NE Indiana

At $4/gal for diesel, we've curtailed our roaming while the trailer is being serviced.  They were able to finally get us in about 2:30 PM yesterday & put four people to work on it, then pull it out at 6:00 PM for us to spend the night in it, & then take it back in at 8:00 AM this morning.  It's rainy & cool here, so we've decided to hang out at the local library.  Donna's asleep in a chair - apparently it's comfortable!  And I've given up on the MiFi with a new SIM

card and gone back to using the library's WiFi.  I remind you that this is a strong, 4 bar, 4G Verizon network we have here in LaGrange, IN.

The first two pictures at the top are of a new Amish House.  Our curiosity finally got the best of us as we walked the campground in Shipshewana and we strolled over to take a look.  It's huge.  Looks to be well over 5,000 sq feet.   

Having gone through the various Amish museums, we're surprised to find that it's not white.  And while it's a basic house, when you look into the window it appears very appealing.

The next picture down is from the Plyler's Chocolate factory here in Lagrange.  Didn't get a tour, but did browse the store.  We watched one gentleman make something that appeared sticky.  It's a local candy brand in this area, and you see it in all the local stores.

The bottom three are of the Gangster's Grille in Hudson, IN.  Apparently, Dillinger robbed the Farmer's State Bank in Hudson.  That bank is now the grille and bar.  The first pciture is of the bank safe (below those NASCAR flags).  Then there's some news articles and a mock up of Dillinger.  It's unusual & a great burger joint just off I-69.

We also got to walk through an 1800's grist mill & power plant (no pictures allowed) and started looking at furniture to replace our recliners in the trailer when we get tired of them.  Found what we wanted - a combination of recliner and platform rocker.  So it's now up to "when" we want to make the move (or more accurately, spend our savings account.)

So that's it from here.  Looks like we'll move up to Traverse City, MI early next week.  At least that's the plan.  Later, David

Back in Shipshewana

Got to Shipshewana, IN late this afternoon.  Big difference from Virginia to here.  While we left Fredericksburg, VA in light rain and arrived here in light rain, the temp here was 46 degrees as we got out of the truck to unhitch.  That's about 20 degrees lower than when we left Fredericksburg.

We're located in the Shipshewana South Campground.  This place has over 100 campsites.  I doubt if there's more than 12 units in the campground this evening.  We've seen it pretty full in the past.  Seems sort of lonely. 

The pictures on today's post are of the Friendship Village Campground in Bedford, PA.  It was another opportunity for Donna to practice with her new camera.  This campground is significantly larger than when we first visited back in 1993 with Doug and Katie in tow.  The number of campsites have doubled since then with a whole new area with pull-thru and back-in, full-hookup sites & 50 amp electrical service.  And more pull-thru sites are being built.  In case you didn't want to use your satellite TV, they have over 70 cable channels - most digital.

Last night's stopover was at Green Acres Lake Resort near Lake Milton, OH.  This park was closed, but they let us in as they had water & electric up and available.  It's an older park, clean and all facilities were working. By appearances, it appears to cater to seasonal (summer) visitors.  It's good for an overnight stop with Good Sam and Passport America discounts.  We hadn't had a campground all to ourselves since we stayed over a Labor Day Monday at Big Meadows in Shenandoah Nat'l Park.  Since there were so many seasonal units stored at Green Acres, it didn't seem empty.

Couple of updates:  First, we're finally in Verizon 4G coverage and strong signal.  MiFi's doing well and supported both the laptop and iPad2.  Maybe the SIM card was the issue.  We'll keep using it and see if it keeps up.  Second is the truck ride.

For those that have followed us since we first started towing with the F450, you're painfully aware of our struggle to improve the ride and the suspension changes we made last year.  It all helped, and it appears we're still making progress.  It's been clear over the last year that what we are feeling is just from the truck and not feedback from the trailer.  Well, we've now started playing with the air pressure in the trailer king pin (5th Airborne unit) just to see if it'd make a difference.  Since leaving Gulf Shores, AL we've lowered the air pressure in steps to see if it would help.  This trip we lowered the psi in the king pin airbag to 75 psi.   Today was probably the best ride we've had on the Ohio Turnpike with the F450.  It's still a bumpy ride (as it's still a bumpy highway), but there's a significant improvement in the ride quality since our first trip out to West Yellowstone and the G&G gathering when we followed Brian and Lee Ann in their motorhome.  We've had a lot of trips along the Ohio Turnpike since 2009 and today's ride was the best so far.

So what's up while we're here?  If all goes well, we'll move over to Lagrange, IN either late Sunday or early Monday morning for trailer service.  Once that's completed, we'll come back to Shipshewana to make plans for moving on to Voyageurs Nat'l Park.  At the moment it appears Donna's located several bike trails in and around Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan.  Looks like a stay at Traverse City is in our future!  Later, David

North Bound Again

Frank & Beth Allen's backyard

Well, the ranting phase has passed.  So here we are planning to move northbound tomorrow.  This is the next leg of our trip to Voyageurs National Park (if my finger prints were accepted.)  If all goes well, we'll be at Shipshewana, IN by Friday.  Stops at Bedford, PA and Lake Milton, OH are planned along the way.  This is the first time we've run across issues of closed campgrounds.  Seems like the Ohio guys don't open until May 1st.  We're not Walmart kinda people, so we like campgrounds.  Green Acres Lake Resort owners in Lake Milton were kind enough to let us stop over even though the campground's not officially open.

Our stop at Shipshewana, IN is for us to have maintenance done to the trailer and get a lot of little nits fixed.  Same type of maintenance as you'd do for an automobile's suspension - just add a home safety inspection and you get the idea of what we're having done.  We've got an April 23rd appointment with Paul Cross's Indiana Interstate Enterprises (Lagrange, IN) to do the work.  We've also got a couple of upgrades we're looking into.  Won't have any of them done this time, but will get estimates before we leave.

We've had a great time in Fredericksburg, VA.  We'll miss everyone.  Didn't get to everyone so you guys that we missed will be first on the list next time.  Besides, more of you guys need to retire so we can play more.  Plus, and this is a dangerous plus:  I think Donna and I make great retirees.  Think we'd need a license or something if we turn pro?  At least one of you reading the blog will at least have the thought that I'd at least need to be vaccinated!

The picture at the top is Donna playing with her new Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W650 camera that takes panoramic pictures.  It's of Frank & Beth's backyard at the farm & it's a gorgeous view anytime of the year.  Usually there's wildlife around, but not this time.  Please excuse the fact that I haven't quite got the photo sizing down.  I wanted it big enough to see without going outside the margins of the blog.  Anything smaller makes it too short to make a good impression.

We really missed being able to take any wide-angle or panoramic photos last year.  I've looked at wide-angle lenses (10MM), and those things are as expensive as any of the zooms that we currently own.  Plus we found ourselves falling back on the Thunderbolt's camera as it was smaller and lighter than our Nikon D60 with an 18-200MM zoom.  We're thinking this little cyber-shot might fit the bill.  It's a lot cheaper!

So that it's from here.  Here's a shot of the brood of geese that's been growing up around the pond here at the Fredericksburg KOA.  Like all kids, they grew up fast!  Later, David

Rants - Finger printing, Facebook Timeline, Federal Budget, Oil

Only Bob Wiltrout will find this week's blog interesting.  We'll see the rest of you next week - have a great weekend!

Finger printing:  Can anyone explain to me how a process that fails more than 50% of the time helps the security of this country?  We had issues obtaining an acceptable set of finger prints for Donna when she moved her nursing license to South Dakota.  I'm now experiencing that same issue as we try to complete a background check to allow us to volunteer at Voyageurs National Park.  Unless you're interested in starting up a massage parlor in Spotsylvania County in Virginia, very few places can provide finger printing services.  And of those, it appears most can't provide an acceptable print.  So smeared finger prints are acceptable for massage parlors?  (This is a family oriented blog - I'll stop there!)

Facebook Timeline:  I'll start this particular rant with a great verbal exchange I once had with a dear departed friend - Tom Bryant:  Tom (to me):  "I'm not here to make you happy."  My response:  "Doesn't matter.  I'm here to tell you what you need to hear."  (Not all great friendships are based on friendliness.)  So goes my response to the thousands of you unhappy with Facebook Timeline.  To those of you who can't stand Timeline, how many of your friends' Timelines have you looked at?  None?  Guess what?  They're not looking at your timeline, either.  Quit sweatin' it!  No one's lookin'! During our 2011 Friends and Family tour, we found that the only time people looked at my or Donna's Facebook Wall was usually about a week before we arrived.  Guess they figured that if they didn't look at it, there'd be nothing to talk about.  Folks, I'm retired and even I don't have time to look at people's timelines!

Federal Budget:  Unhappy with GSA's $850,000 spending spree?  If so, then don't look at the federal budget!  So far we've gotten two proposals to our federal budget shortfall.  Let me explain them in "regular family" language & use an over simplified example.  Let's set the stage:  You and your family can no longer afford to go out to eat.  There are two proposals on the table to solve this issue so you can go and visit Famous Dave's BBQ.  First, we just won't pay for our health care when we get old.  Dying before you run out of money is a great idea!  But, how does one do that?  Oh, wait, I've got that wrong.  We just won't go for any medical services at all.  OK, that's one solution.  But, hey, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it!

The second solution is to hit up a guy at Famous Dave's who can afford to eat out and force him to pay for our iced teas.  You still can't afford to go out to eat, but I guess that really doesn't matter.  Hey, I got a great idea!  Let's force the guy to pay for all our meals.  Guess what?  Now he can't afford to go out to eat and he doesn't show up.  Folks, I've been involved in church finances, and it's hard to get money out of people's pockets who don't show up.  But that's OK!  We can always hit the print button on the dot-matrix printer and get more money.

Now let's get a little more serious about this "printing money" solution.  In 1973, I got to go to Japan.  At that time $1 bought 277 yen.  Today, as I type this, that $1 buys about 81 yen.  That's about a 70% drop in value of the dollar.  If exchange rates and the drop in the value of the dollar compared to the yen were that simple, that $30,000 Camry you'll look at this weekend would really cost you about $9,000 if the dollar hadn't lost so much in value.  Now, you go get a calculator and see what that does to the price of that $4/gal of gasoline you just bought.  Yep, it's a solution, but not the best.  Apparently, it's the only one we've got, though.

Lastly, we have 2% of the world's oil.  Really?  REALLY??  We had 2% of the world's oil in the fall of 1975!    In an advanced business analysis class at Vanderbilt, we broke up into teams and studied various businesses or industries.  The team I was on looked at air cargo delivery (think FedEx - I was an aspiring pilot ya know!)  Another team looked at the oil industry.  Guess how much oil they said we had?  2%.  Folks, that's in the fall of 1975.  So it's still 2%?  Yep.  And guess what?  There's a legitimate reason why that is.  To make it simple, how much oil you have depends on how much crude oil costs to recover (pump?).  It's a meaningless metric that says how much you have depends on how much you can sell it for.  (Actually, it's not that stupid of a metric, but if the shoe fits...)   Don't like fossil fuels and want a real metric?  The U.S. has 4% to 5% of the world's populations and uses 20+% of the world's oil that's being pumped.  That's your metric.

It was great talking to you, Bob!  Later, David

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  The above picture was given to me by Tad Kelly before I retired.  It's of the cherry blossoms along Kenwood Blvd in Washington, DC.  Been looking for an excuse to post one of them, and this looks like as good a time as any.

Attended a really nice and unique communion service at Salem Fields Community Church this evening.  If all goes well, we'll continue our tradition of playing host for Sunday's sunrise service there this weekend.

Three weeks in the Fredericksburg area sounds like a lot of time, but Donna keeps the calendar full.  We've eaten out enough that we now not only exceed the grocery budget, but the dinning-out budget, too.

Maintenance on the truck is complete.  We were able to get the truck detailed yesterday and the trailer washed and waxed today.  Unfortunately, by this evening both are green with pollen.  But with each having a new coat of wax, the California duster seems to work again.

Doc visits are now complete, too.   A new pair of glasses for each of us is this year's Easter present.  Easter bunny ain't cheap, though!

Next up is clothes shopping.  When you were the same stuff everyday, it wears out quickly.  Plus I have a unique ability to rip a hole in my dockers just by opening the door of the trailer.  Frustrating!  But we need nicer stuff to wear at Voyageurs, and now's a good time to stock up.

Oh, and Donna made one run dropping stuff off at Goodwill today.  Yep, even with only 400 sq ft of living space, you can start collecting stuff!

So that's it for this week.  Later, David