'Nuther installment - 2 week trip

Clarinda, IA - 93º
    Und the saga continues............We drove north and got 6 miles into Michigan when we found an RV Park and it was getting late and I was getting tired.  When pulling the trailer I do all the driving while Phyllis directs traffic, or at least directs me.  We were on the road again by 9:30 Friday morning and drove through Ann Arbor, Flint, near Detroit.  One thing that can be said about Michigan; they have good tire salesmen!

On the main highways everywhere you look there are a whole series of tires under the trucks.  Can't imagine how they turn any corners and someone did mention to me that they are really rough on roads as far as turns.

We got caught up in a couple of traffic hangups, creeping along at about 10 miles an hour on the interstate going by a couple of the bigger cities, but we got to Bill & Darlene Winslow's place around 4:30 Friday afternoon.  This is near West Branch, MI east of Houghton Lake, MI.  At right is their house, but the best view is out their living room window -- the next two pictures.  Bill feeds the ducks some corn every morning and afternoon.  They have about 12 acres of water on this "little pond" and it is such a peaceful place.

Looking south out the dining room windows.

After visiting a while and eating supper with them we settled right down to eating some fresh red raspberry pie that had been picked in their garden.  We had tasted Darlene's pie made from frozen red raspberries that she had brought to Texas so had been looking forward to this!

 Bill always has flowers of all sorts at his house in Kenwood RV Park in Texas and his house in Michigan has flowers everywhere! as well as a good sized vegetable garden.  The lake had been treated for weeds and he could therefore not use any water out of it for irrigating.  The lake is his sole source of water for all those flowers and vegetables.  He was so hoping for a rain, but it didn't come while we were there.

 I didn't get pictures of all the flowers.  He spends so much time cultivating them, watering and weeding them.  Even his grass was green from his watering it several times a week, pumping the water out of the lake.  It was starting to fade a little.  The temperature was in the 90's the first day we got there.  They were not used to this, being as far north as they are they do not have air conditioning.  That Friday evening it cooled off, though, and the next two nights were really comfortable in the trailer.  We parked it in the driveway to his barn.

 

 The dirt is so black and fine in his garden, almost made me think of volcanic dirt.  Bill spends lots of time watering, and lots of time on the end of a hoe.

 Phyllis & Bill look over the tomatoes while Darlene is at the end of the garden.

On Saturday they showed us around the area.  We drove over to Houghton Lake and found place where Bill & Sue Martin lived and got a nice visit with them.  They also winter in Kenwood RV Park in La Feria, TX.

Sunday we went to church with them after touring the Iosco County Fairgrounds.  Bill & Darlene, along with several others in the area, created the fairgrounds in the 1980's and it is all maintained by volunteer help.  This is a huge park -- some 80 or so acres -- and is busy almost every week of the year with various entities renting the facilities.  They still put in a lot of time and work in the place.  Many buildings have been built.   In photo at left Bill is beside his granddaughter and his daughter is next to

Phyllis & Darlene

her.  After church we drove east to Lake Huron and looked around.   We ate lunch at Augie's On The Bay in Tawas City.  Spent time at Tawas Point State Park and looked at the lighthouse there. 

 We played Pegs & Jokers each evening and pie each night, either the Red Raspberry or squash pie fresh from the garden.  Here are some photos from the Iosco County Fairgrounds:

We had such a delightful time in Michigan and visiting with Bill & Darlene.  We will go back up there and pester them some more.  May try to be there to take part in their Iosco County Fair in August next year.

We left their place Monday morning and headed south, visiting some more people.  Will post another blog about that.  I just checked temperatures -- Clarinda, IA 92; West Branch, MI 81; and La Feria, TX 96 right now at 6:45 pm CDT.
Lynn

R 2-week trailer trip - week 2

Clarinda, IA 78º - to get to 95º today, oh joy.

Picking up with the blog I posted last evening -- this will cover the 2nd week of our trip.

After riding our trikes around Monroe Lake (three photos to left) on Sunday morning we packed the trailer & Ford and headed east, near Cincinnati, OH and then northeast to Old Mans Cave Recreation Area in Hocking Hills State Park near Bloomingville, OH.  Old Mans Cave at Hocking Hills  This park is located on a ridge in area of hills that seemed like it was actually part of Kentucky, which wasn't too far away.  By the time we checked in and climbed the narrow, winding road up to the camping park a lot of dark clouds were building off to the west.  We got our trailer backed into the electric only site, unhooked, leveled and plugged in and suddenly enormous  lightning bolts seemed to be hitting right above our heads in the tall trees.  Wind came up real strong and rain started splattering.  The Park Ranger came through with his lights flashing and announcing to clear the area.  We jumped in the Ford and drove back down to the check in building.  After about 15 minutes we, and several other campers, were given the all-clear and headed back up.  Had to drive around a few trees that had been blown across the road and there was at least one good sized limb laying on one trailer.  Electricity was off overnight, but with the storm coming through the temperature had dropped from near 100º to in the upper 70's so was comfortable sleeping with the vents and windows open.  Next morning, just as I was starting to get generator out from under the trailer the electricity came back on.  Was a good thing, because my generator

 is big enough to run everything except the Air Conditioner and by noon it was back to a little warm.  We rode our trikes around the area Monday and by late afternoon our daughter Michelle arrived from Columbus, OH.  With all the trees around us and catching some breeze, we ate outside that evening.  Phyllis, Michelle, & meinself - Lynn, are in the photos at right.

Photo at left shows the tall trees in the area around our trailer.  Due to reservation-only of the campgrounds we had only 3 nights at this site and then had to move on July 4th to another site a short distance away.



On Tuesday we walked down the trail to Old Mans Cave, which is somewhat of a misnomer -- it is not a real cave in my mind.

It is a "recess" cave, or really a crevasse in the rocks.






We were in a humid, but nice area and saw lots of rock, steps, bridges, etc.  Here are a few photos.

Notice the bridge above

The "cave" is where the people in center are seen.

Some of the steps were uneven in height.

Michelle & Lynn

Lynn & Phyllis stop for a bit.  A little perspiration showing

Amazing how trees grow out of the rocks.

This turtle was basking in the sun.

We drove to Cedar Falls and walked that trail.  Interesting area, but with the drought there was very little falls.  The trickle in the center is the falls--in more normal times it is a cascading water falls.


On Thursday Michelle drove to her home in Columbus and we hooked onto the trailer and headed to Heath, OH just east of Columbus to Pedlers bike shop where we dropped off both trikes for their checkup.  I have almost 1,900 miles on mine and Phyllis has something over 1,200 on hers.

I know this blog is dragging on.  Have worked on it for couple hours and will check out and do one more to finish our trip.  I had done about 3 hours last night and gotten this far when I did something (don't know what, really) and it all disappeared.  So, will take a break.  I do know it is now 85 degrees outside and 70 degrees here in my basement where I am working on this now at 11:45 am Central Daylight Savings Time.  I started trimming the hedge in the back yard this morning when watering the tomatoes.  Will probably wait until it is cool in the morning to finish it.  Both Phyllis & I left before 7 am this morning with our trikes and put in 7 miles just around the "flatter" part of Clarinda while it was cooler.

I think I mentioned earlier that I couldn't get WiFi any where except in MacDonald's a time or two while on our travels and that is no place to post a blog.  Till a bit later, Lynn

Our 2-week trailer trip

Middle of our front yard today

Clarinda, IA 91º   It is hot still.  Here is a picture of our front lawn.  Our neighbor had agreed to do any mowing while we were gone.  Talked with him yesterday and he said he was thinking of selling his mower.  Had not mowed for 3 weeks.  Hasn't rained forever, it seems and things are dry.  I watered the 6 tomato plants we have and added some fertilizer.  They got a little dry while we were gone though neighbor Jan did some watering with some water jugs we had left, but ran out.  We shut off our water when gone to avoid any problem if leak would develop in the house.

Jody & Paul

We pulled out of here with our 2005 Ford Excursion Diesel pulling our 2009 Four Winds Dutchmen 29R Travel Trailer just after noon on Wednesday June 27th.  We had gone to funeral of our dear friend Maurice Rarick and then pulled out.  We headed south and then east on 36 in Missouri.  We stopped near Brookfield, MO and visited briefly with Paul Stockwell & Jody Robison.  Temperature was 102º and crops in that area really looked burned up.
Paul used to own an Antique Store in Brookfield and he had a lot of refurbished antiques.

 At right had pass-through mirrored sliding doors between the dining room and kitchen.  Cut glass enhanced the glass doors.

 At right show two old style cabinets that were used in kitchens.  The one above had a desk area on the lower part.

We had a real good visit with them.  Paul wanted us to plug into his electricity and stay overnight, but we still had several miles to travel to get to the Mark Twain Birthplace State Park and leave time for our planned traveling on Thursday.

We filled with diesel at $3.36, though had paid $3.69 in Clarinda before we had left.

Mark Twain was born in Florida, MO and they have built a museum building over the log cabin he was built in.  We found they did not open until 10:00 am so we only drove around the park  Mark Twain Birthplace State Park  and left early the following morning.  We drove in 107º heat and got to Carl Pingleton & Marti McCormack's place about noon.  After a short visit with them we went to a Chili's for lunch.

Our rig sitting beside their motor home in canopy.

Phyllis, Marti & Carl by their back entry.

We headed out toward Kelo, IL and the temp got a little warm.

Arrived at Jim & Lavin Boozer's place in Kelo and parked our rig beside their garage.  They had 30 amp electricity so we started the AC to cool the trailer while we enjoyed supper with them.

After an enjoyable supper and visiting with them we spent the night in our cool trailer.  Next morning Lavin fed us like we were going to be working on a thrashing crew all day.  We then headed out in their car and they showed us where they were both born, grew up and some of the land they still have.  Their daughter has one 40 acre of original place and has built a nice house on it that Jim has a pool table in

Lavin & Jim Boozer

Jim showing how it is done.

the basement that he and some friends play pool on at least once a week.  Their house is set in the woods and looks out on a vast area of trees.  One of Jim's "Cadillac" deer stands is visible from the house.  He said he and his boys have gotten a lot of deer in those woods.
After a nice lunch we left Jim & Lavin's place and headed for Paynetown State Recreation Area in Hoosier National Forest near Bloomington, IN.

This is set on Monroe Lake and with this being the weekend before 4th of July there were boats, boats, boats along with a lot of kids and a lot of bikes.
The roads were all smooth oiled surfaces and we rode the recumbent trikes all over, during the cooler part of the morning and late just before dusk.  There were a lot of tent campers in this area and this one had their window air conditioner set in their tent.

 There were all kinds of campers -- big Class A, Class C, trailers with fold outs, hi-low trailers, vans, big tents, little tents, all kinds of bikes running around, and all kinds of kids and dogs.

The ramp for putting in boats had spaces where 9 boats could be put in or taken out at the same time.
All kinds of boats were running around.  Small and big, fast and slow.  Several pontoon boats had double decks and water slides off the back where swimmers could slide into the water.





 On Sunday we headed towards Ohio and another State Park.  I will pick that up on another post.  Run out of thoughts right now.
Lynn

Rumors of my demise greatly exaggerated !

Clarinda, IA - 91º-- Got us and our trailer back home in Clarinda about 3:30 pm this afternoon after being on the road for 2 weeks, visiting 9 couples from our Kenwood RV Park in Texas at their homes up north in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan; and our daughter in Ohio.  Stayed either in State Parks where they had no WiFi or at friends houses where they had limited or no WiFi access or I didn't want to tie up their PC's.  Will have to see about getting something with cell phone access to WiFi; have always used TracPhone for cell phone at a cost of about $100 per year, and cable at both our houses.

Will get photos of all the people we visited with and things we saw as soon as possible.  Drove in 100º to 110º weather many days and saw a lot of crops in Missouri, southern Illinois and southern Indiana that are already burned up.  Did see better crops in central Illinois and central Iowa as we came back.

Will post more soon.

Lynn