Happy Holidays!

Shelley, Keith, Grace, Zachary and Maya (their puppy) spent Thanksgiving here with us! We had a wonderful time eating, watching movies, going to the park, and making snowmen! We just forgot to take any pictures! I did get a shot of Shelley and the kids working on the clay noses for the snowmen.

Assembly line noses!

Snowmen!

Fall Leaves

We met the kids for lunch one Saturday at a burger joint and then ended up at our house playing in the leaves! They don't have big leaf dropping trees at their house and they had a ball playing in and under the leaves! I'll bet Tina and Kevin were picking leaves out of hair and clothes for a while after this fun!

There's a cute little face in here!

Now you can see her better!

Having fun!

Tina and Kevin

Rylee has all of us wrapped around her little finger!

Ethan is under there somewhere!

RV Storage

We've had some questions about where we keep the RV when we're not using it. We pay for covered storage about 15 minutes south of us. We usually have a Provost bus one one side, a motorhome behind us and another motorhome on the other side. Almost like having it in a garage! The facility has gates and cameras.

Summer Trip 2011

Escaping from the heat!

August 12 - Oct. 3, 2011

With temperature highs in the triple digits for most of July and early August this year, we eagerly anticipated our chance to run away! We had reserved our spot at the Passport America Rally in Elkhart, Indiana last March and we really looked forward to attending the rally. The fact that Dave's brother, Gary and his wife, Vicki, would meet us there just added to our eagerness to get there.

First things first though! Dave tried to get new glasses so he could see better and learned that the problem wasn't his prescription but a cataract blocking his view! Surgery to remove the cataract was scheduled for late July and then postponed a week due to the surgeon being ill for a few days and then we were really pushing it down to the wire. Dave had his cataract removed 8 days before we left for our trip! The surgery was a great success and he's seeing much better than he has in a long time. His other eye is fine for now so with his new glasses, he's seeing the world much clearer and in prettier colors!

Our first stop was a couple of days in Troy, MO which is not too far from St. Louis. From there we stopped for one night in Champaign, IL. The next time we got a great spot in Prophetstown State Park in Battle Ground, Indiana. The park had several miles of really nice bicycle trails so we took the opportunity to get some exercise and toured the park on wheels. We happened on a lady who had a tire failure on her bike and Dave came to the rescue and changed the tire for her. A couple of employees from the park office stopped to help too and Dave was surrounded by grateful women! His grin said he didn't mind!

Prophetstown State Park

Battle Ground, Indiana

Impressive rock entry to the state park. The bicycle path is the small opening.

We had a nice big site in a loop all to ourselves. Very quiet and pretty.

Super Dave to the rescue!

Riding break in the shade of the tunnel

Best part of the day -- sitting and relaxing!

Passport America Rally

Elkhart, Indiana

This was our second Passport Rally. Membership in Passport American gives us a 50% discount at their member RV parks and campgrounds. Our membership fee is nominal and usually pays for itself with our first stay in a member park. The company hosts several rallies every year which draw a lot of RVer's for fun, food, vendors and entertainment. There's a lot of gray hair at these things and we fit right in!

Gary and Vicki purchased a new to them travel trailer last summer while we were in Michigan but hadn't had the opportunity to use it yet. Meeting us at the rally was the perfect time for them to give it a try and as Gary said, have his big brother handy to help him learn the ins and outs of an RV. We took turns with the few meals not provided by the rally, rode our bikes all over the fairgrounds and just had a wonderful time together!

The Elkhart County Fairgrounds were a great rally location! They have over 700 campsites with full hookups available and host a lot of rallies.

Gary and Vicki

Us!

Every summer the Elkhart/Middlebury/Shipshewana areas have businesses and organizations sponsor and plant Quilt Gardens. There were 18 different gardens in the area, each one representing a different quilt block design. The ones we saw were beautiful!

Rows of RVs packed in pretty close together. Most of the attendees were very friendly and we met a lot of nice people.

There were over 400 RVs at the rally and almost 700 people.

We saw every RV brand and model imaginable! Hard to believe there is such a variety available.

Lansing

Wrapping up...

After the rally was over we traveled north to the Lansing, MI area. We set up our house on wheels at a nice RV resort in Ionia, about 25 miles from Lansing. Our mission was to empty and clean Dave's Mom's condo in preparation for selling it. Jayne died at age 91 in June and it was time to close this chapter of her life. I'll describe the experience by saying I came home with the mission and plan to clean our house out! Since getting back home I have made numerous trips to Goodwill and other charity organizations, giving away a lot of unneeded stuff! The trash truck has done its part too!

We left some of the furniture in the condo for "staging" purposes. It will look better to prospective buyers furnished and the takers of the furniture don't need it yet. When the condo sells, they will pick up what's left. We have the condo listed with a realtor and we've had lookers but the housing market in Michigan has been very slow. Most of the state is economically depressed so we expect it may take a while to sell. We priced it reasonably and are hoping that by Spring it will appeal to a buyer.

Jayne had both good decorating and fashion sense

We spent 18 days near Lansing making the 50 mile round trip drive every day until we got the job done. We enjoyed seeing Diane, Susan, Gary and Vicki regularly during our stay. We hosted a cookout at the RV park for 12 of us that was a lot of fun. We went on bicycle rides on the wonderful trails near the condo. We had dinner out with Gary and Vicki several times and also spent some time at their two (!) lake homes. Diane and John generously hosted the family a couple of times on their nice back deck with some great food and fun. The hard work was mixed with some good times!

Click on the links below to see the rest of our trip! We spent 7 weeks on the road and saw some beautiful and interesting places. We had a great time and highly recommend Michigan and Northern Indiana as good places to visit.