The World's Largest Truckstop

Where is it? On the way to South Dakota from Indiana, on interstate 80 West. Yesterday, we went to the license branch to get Indiana plates for the motorhome. We were expecting a sizeable increase from last year, because Indiana now collects excise tax on RV's through license plates. If it wasn't too bad, we were going to go ahead and pay it so we could go south for awhile, we were thinking North Carolina, maybe South Carolina. But we weren't expecting a triple digit license plate fee! Not only that, but if you buy a vehicle in another state other than Indiana, it has to be visually inspected for the VIN number, you have to physically bring the vehicle to the license branch. O-o-o-o-k-a-a-a-y...you want us to bring the motor home to the license branch? But we're sitting on a site all hooked up, that would be a bit of a hassle... OK, the representative says...I understand that, then you'll need to get the police to come out to your campsite to visually inspect the number, I'll give you a paper for him to sign verifying the VIN number. At that point, Eldy says, I think we'll go to South Dakota. We understand the reasoning behind the inspection, but we had lots of paperwork to prove who we were, and where the vehicle came from.  I know, I know, we should have bought the RV in Indiana, but that was not where the best deal came from for the Tiffin, nor is anybody selling Tiffins locally. So, we are on the interstate 80-90 toll road today, traveling to Iowa for our first stop on the way to South Dakota.

This afternoon we stopped at the WORLD'S LARGEST TRUCKSTOP,  Iowa 80, in Walcott, Iowa and it lived up to its reputation! A full semi trailer truck inside the building and a couple of cabs. Old vintage cars and farm trucks inside as well, with every available piece of merchandise you could think of that a traveler or a trucker could want. There is 100,000 sq. feet in the main building, and 30,000 sq. feet in the truck showroom. There are 50,000 items in the store with more CHROME than you can imagine and lots of Toby Keith playing in the background...They even had a 60 seat Dolby surround sound movie theater in there! A trucker haven for sure! I wouldn't want to leave  and get back on the road if I was drivin' truck. We ate in the main restaurant, and it was ok. Instant mashed potatoes are just not my favorite. There was a Gramma's Kitchen across the street, I think we'll try that the next time we are in the area.

full length semi inside the store

After covering about 405 miles today, we stopped this evening in Kellogg, Iowa. The campground is called Kellogg RV Park, right off interstate 80, exit 173. Price is right, $19.00 for water and electric, no sewer. Good deal! Tomorrow, we continue on to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Eldy will establish residency, get a new driver's license, and plate the motor home. South Dakota is so RV friendly that all you need to do is spend one night in the state, and you are officially a resident. No state income tax, low insurance rates, so many RVers claim S. Dakota as their state of residency even though they don't live there. We're looking forward to seeing the state after we get all the licensing taken care of...

Sharing life and sharing the road

city streets of Fremont, IN

Today was a wonderful day...I went to Fremont, my former hometown and home of my great post office lady who is holding my mail for me, and Angola, IN to visit school friends. I went around the school's lunch time which ended up being one of the most positive experiences of my life and a very meaningful one for me. You see, when you are a special ed. teacher, especially an old school one like myself, (when separation from the regular kids was the norm and the special ed. teacher was separate from the staff as well-- that was the case for many years,) you are used to the kids looking the other way when you walk down the hall and say hi because they don't want to be associated with the "sped" teacher. For many years it was like that. With inclusion, with most special ed kids now being mainstreamed in general ed. classes, the blending of special ed. and "normal" is a much blurrier line. It's one of the great things about inclusion---kids have learned to be more accepting of each other's differences. Today I walked into my old school, Angola Middle School, and I saw two boys I worked with last year...one of my special ed boys, and one boy (not special ed.) I tutored after school on a regular basis. They broke into a big mutual grin...The first thing out of their mouths was, "MRS. SPARKS! Are you coming to lunch? Come and sit at our table. We'll save you a place!" I said, "You bet!" I about fell over. For special ed. kids to invite me to come sit at their table for lunch, in front of their regular ed. peers, about made me tear up.

Ropchan Nature Trail

It was really great! The table was a mixed bunch of kids, some of my special ed. boys who could alternately make you pull your hair out one day, and  make you want to take them home with you the next, and regular ed. kids. There were a couple of girls there that I didn't work with who gave me just as warm a welcome as my former students. The boys were eager to tell me who of my former students was in trouble this year as 8th graders, and who was getting  the good grades. A couple of students wanted my Facebook information and my email so they could write. It was just a wonderful, wonderful feeling to know that they weren't ashamed to be seen with me, and we just had a great lunch together. I will hold that wonderful memory inside me for a very long time.....After lunch I visited my favorite hiking trail, the Ropchan Nature Preserve in Fremont. I went for a two mile hike and saw a really big doe while hiking the beautiful trails thru meadows, forest, and prairie grass habitat. I always see deer when I hike there. Then I headed back home to where Eldy was "holding down the fort" till I got back. Here's why I titled the blog what it is today....

The reason I mention sharing the road is because today I saw something very upsetting on the way back to Goshen...when you think of sharing the road, you think of watching out for motorcycles, and bicycle riders. But in Amish country, you have to think about the Amish riding bikes along the side of the road, and the many open wagons and traditional black closed in buggies that are pulled by horses. On the way home from school today, passing through Shipshewanna, I stopped for my favorite pretzels at JoJo's. Just as I got back on my way and close to the intersection to turn onto US 20, I just missed witnessing a car hit a horse drawn buggy. From what I could tell, the car hit the horse, the horse was down writhing on the ground, the Amish women in the buggy were consoling the horse, and the man who had hit the horse was coming towards the buggy to talk to them. The people in the buggy appeared to be ok. The horse appeared to be badly hurt. Had I not stopped for pretzels, I probably would have been a witness to the sad accident. The buggies have orange triangles on the back, and blinking lights, but the horses can be skittish around traffic, and so there is always the possibility that the unexpected might happen. It was an upsetting reminder today to be extra vigilant when driving around in Amish country......

Monday Mornin'

Grandstands

It was all we hoped it would be (sounds like the Mamas and Papas song (from the 70's?)...just a quiet Monday...I rode my bike around the fairgrounds. You can ride quite a bit if you go all around the paths and streets around the fairgrounds--about a three mile ride. It's a ghost town of a fairgrounds right now. Very different seeing all the fairgrounds with nobody here but a few RVers and campers.  The horse barns still emit the smell of horse manure, and the horseshoe marks are still visible leading out to the track. I stopped for a moment to take in the beautiful day and I could almost smell the popcorn, caramel corn, elephant ears, cow manure, pigs, Nelson's Golden Glow chicken, and the porkchops (the best ones are at the Elkhart County 4H fair). It all smells good when you are at the fair. For anyone not familiar with Nelson's Golden Glow Chicken, it's a special recipe cooked and smoked over a grill fire and it's legendary in Indiana! Guess they had some awesome entertainment this past summer at the Elkhart 4-H Fair--Lady Antebellum, Huey Lewis and the News, Lonestar, and the Guess Who--all in one week! Wow! We'll have to try and be in the area next year for the fair.

After taking in the sights all around the campground, and finding only a skittish little bunny rabbit in the ghostly grandstands, I headed back for the day's activities--running errands, and making calls to get more repairs taken care of locally here in Elkhart. The Diamond Shield guy came out today and repaired our protective coating. It looks like extremely heavy duty Saran Wrap when they take it off. When it's on, you can't even tell it's there. He did a very nice install job. Next on the list is the Pumpkin Patch bike trail. Eldo went biking today with me in Goshen on this trail today..Yay!....It was a beautiful five mile ride one way. The trees were ablaze with color, you couldn't ask for more beautiful weather. Tuesday, I head for Angola, IN to pick up my mail, stop by my old school to see some school friends, then run some errands in Angola. Eldo will hold down the fort at the fairgrounds till I get back....until then.... thanks for reading!  

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Sometimes you camp near a busy highway, sometimes you camp near a busy airport and more often than not, you have to deal with trains nearby. Today's blog title is the title of an older but funny movie with John Candy and Steve Martin, I just had to use it!...I should have titled it Trains, Trains, and More Trains. We are sitting at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds in Goshen, IN for $25.00 a night, which is great, except that the fairgrounds is situated beside a major train thoroughfare between Elkhart and Chicago with a turn around in nearby Elkhart. This means freight trains are running by every 30 min. to an hour, and last night, they sometimes ran in TWO directions, sometimes as often as every 20 min. And of course, they have to toot their horns for every crossing. Some engineers just lean on the horn continuously, so needless to say, we didn't sleep very well. These trains must not bother too many people, as this particular fairgrounds runs rally after rally after rally. I believe they have over 900 hookups for incoming RVers and campers and 4H fair vendors and it's a big venue for rallys. Get out the earplugs! Turn on the fan! Turn on the air conditioner! But they don't block enough of the noise, wahnnnnnnnnhhhh! OK, enough whining...I told Eldy we may move to the Elkhart Campground if I have another sleepless night...wouldn't you know, the trains are relatively quiet this Sunday morning! Far fewer running this morning than last night...sigh! Maybe I'll just take a nap....z-z-z--z-z-z-z-z....

Connor and Eldy

Best buds, Trevor and Connor

Cate and Trevor

OH! Sorry! I dozed off there for a moment....it's a beautiful day today...80's, sunshine, going to hop on the bike for awhile and ride around the campground. Eldy's kids and grandkids came over for awhile to see the motor home. We horsed around and had a great time. Tomorrow we are going to try and find the Pumpkin Path Bike Trail, about a 5 mile ride around Goshen near a city park. There is another very long paved bike trail but it's on the other side of town. It runs from Goshen to Elkhart, we think, and are not sure of its name. We are also going to try and get the Diamond Shield guy to come out and fix the front shield on the coach. Hope he makes it!

We've got all the time in the world.....

Well, we were going to get an early start to Elkhart this morning, but things happen. Late yesterday we got a replacement set of parts for the central vac (which wasn't working right) only to discover that the fittings on the hose don't stay in the outlet. We had a tech come out to look at it, and he says something's not right...either there's a part missing on the hose connector or something is missing in the outlet to hold the hose in. And "if that's the way it's designed, they need to fire the engineer who designed this thing!" Yup! By the way, it's a Dirt Devil central vac system. We are going to be delayed....well, we have all the time in the world...we're  not on a schedule, we're not in any hurry...one thing about being retired, you learn patience if you didn't have it before. You learn to sit and relax, you learn to sit and do nothing for a little while (something VERY hard for me to do)...you learn to smell the roses, as they say....and that's a very good thing. I am sitting here typing the blog, looking out at some purple fall asters, listening to the birds talk to each other, and watching them fly around in front of the window. Not the prettiest landscape, as Hardings Grocery Store is peeking thru the trees on the other side of me, but there is a nice grassy area to the side of the General parking lot with some beautiful conifers nearby and we are right there by the trees....After quite some time, we found out that they weren't able to provide us with the correct hoses for the vac system, they are going to "research" and order something else so off we went on our way....

Waitin' on the women

We arrived at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds in mid afternoon, and after we got settled, we drove to Shipshewanna to get some pretzels at JoJo's and visit my favorite quilting fabric store, Lolly's. The town was VERY crowded..there was a fall craft show going on. We did not look at the crafter's wares as they were starting to close down for the day, but we did manage to explore the beautfully crafted Amish style Davis Mercantile in downtown "Ship-See", a nickname for Shipshewanna.

The Davis Mercantile caters to the gentlemen as well as to the ladies, as you can see from their front porch--plenty of rockers for the guys while they wait for their women to shop! There are many many other wonderful stores in town to explore, from antique shops to the flea market, to antique toy stores, to cheese and meat shops, to garden whirligig and what-not stores. You see lots of Amish culture, wares, and many of the Amish and Mennonites work the local restaurants and businesses. It's a common thing to see the horses hooked up to hitchin' posts right next to the cars in town. We really enjoyed Shipshewanna today. It was 84 degrees and beautiful sunny skies. A great way to spend a Saturday......

A beautiful store inside the Mercantile

Making pretzels at JoJo's

PS.Had a terrible time today with the design of the blog...sorry for any glitches in print size or placement of photos. The computer seemed to have a mind of its own today!  I work on a mac and it comes out very different in the published blog than it looks in the draft. I shudder to think what it might look like on a PC! I think I'm going to have to learn HTML to fix this stuff! Thanks for bearing with us!  Jeannie and Eldy

What's Happenin'?

Not much...we just found out today that although most of the repairs are now complete, we still need the protective covering on the front of the motor coach repaired. That protective covering is called Diamond Shield...ours came from the factory scuffed significantly, so we really need it replaced. It protects the finish on the front of the RV from nicks, scratches and small rocks that get kicked up from the road...it's also applied around door handles, lights, and other areas at the front of the coach. With a Tiffin RV, this is a standard option, it used to be an extra. You can get this protection applied to any coach after you buy one if you want it. It's not cheap! The installer guy was supposed to come out yesterday, but he didn't. Then he was supposed to come out today, and he didn't. Sound familiar? It's like waiting for the electrician or plumber to come out to your home, but even they are usually more reliable than making you wait a couple of days! So we are going to NOT wait for him to show or not to show Saturday morning. We are going to schedule the Diamond Shield repair for while we are in Elkhart Saturday thru Tuesday or so....the company is based out of Elkhart, so it makes sense for us to contact them while we are there.....

the modern photo booth

Spent the morning doing laundry in Wayland, spent the afternoon at the Grand Rapids Woodland Mall AGAIN!  We're getting to be regulars! I should have had Eldy and I do the mall walk thing, but we don't want to do that in a mall, we'd rather be outside. It's a beautiful mall, it really is..Remember the photo booths from way back, in the 50's or 60's? This mall had one! If we hadn't been hurrying out the door to get back to see how the repairs were doing, I would have dragged Eldy into it to have our photos taken. This is one of those quickie photo shoot booths, walk in, close the curtain and snap, snap! Goofy, funny photos if you choose to ham it up or be serious. I didn't know these were still available.

Eldo and Eric, the Apple genius

The Barnes and Noble store really amazes me....there are so many people sitting in there, drinking coffee, reading magazines and books that they pull off the shelf, or they are using the free wi-fi on their computers. How the heck does the bookstore make any money? The coffee shop and deli there has wonderful food, and the atmosphere of the store is so inviting. It really wasn't difficult to spend hours in there and outside the store in the comfy and cozy sofas and chairs provided. More malls ought to think about the atmosphere in the centers of their malls. We really enjoyed ourselves at the Apple Store again, learning more...Eric, at the mall Apple Store did a wonderful job of tutoring us on the iphone and our own computers, patiently answering questions....I bet he spent an hour at no charge to us just walking us through some things, showing us shortcuts, and helping us get more computer savvy.  And we thought we already were...we have a l-o-n-g way to go....We had a great lunch at the Bar Louie tavern...they have carne asada tacos that are just amazingly delicious...so delicious, Eldy has agreed to eat lunch there three days in a row just so I could have my carne asada (cooked beef) tacos...what a guy! We may be here in the parking lot of the General tonight, it's a late finish to the day today at the General on the RV, so we'll probably wait till morning to get going to Elkhart...See you later!

Waiting, waiting, waiting......

Somehow we managed to kill a whole day while waiting for repairs at at the General today. What did we do? Went to the Apple store at the Grand Rapids Woodland Mall, played with ipads and updated my computer's software, went to the AT&T store to find out some information about Eldy's phone, and then went back to the Apple Store to take a workshop for my iPhone. That was a spur-of-the-moment decision but they had room at the workshop for me. I learned some new tricks for the iPhone, like how to group apps together into folders. If you have several pages of apps on your iPhone and want to condense into fewer pages, here's how you do it: hold down one app till it wiggles, then drag it on top of another related app and let go. They are now together in a folder. A white box pops up with a default name. If you want to change the folder name, tap next to the name, and start typing in the white menu bar. Cool!

Something else I learned in the workshop --this was about google maps---did you know that when you flip the page turn icon in the lower right corner and pick traffic pattern, if the traffic flow is available, there are colored bars that show on your route? --red means congested, yellow means moderately congested and green means good traffic flow. I didn't know that! The Apple Store offers all kinds of free workshops for their products, and classes are in very small groups of 6 or less. The only bad thing is they are conducted out on the floor of a usually very busy store! Their workers are so knowledgeable and so young! All the "kids" there were young enough to be my nieces or nephews! And they know so much! They really enjoy their jobs, you can really tell...it's fun to be around them and learn all the things you don't know and should about your phone, or your computer....

Late today I decided to ride my bike around General RV after the store closed. (We are parked in their lot for another free night.) Tomorrow the coach gets some spots painted after being primed today. I discovered a protected wetlands just down the street from the General. I saw four sandhill cranes fly in for a landing in the marsh in the middle of town--Wayland, MI. at dusk.  Nice! You never know what you are going to see when your day is open for whatever comes your way......one more day at Grand Rids, MI, then we head for Elkhart, IN. We'll pick up mail, see Eldy's grandkids, then start heading south.....travel plans T.B.A. (to be announced)

The Pig

P.S. Photos today are left over from Grand Rapids Art Prize show....the pig was in the center of downtown at a plaza. What inspired the artist to create this work of art remains to be explored on the Art Prize website, because I have no idea! The flower mobile was constructed of fake acrylic nails!...many of the artworks hung inside the complex called the B.O.B. in downtown Grand Rapids about a block and half from the DeVoss Center.

Mobile made from fake fingernail tips!