Elkhart, Indiana

May 28 - May 31, 2012

We spent the past few days in Elkhart, Indiana. Elkhart is the home of many RV manufacturers and related industries. It was one of the hardest hit communities in the US during the recession. Unemployment was as high as 18% in 2010. Thankfully, the RV industry has begun to turn around, and Elkhart seems to be recovering.

On Tuesday we visited the RV and Motorhome Hall of Fame. They have a wonderful collection of historic RV's starting as early as the model T. We enjoyed seeing how RV's and motorhomes have evolved over the years.

Today we went to one of Indiana's Amish communities and shopped at a huge flea market. It promotes itself as the largest flea market in the mid-west, but it's hard to believe that it's not the biggest in the country. We made a few small purchases (there's no room in the Liberty for large purchases.)

Later we did a wine tasting at a local winery called Fruit Hills and bought several bottles of tasty wine.

We leave tomorrow for Chicago to visit Rick's son Matt and his wife Trish.

Warren G. Harding

May 28, 2012

We left Columbus on Memorial Day and made the short drive to Marion Ohio to visit the home of president Warren G. Harding. The house is a museum that is jointly administered by the Ohio Historical Society and Marion Technical College. The College recently came on board when budget cuts for the Ohio Historical Society threatened to close the museum. This was an odd choice since Ohio Technical College doesn't even have a history department!

This place is an absolute treasure! The front porch was the porch where Harding conducted his so-called "front porch campaign" making many of his speeches while he ran for president. Harding's widow died two years after he did and left their home to the State of Ohio to be run as a museum. The home is 90% furnished with original pieces and decor. It contains many posessions of Harding and his wife. His drawers are still filled with his clothes! While this makes for a very interesting tour, we were alarmed to see the docent repeatedly remove and exhibit many of these pieces. To be fair, he wore gloves before handling the artifacts, but even I know that these things aren't going to last with repeated daily handling. They really need to be properly preserved and displayed.

There's a wonderful quilt on one of the beds which had been donated to the president by a women's suffrage group. The names of the women in the group that sent it had been embroidered on the quilt, but the ink had faded over time. Our docent said that he had seen his former supervisor actually darkening the names with a magic marker! He questioned whether this was a good idea, and his supervisor stopped, leaving the quilt half "magic marker restored." Perhaps they should have found a college with a history department to administer this collection! Help! They need your donations!

More US presidents have come from Ohio than any other state: William Henry Harrison, US Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. Harding was 55 years old when he entered the White House in March 1921, with Calvin Coolidge as his vice president. President Harding died in office in 1923, 29 months into his first term as president. In his short time as president, Harding reduced the federal deficit by 25%. He took a trip by train and boat across the country to see the new Alaskan territory. During his return visit he became ill and died of an apparent heart attack.

Columbus, OH

May 24 - May 28, 2012

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Columbus, OH visiting Rick's son Mark and his wife Cristin. We stayed at a campground about 20 miles away in Delaware, OH. It's a pretty decent place, but it was absolutely packed with families and their RV's intent on kicking off the summer with a bang. It wasn't exactly a quiet and peaceful campground, especially because, you guessed it, there were trains running nearby, every hour or two,all night long! Ohio's experiencing a heatwave; it's cooler at home in Florida than it is here right now. But that hasn't stopped the Memorial Day revellers from sitting around their campfires each evening. We like a campfire as much as the next camper, but this is ridiculous. The air is so heavy with smoke that we were convinced that the smoke alarm was going to go off in our RV. (It didn't.)

While Mark and Cristin were working on Friday we visited the Olentangy Indian Caves. These small but interesting caves were used by local Indians and later as a hideout by outlaws.

Later we met Mark and Cristin for dinner at Rick's 2nd favorite restaurant in the world: Schmidt's Sausage House, a wonderful German restaurant in the German district of Columbus.

On Saturday, Rick's brother Mike brought his daughter Simran to the campground. Mark and Cristin joined us along with their dogs Chip and Tater. They brought their grill, some food, and we had a Memorial Day cookout along with the masses at the campground. There's nothing better than celebrating the holidays with family.

It was yellow shirts and khaki shorts day.

On Sunday we went to the movies with Mark and Cristin and saw the Hunger Games. I've never read the books, but really enjoyed the movie. Later we had dinner with Cristin's family at another local restaurant, Montgomery Grill. Before we went to dinner we met at Cristin's sister's house for drinks and appetizers and worried about what effect hurricaine Beryl would have on our home in FL. (See weather map on tv in picture!) Good thing we put the hurricaine shutters up before we left.

We leave in the morning for Elkhart, Indiana.

"Home" to Fairborn

May 21 - May 24, 2012

Rick was born and raised in Fairborn, OH, a small town near Dayton. We are in town for a few days to visit his father, Dick, and brother, Mike. We are staying in a campground which is inexplicably named "Tomorrow's Stars." Its good points include large level campsites, some really lovely old maple trees for shade, and an inexpensive and clean laundry. Its bad points include lots of traffic noise...it's sandwiched between Rt 40 and I-70...and yes, you guessed it, a train. Luckily the train is far enough away not to be a major nuisance.

Dick and Mike came over to our campground today for lunch. We had a campfire and roasted hotdogs. I made chili in the crockpot and barbequed lima beans. I baked shortcakes in the convection oven and we had strawberry shortcake. It was a party!

Mike and Sally

Dick and SiSi

Tomorrow we have a short drive to Columbus where we'll be spending the holiday weekend and visiting Rick's son Mark and his wife Cristin.

"Home" to Baltimore

May 17 - May 20, 2012

We spent the last three nights in Baltimore. My friend Susan Graeber and her husband Conrad kindly invited us to "camp" in their driveway in the Woodbrook neighborhood of Baltimore County. It was a bit of a tight fit, but we made it work. It was a really convenient location for us given what we had planned for the weekend.

On Thursday evening we celebrated our grandson Corey's 8th birthday with him and his family at the Red Robin in Bel Air. We forgot our camera. On Saturday afternoon, Rick attended a reunion of all the police officers who worked in the Western District of Baltimore and, again, forgot the camera. Lucky for him, someone posted this photo on facebook or I would have had to wonder if he was really even there!

On Friday evening Susan hosted a crab feast which also included my buddy Lydia and my daughter Abby. We managed to get a couple of pictures that evening.

Abby, Sally, Lydia, and Susan with Cocoa, SiSi, and Foxy

On Saturday afternoon Susan was entertaining again with Lydia's mother, Ann Thomas, also in attendance.

On Saturday evening we had dinner with my brother Bob and his wife Laura. The weather was perfect for an evening on their deck.


We left Baltimore this morning. We are currently parked in a Cracker Barrel parking lot near Wheeling, WV. Rick and SiSi are sitting in the rocking chairs on the front porch of the Cracker Barrel drinking wine out of a Dixie cup. We enjoyed a tasty dinner there tonight and will be back for breakfast tomorrow morning. Rick's all tuckered out from a long day of driving. He does 95% of the driving. Sometimes he gets help from his co-pilot.

Hershey PA

May 15 - 16 2012

We spent a day with our group in Hershey, PA. The day began at Chocolate World where we designed our own candy bars. They made us wear aprons, gloves, and hairnets. They made Rick wear a beard net.

Using several computer stations we were able to choose ingredients for our own custom chocolate bar and then design a wrapper. Mine was a dark chocolate bar with almonds, pretzels, and toffee bits. I haven't tried it yet. We've done nothing but eat since we've been here. Hopefully it won't melt before we get hungry!

We took a trolley tour of the town of Hershey. Milton Hershey came from humble beginnings and was bankrupt three times before he finally made it as a candy maker. He was a great philanthropist. He founded a boarding school for underpriviledged children which provides a completely free education to its students. He built hospitals and parks and a zoo for his factory workers. Hershey Park began as a weekend diversion for his employees. When he died he left his entire fortune to a foundation that supports the school and his other charities. A significant portion of the profits from all of his enterprises, goes to support the school and his other charities.

We head "home" to Baltimore tomorrow for a long weekend.

CHOC Rally

May 13-14, 2012

We're in Manheim, PA at a "rally" with other owners of our type of RV. There are 26 other motorhomes here and the campground looks like a Coach House Platinum sales lot. We're eating a lot of catered meals and taking various bus trips. We're doing things that we probably would never choose and/or get around to on our own, and enjoying them all. These rallies really are a lot of fun.


We spent a day in the portion of Lancaster County, PA where there are a lot of Amish. There are oddly named towns like Intercourse, Blue Ball, Virginville, and Bird-in-Hand. We started the day at an Amish farmhouse where we saw how the Amish live. We also saw some barnyard animals and particularly enjoyed this sow and her piglets. She and Rick were snorting at each other.

Here's a picture of me kissing a goat.

We had an amazing lunch at a family style restaurant called Good and Plenty and spent the afternoon at a cool general store and quilt museum. There was much "local color" in the area. The Amish buggies were constantly clipclopping by at the same time that cars were whizzing past.

Rick got this shot of several Amish children who were barefoot, playing outside. It was raining steadily and about 60 degrees.

Gunston Hall

May 12, 2012

We hiked from the campground to Gunston Hall, the home of George Mason. Mason was a neighbor of George Washington, but his home was much more opulent than Washinton's Mount Vernon. He brought craftsmen over from Europe as indentured servants to carve the woodwork in Gunston Hall which is incredibly elaborate.

Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights. This document was the first in America to call for freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to a fair and speedy trial. Jefferson drew heavily on it when he drafted the Declaration of Independence. Mason was one of the signers of the Declaration and was a delegate to the constitutional convention where he was one of the most vocal debaters. Objecting to the amount of power being given to the federal government and the Convention’s unwillingness to abolish the slave trade, Mason refused to sign the Constitution. Mason’s refusal to support the new Constitution destroyed his friendship with Washington, who later referred to Mason as his former friend. But Mason's objections would later became part of the constituion when James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights. Mason referred to slavery as "a poison." But, unlike Washington, he didn't free his slaves when he died. They were willed to his nine children.

We spent the remainder of the day doing laundry, cleaning the RV, and snuggling with the dog.

Mount Vernon

May 11, 2012

We spent the day at George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, in Alexandria, VA. This was my third visit to Mount Vernon and Rick's first. Since my last visit which was about 15 years ago, they have added two wonderful new museums: one with artifacts and original art, the other with exhibits about the man, his life, and his presidency. When we gushed in this blog about the Lincoln Museum in Springfield last year, we didn't know that it was not unique. It seems to be the wave of the future to create these very modern "immersive" historical museums which do a fabulous job of presenting what might otherwise be dry material. Mount Vernon's Reynolds Center and the Marine Corps Museum that we saw yesterday are both equally impressive as the Lincoln Museum was last year.

I complained yesterday about the tax dollars that have been spent at the Marine Corps Museum. By contrast, I have always loved the fact that Mount Vernon is run by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The Mount Vernon Ladies purchased the property from the Washington family in 1858 and have owned and run it ever since. No taxpayer money has ever been used to support the estate or its programs. Sure, they have received major grants from the Ford Foundation and Donald W. Reynolds, but most of their money comes from fundraising and the $15 per person admission price.

If you ever get the chance to visit Mount Vernon, I highly recommend it. But I also highly recommend that you don't see it in May. We arrived this morning just before 9am to a back up of vehicles entering Mount Vernon. There was bus after bus of school children. We stopped counting at 50 buses! I'm not kidding! The little monsters were EVERYWHERE, setting off the sensor alarms at the exhibits, talking during the films, and generally being a nuisance. The food court was mobbed. We were told that May is THE month for school trips to DC. We still really enjoyed the museums, but the mansion was so crowded that it was hard to enjoy. They moved you through so quickly that there was no time to ask any questions of the docents.

We had dinner with David Boaz, an old friend of mine from college days and his partner Steve. David and I met at a Young Americans for Freedom convention while I was a student at George Washington and he was at Vanderbilt. We were both involved with various libertarian causes, and became good friends. David went on to become Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute. We went back to Mount Vernon and ate at the Mount Vernon Inn. I had salmon which I doubt was on George's menu, though Rick and David had duck with apricot sauce, George's favorite dish.

Steve, Sally, David, Rick

National Museum of the Marine Corps

May 10, 2010

We spent the day at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, VA. It's a really well done, really modern and interactive museum. A lot of money has been spent to make it engaging and informative. We really enjoyed it. But I couldn't help but wonder who was paying for it. Admission was free. Sure they had membership opportunities and a few inobtrusive requests for donations. But this is a really expensive museum, and there must be taxpayer (Defense?) dollars involved...lots of them.

The museum has galleries that show all the places in the world that the Marines have been sent since the Marine Corps was founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia in 1775. There were individual galleries for each of the major conflicts where the Marines have been involved, and they were all very well done. But I was most amazed by the number of places that I either didn't know or had forgotten that we had been involved. It was scary.

We're staying in a nice public park in Lorton, VA, a suburb of DC. We had our first campfire of the trip tonight and cooked some hot dogs.

Fredericksburg, VA

May 7 - May 10, 2012

The closer you get to a major metropolitan area, the harder it gets to find a decent campground...probably because of higher property values. We've landed in a KOA campground outside of Fredericksburg, VA. We try to avoid KOA's whenever possible, but sometimes there's just no other option. They tend to be extremely overpriced and the sites are usually small and unattractive. They're also usually located next to a major highway, so highway noise is often an issue. The sites are OK sized at this one, but it's definitely way over-priced. And it's far enough from I-95 that there's no highway noise. But guess what? More trains! Luckily the nights have been cool and our windows are closed.

The weather has actually been really nice. We've come far enough north to find spring again. The azaleas are at the tail end of their colors and the rhododendrens are just beginning to bloom. I think we've missed the dogwoods, though.

(Rick says that these were Roses...not azaleas)


Rick and I share an interest in Civil War history. We've visited a number of battlefields, museums and homes over the past few years. We've been to the battlefields at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Antietam, Appomatox, Harpers Ferry, and New Market. We've visited Stonewall Jackson's home in Lexington, the wonderful civil war exhibits in the Lincoln museum, and Jefferson Davis' home in Biloxi. Yesterday we visited the battlefields at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and today we visited the place where Stonewall Jackson died. Rick has an instinctive understanding of the military history. I try to understand and visualize it all, but my eyes start to glaze over when the talk's of flanking maneuvers, earthenworks, armaments or strategy. My interest is more in the political history, the individuals, and their lives. Rick's eyes, on the other hand, tend to glaze over when we're touring the old houses which are an endless source of fascination for me.

It seems like all the civil war battlefields that we visit vie for the "honor" of being the "bloodiest." Gettysburg was the bloodiest (3 day) battle of the war. Antietam was the bloodiest single day of the war. But the four battlefields that surround Fredericksburg (Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvnania Courthouse, and Wilderness)claim that they were the bloodiest of the war. Those four battles combined left more that 100,000 men dead. Because it's halfway between Washington and Richmond, Fredericksburg was very important strategically. The battle at Chancellorsville was where Stonewall Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men. After having his arm amputated on the battlefield, he was taken by ambulance to a farm not far from our campground where he died of pneumonia several days later.

Stonewall Jackson Shrine

We took a break from history today and visited a local vineyard and a brew pub.

We leave tomorrow for a few days in the DC area.

Roanoke Rapids, NC

May 6 - May 7 2012

We're spending the night in a campground in Roanoke Rapids, NC, just south of the Virginia border. It's a nice little campground with full hookups and a cable tv connection. There's a nice pool and a hot tub. And all this for only $21.25 per night. The only downside is there's a fair amount of train noise. It's really amazing how many campgrounds are located next to or near train tracks.

We were sitting outside this evening enjoying a glass of wine when a lady walked by with her Australian Shepherd. SiSi was immediately interested. Next thing we knew there were four more "aussies" and their owners in our campsite admiring SiSi. They were all here for a dog frisbee catching competition. We got a demonstration from one of the champions whose name was "Hippie Chick." She was amazing. Here's a link to a video of "Hippie Chick" on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgjRl2J4U4I

Myrtle Beach

May 3-6, 2012

We drove for about 8 hours to reach Myrtle Beach, SC. Against the Navigator's better judgement, the Captain elected to listen to the advice of both Mapquest and our Garmin nav system which routed us through Charleston, SC. While the rest of the drive was surely more scenic than I-95 would have been, we lost about an hour to heavy traffic and construction in Charleston.

But it was all worth it when we arrived at our campground. We're staying at a place called Lakewood Camping Resort just south of Myrtle Beach. Again we're paying exorbitant beach resort prices...nearly $80 per night including tax and a "resort fee." While that's really pricey for a campground, in addition to full hook-ups we have a beachfront campsite. I can see the ocean from my bed and we go to sleep listening to the sound of the surf. Well maybe not tonight. It's been so hot today that I'll probably go to sleep tonight listening to the sound of our air conditioner.

Myrtle Beach has a really lovely long wide stretch of beautiful white sand. The ocean is a perfect temperature and we've really enjoyed walking SiSi on the beach. I'm not sure she's really enjoying it, though. Although she's lived her entire life within a few miles of the beach, she acts like she's never seen the ocean. She's scared of it and always makes sure to keep us between it and her.

There are some really nice areas in Myrtle Beach but the rest is quite commercial. There must be a thousand mini golf opportunities. And if you like pancakes, this is the place for you. There seems to be at least one pancake place on every block. And this place is really big on seafood buffets. There are lots of warehouse size restaurants with huge buffets.

Not being big buffet fans we elected to try the local seafood and Carolina barbeque. The seafood restaurant that we chose had Ravens posters all over the place and touted their "Maryland style seafood." The owner turned out to be from Carroll County. But we elected to have a "low country boil" which consisted of a bucket of steamed oysters, mussels, shrimp, king crab legs, corn, sausage and red potatoes. It was wonderful.

We splurged and got tickets to the Carolina Opry which is loosely affiliated with the original Opry in Nashville. We went to the Grand Old Opry when we were in Nashville a couple of years ago and saw several big name acts. The biggest name at this show was one of the finalists from season 4 of American Idol, but the show was really quite good.

St Augustine

May 1 - May 3, 2012

Quick, where was the first landing and what is the oldest city in America? Isn't Jamestown the site of the first landing and settlement in America? Or was it Plymouth Rock? Wrong, it was St Augustine, FL. My parents, who live in Santa Fe, NM say that there is some debate as to whether Santa Fe is actually the oldest American city, but there's no doubt in the minds of the residents of St. Augustine that they live in the "oldest continuously occupied European settlement in North America." Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain in 1513. He came ashore in St Augustine, met Indians who lived very long lives and were over seven feet tall, and decided that he had found the fountain of youth that he had heard tell of in his travels in South America. Ponce was only 4 foot 6 inches tall, so he was particularly impressed with these Indians!

Other Spanish explorers found riches in Mexico and Peru which they sent back to Spain on ships which traveled along the gulf stream. Spanish settlements needed to be built in Florida to protect the treasure fleets. The French had troops garrisoned near Jacksonville, which made the Spaniards particularly paranoid. King Phillip II of Spain sent Pedro Menendez to settle Florida and drive out the French. On September 8th, 1565, Menendez and 700 colonists landed here and founded St Augustine. The Jamestown landing was in 1607 and the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts in 1620.

While here we have visited the old Spanish fort called the Castillo de San Marcos. It's a National Monument, run by the National Park Service, We purchased an annual pass for $80 that will allow us admission to all park service facilities for the next year.

We've also visited the old jail which makes my old place of employment, CBIF, look like a luxury hotel.

We have a third family member traveling with us this year. Her name is SiSi and she is a very spoiled six year old Australian Shepherd. Rick has been trying to convince me to get a new dog ever since our beloved cocker spaniel, Taz, died five years ago. He finally won. Here is a photo of my 37 pound "lap dog."