Settling in at Home

Thursday a.m.


Haven’t posted for a few days so will play catch up.

Monday p.m. (wrote this then)

Well the guy is here finishing the waxing of Jennie – she looks beautiful. The part for the satellite didn’t come in – can’t even be shipped until end of week – so we’re going home tomorrow and will have the part shipped to Vegas and take care of it there. We can at least get on line but the system won’t search the satellite automatically I’ll have to put the GPS coordinates in it manually. It is working fine – a lot faster than the same thing at the house.
It didn’t rain as predicted but never did warm up much. Tomorrow is supposed to be cool but sunny. Hopefully we will have an uneventful trip home.

Wednesday a.m.

Well we are home. Hand a very uneventful trip home. Sunny cool day. Saw a couple of buildings with roof art on them. Seeing a lot of flags on roofs now days.

Tractor painted on the roof

And a movie screen from an old drive in. Haven’t seen one of them in a long time. Didn’t appear to still be open though. Guess it is just a flea market site now.
And I just took this cause it looked cool. Kind of makes us look like an airplane.

Our reflection in a tanker truck

Once home we just unloaded Jennie and switched the internet from her to the house. I always hold my breath when doing this - What if it doesn't work? But it did with just a few hicups.
Today is doing laundry day and finishing unloading Jennie day. Not too much to do. A lot of the stuff will just stay in there until we go again. Need to do some cleaning and then she’ll be ready to hit the road again in a couple of weeks.
I’m glad we went north – the colors on the trees were much prettier. Here the color is already gone; in fact most of the leaves are gone too. The front yard is completely cover in a layer of leaves.
Did some sewing this aft. Working on some Christmas place mats. Somehow I managed to break three needles in a row so figured I’d better quit before I really messed up. Some days you just shouldn’t sew.

Thursday a.m.

Couldn’t get anything posted yesterday – something going on with the blog site I guess.
Today is supposed to be up in the 70s again and we need to get into town and restock a few things.

Nothing else going on.

Shipshewana -

Sunday a.m.
We spent some time in Shipshewana Saturday afternoon. Kind of reminded me of Nashville. Lots of tourists – lots of stores selling lots of pretty stuff you don’t really need but think it would be neat to have.

Those are metal sheep in front

Luckily we reigned ourselves in and didn’t buy anything. And I actually browsed a bead store and a yardage store without finding something I “had to have.” Love looking at the quilts for sale and saw one that I had bought the pattern for last year – didn’t even remember I had it. Will have to find it when we get home and leave it out for next year.

The big flea market that the area is famous for is only on Tuesday and Wednesdays so we missed that.

All around this area are supposed to be quilt paintings on buildings. This is the only one we’ve seen so far. One store sold jigsaw puzzles – all kinds – very expensive but what I liked was the entrance – the arched ceiling is copper – very pretty.

In Nashville we have horse and carriage rides here they have buggy rides. A couple of patient horses waiting for passengers.



Lots of big farms around here. Very peaceful feeling area

Monday a.m.

Try to catch this up. The young man who is washing and waxing Jennie and Willie is still working on them. He is doing an excellent job. Both look better than when they were new. Hopefully today he will finish – but – it looks like it is going to rain this morning.

Also the part for the satellite is supposed to get here and be installed today. Haven’t heard from installer yet.

There is a really nice supermarket close to the campground – it is a Martins. And Guess What! For the first time ever we found EGG Bagels. Will go back there and buy some to freeze before we leave.

Yesterday afternoon we just took a ride up into Michigan. Hummm can we put that state on our map????? Guess not – Jennie didn’t go there. It was pretty country – lots of farms and homes scattered all around. Almost every house had some type of Halloween/Fall decorations.

Would like to come back up to this area again when the weather is warmer and the flowers are blooming and all the stores are open. Finding out lots of things close down early October.

Just thought it was cute

Well the morning hurries on and haven't heard from or seen either gentleman we are waiting for -but it hasn't started to rain yet either - just remains dark and cold out. The Driver does not like cold - he is more than ready to head for Mexico and the warm beautiful beaches there.
I've been playing with my laptop and added this as my wallpaper. Makes me smile when I look at it.

Till later.....

Pretty Day for a Drive

Saturday p.m.

We had a nice day today. It finally warmed up and was beautiful as this pictures shows. I think the colors here are much prettier than in Brown County this year.

We headed towards Shipshewana along the back roads. Drove a ways along the river and then under the colorful trees then we came to the Bonneyville Mill Park.

 The Mill itself was built in 1832 and is Indiana’s oldest continuously operating grist mill.

It is built on the Little Elkhart River and has a horizontal water wheel which can produce larger quantities of horsepower than the traditional vertical water wheel.

In the 1930s it was used to supply hydroelectric power to 45 customers. Bought by the County in 1969 it continues to produce flour from May to October. It grinds corn, wheat, rye and buckwheat slowly and methodically using the power of water.

#1 line shafts provide power to equipment on 2nd floor
#5  Elevator legs transfer grain after it has been cleaned
#9 Hopper scale bin  - used to weigh grain or store it

The Mill is part of a big park area.

Across the street is a big windmill and the winding river with lots of trails and small waterfalls. Really a pretty area.

In front of it is a beautiful dahlia garden. Flowers are still blooming all colors and just glorious.
As we continued down the highway closer to Amish country we saw the “horse and buggy” road sign, then the road apples and then the buggies.

Hadn’t eaten breakfast – still haven’t been to the market – so we stopped at a McDonalds to grab a bite and saw these parked in the lot.

For some reason I never thought of the Amish eating in McDonalds. I remember when we were in Pennsylvania and saw the buggy parking at the Wal*Mart. Don’t know whether it shows my ignorance or what. And even more surprising one of the buggies belonged to a couple at least as old as us. (young 70s)

More from Yesterday

Posting this blog is getting to be a real challenge. Using FireFox I can upload several pictures at once BUT then after putting them into the blog it won’t save or publish.[After I upload the pictures I then have to place them into the blog add the narrative and then publish it.] Using IE I can save and publish but have to upload pictures one by one – but can put them in the blog a several at a time. Using AOL – after uploading a couple pictures it shuts me out…..Why do they mess with their formats when they were working???? Maybe I’ll be searching the web for a new blog format. Any suggestions?

Saturday a.m.

Another chilly morning – around 35° out. The Driver is ready to head far South already.

We are going to have to find a grocery store this morning. When planning this trip I insisted we’d only be gone three days. Day one get there, day two fix satellite, day three go home. Its day four and we’ll still be here another two or three days – depending on when the ordered part gets here. So any way I didn’t put much in the way of food in here figuring for a couple of days we’d just snack or eat out. I should know better after all these years of traveling.

A couple more pictures from our ride yesterday. This is just the pretty countryside.

We stopped at a place that used to be a bag factory – now it is an “antique mall”
 

Bag Factory

This is one of the flower gardens that is planted in the shape of a quilt square. There are lots of them in the area but due to time of year most are not blooming.

Driving through the outskirts of Elkhart we saw this old house – its being restored – wouldn’t you love to do that?

Also saw this guy just peddling down the street.

The guy washing Jennie is still here - now he is washing and waxing Willie. So we have to wait until he is done before we can go anywhere.

Wakarusa, Indiana

Friday a.m.


We were nice and cozy last night no freezing – The Driver set the electric heater and I kept my hands off it.

More good news – when we got up this a.m. and turned on the computers we had no problems getting on to AOL. Just popped up and is working fine with our satellite. Hip hip hoorey! But we still have to wait for the part. It should be here Saturday or Monday. And we now have a password on our satellite so if another caravan pulls into next to us they can’t all jump on our signal.

Another “senior moment” couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t more than 1 minute on the microwave. Well dah. Need to push a “cook/time” button before putting in the actual time wanted. Need to use Jennie more often.

Went to Perkins for dinner last night (didn’t bring much in the way of food ‘cause I thought we’d only be here a couple of days.) Any way we’ve eaten in Perkins before and they are usually good. Well we both got huge meals last night. Bill had a club sandwich with fries. I have never seen so many fries on a plate and the club was made with four slices of bread and thick slices of turkey. I had a chicken spinach salad and when I was stuffed the dish still looked like I’d eaten nothing. Not expensive either $8 for the club and $9 for the salad.

Friday afternoon

Went to breakfast to Perkins again. Then took drive to a big Farmers Market I’d seen on our way here. Found it but it wasn’t open. Closed down end of September – oh well. Then on down the road to little town named Wakarusa – founded around the late 1800s or early 1900s judging by the dates on some of the buildings.


1917 Garage


The whole downtown is just one block long on each side of the main four corners. This time of year there is a pumpkin tree in the center of the town.



Pumpkin Tree

 And the whole downtown is decorated for the season.

Just one of the doors with a quilt mural

Bench Bum sign called to The Driver

More buildings and decorations

Pot person

Colorful trees one block from center of town.

Just a couple of pictures from the town. Looks like it would be a nice place to live.

Nice trees for walking under

Altogether a real pretty little town.
Right now we are getting Jennie washed and waxed - $6 a foot and he does a great job.
Well more later as we continue to visit the area.

Satellite woes - RV Museum

Thursday a.m.

Brrrrrr – instead of turning the small electric heater down last night I turned it off. Need to wear those glasses all the time I guess. Freezing in here this a.m.

Starting to discover what I forgot to bring with us. Already been to the store to buy a couple of things – shower soap and shampoo no less. Also didn’t bring anything to measure the coffee grounds – no big deal but something to put on the list.

It’s amazing how many things you forget about RV living when you haven’t done it for awhile. Forgot about air in the water lines and managed to soak ourselves and the whole kitchen with the forceful spurt that came out first time it turned it on.

Well lets see – the satellite guy came – it is up and running – kind of – but we are connected. But there is a problem with it – so dealer MotoSat in Utah was called and they will ship a new part for it – Should arrive Sat or Monday. So guess we will be spending some time here after all. The new part? Well it is a brand new out of the box satellite and something is wrong with the GPS system in it. To get on line the GPS coordinates have to be entered manually instead of it finding it automatically. I can do that but for the price I want it working right. Then there is another problem. We can get on line with all browsers except AOL – which is the one both of us use all the time for favorites and mail. GRRRRR. Might have to call AO Land/or Hughes Net to see if it can be fixed. For now just using campgrounds WiFi again.
Evening
This aft we went to the RV/Motorhome Museum. Kind of interesting. Lots of very old stuff. One made from a Cadillac Eldorado

 

Inside

One reminded me of the trailer we (my Mom and Dad and me) lived in in 1955 in the winter in Wyoming. Twenty-two foot long trailer with an oil stove and an ice box. It was my job to keep the tray under the ice box emptied of the water from the melting ice. There was no bathroom and the bathrooms were about a half block away. In the winter in Wyoming! Wow. Guess it was like we really moved up when we got into an apartment. My Mom sure put up with a lot from my Dad.



How's this for a driver's chair?



Want to cook while driving?

Very early trailer

Kind of looks like a trolley

Went to dinner at a Perkins. My goodness did we get a lot of food and it wasn’t expensive. And it was very good.

Really enjoying my Nook while here. Easier than taking a couple of books
That's it for today. It is really getting cool out. Will let The Driver set the heater tonight.