Welcome to Elkhart, IN!

Elkhart, IN    High:  57   Low:  42    Freezing rain, hail the size of peas...

There is ElK ART all over Elkhart!

Elkhart welcomed us home with the above weather conditions..Nothing like hooking up the electric and water in pouring down rain....

Luckily, we got a site with a concrete pad, there aren't many here at the Elkhart Campground on County Road 4 in Elkhart, IN....Site 90, 30 amp, which is just fine considering the weather we're gonna be having for the next few days.....

View outside our living room window at the Elkhart Campground

The campground managers have done a lot of work to add more 50 amp sites and make some improvements. Free wi-fi, they have a small store, a laundry, an activity hall, and a small pool. It's a great campground centrally located to all kinds of major restaurants, RV repair places, and activities. Elkhart is supposed to be the RV capital of the country, so you can find just about any type of supplies for the rig, parts, and custom made furniture that you might want for your RV. Shipshewanna, home of the Amish, Jojo's Pretzels,Yoder's Department Store, and the famous flea market is within a 30-45 minute drive. A 20 minute drive takes you to South Bend if you need a major shopping fix at the University Park Mall, which has been completely renovated.

our corner lot site, nice!

It was the kind of cold, chilly day where you think comfort food...like PIZZA! And you thought we might say, "beef stew"...or "meat loaf and mashed potatoes". Nope! Maybe in the next day or so...Eldy's favorite comfort food on a chilly day is Columbo's Pizza on Main Street in Elkhart...and it's gotta be thick crust...Let it be known, that Sparky does not care for thick crust pizza at all, but Eldo is so nice about always letting her have her way on thin crust pizza and usually the toppings, too,  that it was time to let Eldy have his favorite...We're talking Chicago style, thick, thick, chewy, oozing with cheese pizza.....You can get thick, regular, or thin crust...Eldy chose his favorite--THICK....Heart attack on a plate...We know...

Eldo was in seventh heaven......

Columbo's is a restaurant that has been in business for over 30 years or more...It's one of Eldy's favorite things to do/places to eat when he is in Elkhart. One down, lots left to go....restaurants, that is! We'll see......Sparky will try to be good....But there's Heinnie's Back Barn, there's Chubby Trout, there's.....(an empty wallet, sighs E......)   :-)

Leaving Hidden Ridge

Hopkins, MI    High:  67   Low: 47   Rain, rain, go away....

Well, phooey! Our last day at Hidden Ridge after we got back from Harsens Island was spent indoors avoiding the rain...Steady, all afternoon into the evening kind of rain...The kind of rain you just kick off your shoes, prop yourself up on the sofa and surf the day away (on the internet) or read....or nap.....

Sparky did laundry and visited the clubhouse one last time while waiting for it to dry. This is the media room in the clubhouse at Hidden Ridge. Across from Sparky are wall to ceiling oak bookshelves filled with books of all kinds. A great place for a rainy day....Sparky had it all to herself for a long while....

Self-portrait of Sparky in the library

Eldo researched a new program that we read about in Motorhome Magazine that says it will give you a radius of travel distance if you input some data like mph and hours you want to drive. We found it under the phrase "How Far Can You Travel?" under the website domain of Freemaptools.com.   It's based out of the United Kingdom and so there are some variables that would have to change for U.S. users, like kilometers to miles. It's very plain vanilla, but might be of use to RVers?  Eldy's not sure about it. It will take him some time to try it out and see if it's something he might use.

We spent the rest of the day reading blogs, watching the comings and goings of rigs in the park, and getting ready to pack up to leave tomorrow for Elkhart, IN, Eldy's hometown. We are planning to be there for almost a month, if we last that long! Red Bay is in our future after Elkhart, so we may cut the month short and head down sooner.....We'll see what Eldo decides.....

Harsens Island--Where the Heck is That?

Hopkins, MI    High:  67    Low:  51

Heading to Harsens Island today...About a 3 1/2 hour drive from Hopkins to see my sister who is staying at Harsens Island in a rental home for a few days. We're just coming over for the day and evening, and everybody heads back home in the morning. Well worth the drive! Harsens Island is located at the top of Lake St. Clair and at the mouth of the St. Clair River. It's less than an hour's drive from Detroit and Port Huron, MI. You have to take a car ferry, the Champion Ferry (7.00 round trip) to get there leaving Algonac. It's a fast, two minute ferry ride! If there are cars waiting to cross the river, no matter how few, they take you over immediately. Sparky found out that there is more freighter traffic on the St. Clair River than the Suez and Panama Canal combined! The river is in a delta region called the St. Clair Flats and drains water down from Lake Huron to Lake Erie. Harsens Island is the major island in the Flats and has about 2,000 residents. There is a tiny little town called Sans Souci on the island which is very charming.

This is a wonderful island! The house my sister rented was a big one, and on the St. Clair River, the only one available during the time frame they came so they had plenty of room. After being in the motorhome for two years, it seemed humongous! But it WAS humongus! Pictures in a moment...But first......

Within minutes of our arrival, a freighter came through and then two more during the afternoon. We sat out on the deck and watched them pass....By evening, six of them had come through. In a twenty-four hour period, we counted at least 16. Sis was up and down during the night, so she did the night watch. :-)  We really enjoy watching these old behemoths still transporting freight through various river channels. Another favorite place we have is the St. Mary's River up in the Upper Peninsula, where there's a campground right on the river. The freighters pass by even closer!

The rental house was gorgeous...Four bedrooms, at least three baths...windows everywhere to give you the water view....Loved it! It even had a bidet/Sparky calls it a butt washer in private (!) in the master bathroom. It was a wonderful place for my sister and her husband to get away from hospitals, tests, and the grueling schedule they have been under lately...

Sun room sitting room

Living room

The lovely master bedroom.....

Sparky had a WONDERFUL visit with her sister...We talked about our mom who passed away in 2008, how each of us is like her, we talked about our own habits and idiosyncracies, how much we were like each other....even down to the bandaids on our thumbs from picking at our fingers! Bandaids on the same hand on the same thumb! We laughed and laughed about that....

We snacked, chatted, and laughed some more...

Sis took a nap...She gets tired easily these days....We had supper and kicked back....

Watched some more freighters go by....

It was just a wonderful day spent with my terrific sister, Lyle and her wonderful husband, John, who takes great care of her. Foot rubs, anyone? (Eldy does that for Sparky, too!) We both are lucky to have such wonderful men in our lives....She and her husband head back to Detroit tomorrow with another round of chemo on Monday...We'll be standing by in spirit until our next actual visit.....Love you, Sis!

Waylaid in Wayland

Hopkins, MI      High:  68      Low:  51

We weren't waylaid for very long at  General RV. We got our furnace circuit board replaced fairly quickly...But first, our last day with the Boersma's was spent in each of our own rigs for part of the day, waiting for the hard rain to go away.. When it would stop for a bit, out we came to chitchat and watch the progress on a customized lot being built in the Sunnybrook RV park. Or here's what the guys do when it was raining again. As soon as they heard a diesel pusher coming down the lane, they did the rubber chicken neck....Gotta watch the rig come down the row, see what make and model it is, watch how the guy parks it, etc. etc.  It's fun to watch the guys watch the rigs! That's what Ritchie and Sparky did.

A few errands here and there, Sparky's last bike ride on the Kal-Haven Trail, a good ten miles and then a pizza and salad dinner with Ritchie and Nick...We chitchatted for awhile, talked about where we will meet again. We're thinking about meeting up in Florida over the winter, and taking a trip out to Albuquerque, New Mexico next fall to see the balloon fest....The southwest is NOT Sparky's favorite place to be, but after Eldy takes her back to Bar Harbor late next summer, heh, heh, heh....(SIGH! WE'LL SEE, says E.) Sparky will owe Eldo BIG TIME and she'll go wherever he wants to go next fall and winter....Bye, Ritchie! Bye Nick! See you later!

Last night, about 1:00 AM, Sparky woke up with a start...SOMETHING was CHIRPING! Half asleep, she groggily made her way to the living room. It was the smoke alarm, BATTERY DOWN chirp, chirp. You know, when you're half asleep, it's hard to pinpoint where the sound is coming from, CHIRP! And Eldo slept on. Sparky had a moment where she couldn't tell if it was on the floor or on the ceiling. CHIRP! Not having her glasses on, that made for a few more problems once she located the detector in the ceiling. It sorta looks like the air vents, heck, they are ALL circular. A simple twist oughta do it--CHIRP! Nope! Sparky twisted and twisted and the darn thing wouldn't come off. And Eldo slept on....CHIRP! The sound seemed to get louder the longer it took her to get at the battery. There's a leetle tiny peg/pull pin on the detector that you have to remove to be able to twist the cover off. CHIRP! See that little peg???

Finally, got the pin out, the cover off, the bad battery OUT....Sparky said the hell with it, (she must have been annoyed explains E.) she was going back to bed, as she couldn't find any 9 volt replacement batteries handy. And Eldo slept on....(It pays to be hard of hearing lots of times, says E.)   Hm-m-m--mmmm....Did you say LOTS?..Sparky is going to mull that one over and get back to Eldy on that.  :-)

On to Hidden Ridge in Hopkins, MI where we stayed last week.

view across the pond to the clubhouse

They are pretty empty at the moment, but will fill to almost completely full for the October 20th Halloween celebration weekend they are going to put on. Wish we could be there to see it again, but we'll be in Elkhart visiting family and friends....It's quite a show in the park, a great haunted house, people REALLY get into the decorating of their sites, and the kids have a wonderful time going door to door, rig to rig to get their candy.

We'll be here three nights, we're going to see my sister, Lyle, tomorrow, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She gets a little break between chemo visits, so she and her husband decided to rent a house on Harsens Island for a few days, just outside of St. Clair where we were a couple of weeks ago. We are going to drive over on the ferry at Algonac to the island to see her, spend the night and come back to Hidden Ridge for one last night, and then, it's off to Elkhart, Indiana!  See you later!

Yes, Sparky, There Really ARE Moose in Acadia!

South Haven, MI   High: 59   Low:  38!!!!!  It's raining cats and dogs today...too bad it's not moose.. BUT WAIT!

TIME OUT! STOP THE PRESSES! (Hate to tell you, Sparky, but that happened a long time ago...) THERE ARE MOOSE IN ACADIA!!!!  This was such an earth shaking event for Sparky, that she is devoting a small blog to this topic today....It's earthshaking because there are locals who have lived in Bar Harbor/Acadia area for 30 years or more who have NEVER seen a moose on the island. Acadia is on the island, Mount Desert Island, and the moose would have to swim a large body of water to get to the island, which is entirely possible. It's just nobody ever sees them. A few park rangers may have, but they are reluctant to tell you that.

Here's proof: A moose was spotted IN Acadia National Park, this week...Photos are courtesy of Maine-ly Ours Gift Shop and Fun Rental and were on Facebook. Lena Marie Hatch and her husband, a woodsman, took these photos and graciously allowed me to use them...This was a first time for him seeing moose in the park!

This bull moose was first spotted along the side of the Park Loop Road...

Then it entered the visitor's center area.....














and proceeded to climb the stairs!

And then off it wandered into the brush...Unbelievable!

Some other locals commented a few years back that there IS a small resident population of moose, about five or six. One gentleman with the last name of Dorr (related to the "father" of Acadia, we bet!?) said the moose frequent the dump, and the Seal Cove Road area...Hmph! Wish Sparky had known about that, we would have visited the dump and Seal Cove more frequently instead of traipsing all around the northern counties of Maine looking for moose! It turns out they were right in our backyard! It's amazing that they remain so "invisible" with the thousands and thousands of visitors to Acadia each year. But in this case, this young (?) bull moose decided to make himself known to the public! Thanks for Mainely Ours Gift Shop and Outdoor Fun Rental for letting me share these photos!

Now, we HAVE to go back to Acadia next summer! (SIGH!.from E.) Eldo doesn't like to plan that far ahead, but he knows how much Sparky loves Acadia, and being such the sweetheart he is, he will probably take his Sparky back there.....(Nothing like putting a little public pressure to persuade a guy, says E. We'll see......)

Good Friends, Good Food, Good Weather!

South Haven, MI     High:  77   Low: 53

A quiet day today....the weekend warriors have gone home, the park cleared out quite a bit...

Eldy worked on the jacks today. We have a balky front jack on the driver's side. Eldy has sprayed it several times with silicone spray, but it's really difficult to get under there and get the fluid all the way around and on the springs easily. The last time we drew up the jacks, the jack remained down quite a bit and refused to come up. He's had to push it up the last couple of inches by crawling under the jack and pushing it up by hand the last two times. He called a certified HWH dealer in Elkhart to talk to them about the cost of replacing the springs. He's thinking that since the springs are the only mechanism for getting the jacks up, that we might need a new spring. A pair of front springs costs around 35.00 or less, which is a bargain. The gentleman suggested spraying with WD-40. Eldy was a little surprised at that, as several forums have suggested that silicone spray is better to use as it doesn't attract dust and dirt as much. The gentleman suggested spraying the jacks thoroughly, then retracting them, then putting them back down again. Since we are stationary, we are going to wait till we are ready to roll or park again and see what happens.

While Eldy was working on that, Sparky went for a bike ride of about ten miles, this time towards South Haven and back. There's a nice little covered bridge memorial to someone who loved nature on the way to town that crosses the very low water level of the Black River....

The town of South Haven has expanded the Kal-Haven Trail, added some boardwalks along the river...and expanded the bike paths in town AND upgraded the streets around the harbor since the last time we were here, about three years ago.

Later in the afternoon, Ritchie and Sparky headed to South Haven to window shop. There's just a slight problem--Sparky has trouble just windowshopping. Ritchie--no problem. She can see a pair of pants, something she absolutely needs, the price can be right, but she'll put them back on the rack and think about it. Now THAT'S the kind of friend you want to go shopping with! Sparky managed to purchase a couple of things anyway, despite Ritchie's good influence. She bought a little I.D. Vera Bradley purse which she really needed, and after walking into the Olive Cart store, purveyors of fine olive oils and flavored balsamic vinegars and sampling a hot pepper flavored cream cheese with peach balsamic glaze....

She bought some strawberry zinfandel wine flavored balsamic glaze....YUM! This store is amazing! Twenty-seven aged balsamic vinegars, six white balsamics, twenty-six extra virgin olive oils, and seven specialty oils. There are tanks and tanks of all the flavors in the store, with little cups underneath so you can sample them.

The flavors of the balsamics ranged from rather ordinary to the unusual--maritime mango, raspberry peach melba, mocha almond fudge balsamic! The olive oils had such flavors as citrus habanero, rosemary lavender (ugh?) and California Arbequina (hunh?)

There were olives in there somewhere, but the oils and balsamics stole Sparky's attention.....We had fun checking out the local bead store, too! Sparky got out of there as quickly as she could, as she has plenty of beads already. (You DO?? asks E. I didn't know that.)  Oh, yeah, the day we have to empty the cupboards over the couch and dinette when we go to Red Bay to get our slide floor fixed (more about that another time) THAT is going to be a day of reckoning. :-)  Sparky will probably make Eldy go someplace else while she loads up a few tubs of craft supplies....(A few TUBS!??? Geesh, it's a wonder we aren't overweight!)

Back home again...we shared supper at the picnic table...The men pondered the weather for awhile, checking their phones and guessing when the changing bad weather--storms and heavy wind was going to hit. Nick looks like it might be serious....

Ritchie's not too worried about it....

Neither is Eldo.......

Then we just HAD to have ice cream at Sherman's just down the road from the RV park. Sherman's is an old dairy brand of ice cream. This cone is a BABY cone!!!!!! Is it any wonder there are so many people overweight in this country with portions like this?  Sparky couldn't even eat it all.....

Tomorrow is our last day here at Sunnybrook with the Boersma's.....sniff, sniff.....It's supposed to be COOL and rainy with 20 mph winds...Good day to sit in and read, or head out to the knit shop in downtown South Haven.. (Uh-oh! I might have to send Ritchie with Sparky to reign in the purchasing).....We'll see what the day brings......

Sauntering Around Saugatuck

South Haven, MI     High:  76  Low:  53

Sparky wants to keep typing Bar Harbor, ME for the weather! We're in South Haven for six nights, but today the dynamic duos of Ritchie and Nick, and Sparky and Eldo decided to take in a festival in Bangor, MI --I almost typed Bangor, ME...geesh!  Eldo isn't buying any of that. He's content to be back in the midwest, and actually, so is Sparky....It's just old habits die hard, right?

At any rate, there was just one problem...the literature was incorrect and there WASN'T any festival in Bangor until NEXT month, at least not according to the web. But there was supposed to be some kind of harvest festival in Saugatuck--the 9th annual Fall Heritage Festival....So we went looking for it...

And we never found it. Maybe we had the wrong year? But we had a great time. It brought back great memories for Sparky. Sparky and her girls used to go to Saugatuck on a regular basis...We'd eat a snack at the Coral Gables, we'd walk up and down the marina, reading all the yacht names, we'd peruse all the shops...There used to be a Post Office little shop that sold the cutest stationery, cards, and great post-it notes. It's gone. There used to be a wonderful poster store on the main drag...It's gone...BUT--Kilwinn's the Michigan fudge and ice cream shop is going great guns as always...It's doing so well in Saugatuck, there are TWO Kilwinn's on the same street in town! Decisions, decisions, decisions---fudge or ice cream? Ice cream or fudge? Or both?!

Yep, old guys rule! But old gals rule the roost!

Sparky and her girls used to go to Hoopdee Scootee, a novelty store with tons of interesting stuff, some a little risque, now that she thinks about it.....it's still there!

The drugstore is a cool place for all kinds of neat gifts. Sparky bought a Baggalini hipster tote--made in the U.S.A., a rarity! Sparky likes the Butler's Pantry, a kitchen store with all kinds of gadgets, special sauces, seasonings and tools.

The corner bakery had some wonderful sandwiches and breads....and a cheery decor..

People don't think anything of having their pets in the stores here, owners included, which is fine if you don't have allergies! Sparky is allergic to cats, so she didn't linger long in this store....Some kind of southwest decor store with a terrific selection of comfortable European shoes ..Sparky picked up one cute pair and promptly put them down...$175.00!

Time for a cat nap

We visited the restrooms....Oh, sorry! Too much information...But isn't this cool? The building is painted in the pointillism style of the French painter Georges Seurat. Sparky remembers studying that in school! (Glad she is remembering some things! exclaims E.)  Yeah, me, too...I've been worried about my memory lately, chimes in Sparky.

We walked around town, we people watched....People watched us....The fellas hit the benches for awhile while Sparky and Ritchie window shopped.....

Or they played....Guys are a lot more patient now when their significant others shop, with cell phones to play with, right? Eldo and Nick were VERY patient....

We wore ourselves out...Back home we came and got ready for dinner...Ritchie fixed brats, Sparky fixed beans and deviled eggs...another great day with friends....We're so blessed!