel and dirt dams to store water along the curbs and then let it out with care and practice to prolong the fun.  What a kick!  Who needed Game Boys or Xbox? 

And then with our new found freedom we stayed at another Corps park in IL.  We spent so much time in Indiana and Illinois this summer that I think we qualify for their potlucks this winter in Bentsen Grove.  You may recall that the different states have potlucks where we winter.  Kat and I are a little bored with our Oregon Potluck.  It’s two chairs, a TV tray, and us.  Lots of folks from the Midwest and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. 
Then it was on to cotton country and along the Mississippi starting at Lady Luck casino in Caruthersville MO.   The casino wasn’t anything real special but it did have an OK RV park and we had a peak at the Mississippi and barge traffic.  Where we come from the casinos are on Indian reservations, along the Mississippi there on, or maybe just over the water.  And for those reading this from maybe more urban America, that’s American Indians.  Just in case!  I mean I know the state of our educational system.  Not that I want to insult my readers, either one of them.  OK!  So very coincidentally I am reading Mark Twain’s “LIfe On the Mississippi” along this part of the trip.  Really!  Kat bought me a Sony ‘Reader’ some time ago and I have read a few things even though I still have a number of paperbacks on hand.  “Life on the Mississippi” just happened to be a free download and I thought, ‘why not’.  The Reader is OK but maybe not quite as neat as I thought it might be.  I’ve always mentally compared them to an Etch A’ Sketch on steroids.  But there is no back light and that maybe is good or bad but it could be easier to read in some lighting.  The ability to select font size is good, but there is only one page button and there should be more.  It is a snap to download books online at the ‘Reader Store’ and the prices are reasonable for most stuff, but you can’t get everything.  With the growth in different electronic readers though there is more and more stuff available almost on a daily basis it seems.     
 

Amish Country and a Rally or two

OK! I’ve been negligent in keeping up on the Blog.  That’s hard to argue and is established.  Once you get in that fix it’s just keeps getting harder and harder to correct.  As I see it, I have a couple of options.  I can buckle down and promise myself to write all of the things I was going to write, or I can just kind of lump the last month all together and get’er done.  The first option is what got me where I am.  Been there, done that, so to speak.  Besides, you already figured from the title of this post that I had picked option number two.  Sooo……………

Back to Indiana and Amish country.

The Gypsy Journal Rally was in Elkhart.  Really, we just went because it was between where we were and where we were going.  That is, it was between Ohio and the Escapade in Goshen, IN, just down the road from Elkhart, IN.  So we signed up.  It was good, and smaller than the others, but by this time we had seen most of what we wanted to see in a Rally and we still had the Escapade to go.  But, before that we had a few days in Shipshewana, IN.  Shipshe, as some say, might be the heart of Amish Country.  Certainly it is by buggy count and the amount of horse crap on the side of the road.  But the food is good and the flea market was big and the Amishnish (my word) make it a little different than the flea markets in the Rio Grande Valley and Yuma.  What was really different was the stuff in the big True Value hardware store.  All kinds of stuff for use that required no electricity.  Cider presses, stoves, big pots and cast iron cookware.  I wish I could remember more. But it was unique. 

So then it was the Escapade in Goshen.  This was a first for us and we had looked forward to it for a while.  Escapees is a first class RV institution.  We go to their RV parks, use the mail service, subscribe to the magazine and newsletter.  Neither Kat or I are real ‘joiners’ but if you wanted to pick an outfit that emphasized belonging it would be the Escapees.  And certainly by lifestyle, we are SKIPS.  So to the National Escapade we went.  We got a real primo site there.  There we are. Jade liked it!  And the real neat thing was the craft hall.  I spent most of my time in the craft hall with the woodcarvers and Kat got started in beading.  Kat asked if I was getting all the highlights of the rallies in my Blog.  I said, highlights?  She said yeah, highlights!!  Like I was being a little negative or something.  OK, sorry!  Maybe I was. I think she gets it right when she says they were all good.  The Fleetwood Rally was first and informative and we were pumped.  The Grand National Rally was the place to spend your money on stuff. Vendors of all kinds, shapes, and sizes.  The Gypsy Journal was smaller and probably had a greater proportion of folks like us than any of the others. Real fulltime gypsies.  And if you wanted to learn something, the Escapade was the place to be.  But there is a ‘but’!  We wouldn’t do them all at once again.  That was just a little too much and where my negativity was creeping in.