October 9, 2008 – Home Sweet Home, Troy, IL

We made it home after about an 8 ½ hour drive today. A longer drive than our normal would be, but we needed to be home for my doctor appointment tomorrow. The final numbers are: 22 days, 11 states, and 4500 miles. I think about 75% of that was pulling the 5th wheel. We were able to see a lot of beautiful country, the fall colors, interesting historical and scenic sites. We enjoyed the whole trip and but have decided our favorite was the time in Shipshewana. The country side and farms are very clean and orderly, and there a lot of neat shops to look through. There were quilt stores for Karen and woodworking for me. The Amish really have some interesting and beautiful pieces. Lots of ideas! We are thankful to be home after basically a safe trip. So, this is the last post for now.

October 8, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

We had seen some ads for a few places in some surrounding areas that we planned to go to today. We started out looking for a place that advertised glider recliners especially for RV’s. It was in the country, south of here, near Topeka, IN. The GPS didn’t recognize the address, so we started driving in that area, thinking we could figure out the logic of the numbered roads. We couldn’t! Many of the roads ended at a “T”. We drove and drove. Finally, in Topeka, we stopped and asked at a gas station. The man there directed us to go back the way we had come, but told us where to reconnect to the original road. (We had tried to call the business, but got a fast busy signal like there was a problem with the phone.) We finally found it, down a couple of gravel roads. It was an Amish owned business that didn’t really have a phone, just an answering service. They had a few beautiful recliners, but not much in stock. They do lots of special orders and ship the chairs out to the customer. - We’ll think about it, but we were really impressed.

Another business advertised in the brochure we had was in Elkhart, IN. It was an RV Supercenter and sold all kinds of RV supplies. We headed in that direction, missed our turn and ended up on the other edge of Elkhart. At this point, Larry programmed Greta to find the place. We drove through Elkhart and finally found it. It had everything deeply discounted because they were going out of business. They didn’t have much left to choose from though.

The dip in the economy has deeply hurt the RV industry. Some of the manufacturers of RV’s have gone out of business also. We went past one large one that was totally cleared out. As with other businesses in this area, many of the RV manufacturers here employ the Amish. They have buggies parked at the edge of the parking lots, and there is usually a small barn there also for the horses. Also many of the Amish ride bicycles to work.

Leaving Elkhart, we went to Goshen, IN, where we were planning to go on a tour of the Keystone plant. Keystone makes the Montana and Mountaineer RV’s. We really enjoyed the tour provided to us and two other couples. If only the economy were better!!

We arrived back in Shipshewana just in time to attend today’s final guided tour at the Menno-Hof Amish-Mennonite Visitors’ Center. It was very interesting and explained the differences between the two sects. The Amish are the ones with the horses and buggies, dress in black and do not have electricity in their homes (among other more subtle differences). Mennonites do use the modern conveniences, including cars and electricity, but still live a strict lifestyle.

We’re in for the evening now and will be packing up to leave tomorrow morning. We’ll be home sometime tomorrow evening. It’s nearly 400 miles to Troy, so it will be a longer day’s drive than we usually plan for a day. It has been a fun and interesting trip, but it will be good to be home.

October 7, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

If this sounds different, that is because Larry is writing it today. We started the day with packing up and hand cranking in the slide-out so that we would be at the Forest River factory by 8:00 am. This meant we had to leave here by 7:30. No problems getting there, but than we had to find where to drop the 5th wheel off. Seems that there are two large factory buildings that are connected by a rock road. No signs on any doors, so I went in the first building and ask the first person I saw about where to go. Found we needed to go to the second building. Went to the second building and still no signs on any door, so I just picked a door and ask for our contact. They said to just drop it where I was parked outside the door, give them the keys and a phone number, and they would get it fixed and call by the end of the day. NO Paper Work except for my name and number on a piece of paper.

So, we were headed back to Shipshewana for breakfast by 8:30. On the way to the factory and back we did see lots of horse and buggies,

an Amish school with bikes and a place for the teacher to keep his horse during class,

and many people on bikes that were on their way to work.


After breakfast, we headed to the Shipshewana Flea market that is held on Tue and Wed. They said that over a 1000 vendors are in attendance, but I think that is during the summer. It was large, we did find some things to buy, but the weather was cold. Their main season is over and I think some vendors where probably at places like the Covered Bridge festival. So, all the stalls were not open and it was really not that busy. I get the feeling we are headed back here in the spring.

Since I was told they start working at the Forest River (and other RV) factories about 5:00, they to are leaving by 12:30 for the day. The starting time is in part to allow the Amish workers that farm time to get home and do that during the day light. Although they had not called us by noon, we headed back to see if they had finished. When we got there, the slide was out, a new motor was setting on the ground by the tire, and I could tell the original one had been removed and re-installed. I finally found the two men who had been working on it and was told the original motor was okay, it just had a bad connection with-in the case. They had removed the motor and fixed the bad connection and put it back on the RV. And, they noticed that the header beam for the slide was warped and the seal hanging up when you retract the slide. So, they removed it, and installed a new larger header beam that should not warp and do a better job of sealing. Since the warranty is only one year for the 5th wheel, I almost hated to ask what we owed. But I did and was shocked when they said; No Charge, just let them know if I had any other troubles. I have heard horror stories about Forest River, but they sure treated us right.

We took the RV back to the campground and than headed in to Shipshewana to see some of the stores that were closed last night. We did find a Quilt shop for Karen today and I had a nice talk with the owner’s husband. He was helping out while he is off for two weeks because of the slow down in production at the RV factory where he works. Interesting to hear his views of the economy, how it is impacting his work and the tourist trade here, and just answering some of our question on life style that we have asked ourselves as we traveled the back roads to and from Forest River.

October 6, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

We left Milan, Ohio this morning after a long and noisy night. The campground itself was nice enough, but it was noisy. We were near a seed company which had blowers going all night, plus we were near a busy railroad. Larry says it sometimes pays to be hard of hearing.

We arrived in this quaint and lovely area in the early afternoon. We are in the heart of Indiana’s Amish country. Larry insists I tell you this: On the way here this morning, he asked me what my favorite part of the trip had been. Since we left home 18 days ago, we’ve traveled over 3900 miles. I couldn’t say what my favorite part had been so far. I had enjoyed seeing all the areas, the wooded mountains through Pennsylvania and New York, the tour of historic Boston, the Cape Cod and Plymouth Rock areas, the coastline along Acadia National Park in Maine, majestic Niagara Falls, and the autumn colors in New Hampshire and Vermont. But I couldn’t say what my favorite had been; I couldn’t at least until today. Now I can pick a favorite, this area, a mere 390 miles from home, is my favorite of this trip. This area with clean and neat yards surrounding simple farmhouses and the town of Shipshewana with the quaint shops and restaurants is so lovely. We’ve spent the afternoon wondering through the shops and visiting with the friendly people. Tomorrow (Tuesday and Wednesday) they have a flea market with about 1,000 vendors.

We have to get going early tomorrow, as we are to have the camper in to the factory repair service at 8:00. Larry has still been hand cranking in the slide every day. Hopefully tomorrow will be the last.

October 5, 2008 – Milan RV Park, Milan, Ohio

Today was a driving day, so not much happened. Larry had to crank in the slide to leave this morning, and then crank it out again when we stopped. Hopefully, there will be just one more day of that before we get it fixed in Indiana. We left New York, drove thru the top edge of Pennsylvania that juts up to Lake Erie, and we’re now about half way thru Ohio.

We came through a lot of vineyard areas all the way here. Once when we stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania, there were vineyards in every direction and when we got out of the truck, the smell of grapes made my mouth water. It smelled just like Welch’s grape juice! We were talking about the Icewine that we had found in Canada yesterday, and realized today that the zero degrees they referred to when they pick the frozen grapes, is not our zero degrees. We were in Canada and they use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, so their zero degrees would be our 32 degrees. They said they pick them at about 8-12 degrees below zero, so I guess that would be somewhere around our 15-20 degrees (above zero). (Inquiring minds want to know.)

We stopped at this campground just because it was close to the interstate and a good distance between destinations. We’re just south of Sandusky, about half way between Cleveland and Toledo. There are quite a few hotels along the main road, so we started checking on the map about what is around here. NASA’s Plum Brook Station is nearby northeast of here. It is a testing facility. That was about all we could see per the map. We’re now settled in for the evening, having walked about a quarter mile down the road to buy a salad at McDonald’s to go with spaghetti we had left over from another evening.

October 4, 2008 - Niagara Falls North KOA, Youngstown, NY

Today was a busy (and expensive) day. We left this morning and went to Fort Niagara.

The French first had a post here in 1679. They built the French Castle

there in 1726 which provided living quarters for the military and a trading post. The British took the fort over during the French and Indian War, and then the U. S. took it during the Revolution. The British won it back during the War of 1812, but had to cede it back to the U.S. following that war. The last army units were withdrawn in 1963. The U.S. Coast Guard still has a unit there.

We had taken Penny with us (she stayed in the truck) while we toured the fort. We brought her back to the trailer before we went to Canada. We DROVE over to the Canadian side. While the view is much better from the Canadian side,

it is much more commercialized than the U.S. side. They have numerous tourist trap stores side by side. Huge hotels, chain restaurants and big casinos line the streets all with neon signs flashing beckoning everyone to come in and spend their money. The view is great though, you can see the falls so much better that from the U.S.


While we were walking along the riverside area looking at the falls and flowers,

probably about a half mile from the parking lot, Larry started worrying that he had left the GPS plugged in. He was afraid we would get back to a dead battery, so I sat and waited while he walked back to the truck and then back to where he had left me. Even he was starting to feel it in his calves by the end of the day. While I waited for Larry, I talked with a lady from Scotland who was there through a tour, but they had the day off. She was telling me the drive along the river toward Lake Ontario was so beautiful. After we left the downtown touristy area, we took the drive she had told me about. It really was lovely with huge old houses, mansions really, to the one side of the road, and the river on the other side. There were signs saying this was the wine tour drive. There were several vineyards and wineries along the way. The specialty wine of the area is Icewine. They leave the grapes on the vine and don’t pick them till they are frozen to below zero degrees. It was a really sweet wine.

Yesterday we parked in the parking lot of the Niagara Falls Park for $10.00. We could have left and re-entered or parked in any of the other parking areas just by showing our parking receipt. Today, we had to pay $3.50 to cross the bridge into Canada, then the parking lot fee was $20.00. Coming back into the U.S, there was no fee. The entrance into the U.S. was a slight search or look through and a few questions about whether we had any weapons and questions about what we had purchased, but no entrance fees. They looked at our passports, but didn’t stamp them or mark them in any way.

October 3, 2008 – Niagara Falls North KOA, Youngstown, NY

It rained most of the night, but eased up this morning about the time we were hooking up. We were ready to leave and getting all the hook-up jobs done when the slide-out refused to slide in. It has been getting stubborn for several days, needing a little coaxing before sliding in or out, but today no amount of coaxing would work. Most of this past week, Larry would have to wriggle the motor which runs it, a couple of times and it would work, and then it got so that he had to do a turn of the hand crank and then it would start up. Nothing worked today! He had to hand crank it in, then when we got here this afternoon, he hand cranked it out. Fun! At least we’ll be here two nights before we leave. We’re going through Millersburg, IN, next week on our way home, which is where the Forest River factory is, so we have an appointment to have them look at it then.

We drove mostly on New York’s turnpike today, almost 200 miles of it. It was an excellent four lane road. The only problem with that is that we almost had to take out a loan to get off it. We got off a little before Buffalo and it cost us $29.50 when we exited. It had to be paid in cash too. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t had the cash, because they didn’t take credit cards. The only east-west major highways across New York are toll roads. Larry thought they should have issued us a deed.

We arrived here in time to go on in and see the falls.



We parked in a parking lot and walked ALL OVER. As most of you know, Larry is a walker. I told him his long legs don’t have to take near as many steps as my short legs do. The falls were beautiful,

but I understand they are even more so when seen from the Canadian side, so we plan on doing that tomorrow.

We prepared to drive over there by getting a Canada Card from our insurance company, but when we were walking today, Larry pointed out the bridge we’d be crossing tomorrow. It looked like there was quite a bit of traffic on it, so he thought we should just walk across and leave the truck on the U.S. side. He also was sure there would be no place to park over there because he couldn’t see a parking lot from where we were. Sigh! I think I have him talked into driving it tomorrow. I can only hope!

Back to the beautify of the falls, I have read the description of how it all was formed with centuries of erosion and all, but I prefer to think of God creating all this, sitting back and wondering how long it would take for someone to notice. I had the same thoughts at the Grand Canyon. I still prefer my version to the boring scientific version.

October 2, 2008 – Herkimer Diamond Mines Park, Herkimer, NY

We woke up to rain again today. It soon let up enough to get Penny out for a little while, but we had light rain while Larry was hooking up. This was a day of driving again. Probably four hours out of the six hour drive were on two lane roads. Since the GPS is programmed for the shortest route, sometimes the roads were questionable for being two lanes. Up, down and up, down again was the norm most of the day as we skirted the White Mountains of Vermont, the Tongue Mountain Range of New York and the lower edge of the Adirondack Mountains also in New York. A couple of places Larry said “I can’t believe I got the trailer through there.” We certainly took the scenic route and the roads less traveled.

As a side note, our GPS is named Greta Pauline Segelken (GPS). So Greta was taking some rather harsh criticism today! She took it all in stride though, always with a smile in her voice.

Through all the narrow roads, we drove in rain most of the day as well. When we got to our campground it was raining lightly. By the time we got into our site, it started to rain harder, then harder still while Larry was getting everything hooked up. Within 5 minutes of getting it all done and coming inside, it quit raining and the sun came out. The rain and sun have continued to alternate every 30 minutes, but it’s cold here, temps about 48 to 50 all afternoon. Snow showers are predicted for the higher altitudes – not here, we’re in a valley. I fixed spaghetti and a salad tonight so we could just stay in and relax after a trying drive.

October 1, 2008 Limehurst Lake Campground, Barre, Vermont

We woke up to light rain. We walked Penny, had breakfast and about 9:00 left for Rock of Ages granite quarry which is about 8 miles away. Larry had read in another blog where they had been here and he had seen it in some area attraction listings, so he wanted to see it. It was quite impressive. You can check it out here if you’d like: http://www.rockofages.com/visitors/index.html . Founded in 1885, they have cut out granite blocks for tombstones, statues and memorials.

They are down about 600 feet and the quarries, some abandoned and filled with water, cover 50 acres. The wasted piles are unbelievable. Getting into the quarry site, you pass huge mountains, called grout piles, of large chunks of granite. They said it is not cost efficient to try to do anything with them. We also toured the factory where they cut the stones.

It was all very interesting; some were really intricate and very artistic.

After the Rock of Ages, we went to Ben and Jerry’s (ice cream) in Waterbury, VT, about 20 miles away.

We were able to get into a tour right away, though the factory has been shut down for the last couple of weeks. We were given a small sample of one of their newer flavors, “Half Baked”. It was great. Of course, we each also had to buy a serving to try other flavors. Yumm!

When we got back to Barre (pronounced Barry), we drove through a couple of cemeteries they had told us about while we were at the Rock of Ages.

They had some pretty unusual tombstones and memorials.