Memphis

   Me & Karen                                                                                                      

Memphis has become a regular stop when we’re anywhere in the area.  We always stop and see Kat’s cousin Eddie and now we see our friends and fellow Winter Texans Karen and Bill.  So we did both.  Eddie, Lynda and Granny are all well.  Kat, Lynda and Granny went shopping while I watched football and played Pickleball with Bill and Karen.  They play at a nice facility in Germantown and I was made to feel very welcome by the folks who play there.  Would that I had been able to play a little better.  Haven’t played for a while and it showed.  Still it was fun.
As usual we stayed at the Ag (Agriculture) Center.  Kind of a state farm with a Farmers Market, lots of things growing, the Ducks Unlimited center, lots of nice bike trails, and places to walk.  And close to what we need to be close to. 
No trip to Memphis is complete without barbecue.  And we didn’t slack off a bit.  Kat and I went to ‘Corky’s’  which is supposedly world famous.  We went to ‘Neely’s’ with Bill and Karen and then we went to ‘The Commissary’ with Eddie and Lynda.  This trip ‘The Commissary’ won hands down. 
Along with our trip to Neely’s with Bill and Karen they took us down to ‘Mud Island’ and the River Walk along the Mississippi.  Neat place!  As I recall the River walk is an exact scale model of the Lower Mississippi River flowing from its confluence with the Ohio River at  Cairo, Illinois 954 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico. There are twenty cities mapped along the walk and four watershed walls that show the drainage of the upper river.  Water flows along the whole contoured length and empties into an acre size Gulf of Mexico.  It was designed using Corps of Engineers survey and navigational charts and somehow water depth is maintained to be reflective of the current water depth in the river.  The whole thing is 2000 feet long at 30 inches to the mile.  And you can play in it.  Man could Bruce, Doug, and I have had fun in that.  (If you remember my last post?) What a setup huh?
         

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.   

JT and Linda

Off to Northern Ohio via Mill Creek Campground.  Mill Creek is the only Corps park in Ohio and it was on the way to Painesville and Terry and Linda so we stopped for a few days.  OK place except for that ditch that Kat fell into while she was backing me into our parking space.  It was just one of those falls that seem to go on forever.  The kind where you fall about three times before you actually hit the ground.  And of course I was 40 feet away looking out the rear view mirror.  All I could do was cringe and put on the brake so as not to run her over.  But she’s mostly OK except for her pride and a little blood.  But we’re still the best backing in and pulling out team around. We (Kat) has that down.  I just know that most of the guys who see Kat backing me up or checking things for departure or setting up when we arrive, just eat their hearts out for the kind of help I get.  It’s surprising how many couples really struggle with getting in and out of a spot.  Not us, and it’s neat. 
So, JT (but he’ll always be Terry to me) and Linda are well.  We had a good visit parked in their driveway.  Nothing much to report that would knock your socks off.  We just had a good stay.  Played Mexican Train (Dominoes) and caught up again while Terry and Linda spoiled us with food and drink.  

The Ohio State Fair

The highlight of this collage is Lottie Randolph. Among lots of other farm and home activities she was Assistant Director of Agriculture in Ohio for 8 years under two governors and then Special Assistant to the Administrator Farmers Home Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington DC during the Eisenhower Administration. All of that had her elected to the Ohio Agriculture Hall of Fame. But most importantly she was a nice lady and my Grandma and my only grandparent.   





I have fond memories of Grandma. Singing Christmas Carols to her playing the piano, Hollywood bread and cinnamon toast, her spare bedroom and office with all the neat pictures and paintings where I locked myself in and couldn’t open the door. Dad had to cut the screen and climb in. The backyard swing and a big container of Dominoes, the Tri-Village Café (?) and their picnic tables. Rolf’s market. And the summer of 1960 when I spent a big chunk of it in Washington DC with her. I would ride the trolley down Connecticut Ave to the city and spend days and hours in the Smithsonian or on the National Mall just wandering around seeing the sights and looking at monuments. Eating lunch or dinner at the old Mayflower Hotel and seeing the Broadway production of My Fair Lady at the theatre with me in my white dinner jacket that Grandma bought me for the occasion. Whoahh!!! Going to Arthur Murray dance studio to watch her dance. Grandma spent what some thought was too much on Arthur Murray. I can’t say I ever did. It was her money and she enjoyed it a lot. Besides she never shorted me. One of the coolest things ever at that point in my life and being 17 was driving her 1953 (maybe ’54) blue two-tone Buick Roadmaster through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to DC. Yahooo!!! And here’s a thought I haven’t shared much. I was on the roof of her apartment building one warm summer night and a young (25-ish) attractive women (I was 17) asked me to come down to her apartment for a drink. I was young, shy, going steady with Janie Biggs, so maybe a little noble, and definitely somewhere between foolish and stupid and declined. Don’t think I haven’t questioned that decision a mess of times over the years!!!!



Well, if there is a point to this blog I probably got off of it a while ago. But then it is my blog. What’s the point if I can’t get off it?





  

Does that cat have legs?

We made it and had our usual excellent accommodations at Sandy and Don’s. Some day I’m going to have to look up the rule on apostrophes. Is it possessive or ain’t it? Is it, it’s, its’ or what? Maybe after reading this Sandy will clue me in. I think she wrote something about that just recently. Not directed at me, but maybe it should have been. Anyway we had our spot on the Cul-de-sac with the good electric and one ‘not too far’ trip to the nearest dump station. And after making a few holes and dents in the yard we got properly situated and had a great stay. I don’t see enough of the Ohio family but would the stays be as good if we did it too much? I dunno?

We had the family reunion and I think all who could’a, should’a made it, did. I was personally disappointed that Mike and Garrett didn’t, but I don’t put them in the should’a category. Still it was good. And my Best Man Doug, from the ‘hood’ made it all the way from Georgia. He’s not family but he’s the Best Man and we go back a long way. So far that he use to call me Ray-Ray. 60 + years. Damn!

We went to the fair and the horse races (trotters) ate out a little to often, had Donato’s pizza, bought a new recliner for the coach, but mostly, just visited and enjoyed the family and especially Sandy and Don.

Here fishy, fishy

As did Jade. She was invited in and took advantage of the offer. For a cat that is normally restricted to a 10’ by 36’ RV and a 10’ string outside. Here she was in feline heaven. A whole house and basement with all sorts of places to explore and a fenced backyard with bird feeders and birds. But then came the trains. Jade had not been exposed to trains. And for her, trains are right up there with garbage trucks, bad news without the smell but lots and lots longer. The good news was that it wasn’t too far up the steps, onto the deck, in the garage window, and under the steps. And she became very accomplished at doing it in a hurry. The only downside to the whole house and yard thing was getting her in and out. To let her walk on her string from RV to house takes an eternity. You ever walk a cat? She’s good on the string as long as your going where she wants to go. So I just got in the habit of carrying her in and out. After a week or so of that I’m pretty sure the neighbors got to wondering, ‘does that cat have legs’?

Parked out front

Are we done yet?

And the answer seems to be, no!


Right after the Rally we went ‘jacks up’ as quick as we could and headed for Decatur Indiana and the Fleetwood Service Center. Nice town, nice folks, free parking, but the wait is interminable. A week for the air conditioner and now we’re still waiting for the refrigerator control board and the guy who said it would be a day or two, five days ago. He a sub-contractor or something like that. Whatever; he seems to have disappeared. Even Fleetwood can’t raise him. But that was last night. Maybe today we can get in touch. The air is fixed! They had to put in a new unit and its working good now. So now Kat is playing her favorite game, right after Farming that is. “Freeze Out.” Just kidding, but she does like it cool. Must be all that time in Minnesota? Anyway, we wait. And I didn’t mention the awning. Some trouble with that too. It may be a real kerfuffle. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal even. But I noticed that the supports weren’t quite straight when it retracted and mentioned it. Lots of time and effort later they have found the material is not square and it rolls up crooked and stresses the supports. So they (Fleetwood) called A &E (the awning people) and conferred. Fleetwood wanted to replace the thing, but A & E says it just needs stretched. Fleetwood says HUH? We don’t know nothing about no stretch! We (Kat and I) just want it fixed and to be on our way. I have said we’ll even take it to A & E in Elkhart in September. Well be there for the Escapade and can stop in. So they’re working on that. At least Fleetwood is? They like the idea. Go figure! They don’t know noting about no stretch! I said that didn’t I? VIOLA!!! The fridge guy is here! HOT DAMN!!! OH NO!! NOOOOOOO!!! He pulled away. SEND HELP!!!!!