Day 6 - All Hail The King - Corn

Day six got off to a nice start.  A 7:00am waking up time seemed quite civilized and allowed us to be on our way by 8:30am.  Lowell noted that we could have started earlier if we enforced a "no Internet at breakfast" rule but what fun would that be?

• We are not actually in The West yet.  My friend Rick told me that I'll have to wait until I am west of 100 degrees longitude before it becomes official.  Only then will I begin shopping for my cowboy hat and boots.  But we are officially in the heartland and it would seem possible to look all the way to Wyoming.  
• We did meet a few more interesting folk at the campground yesterday.  There was a nice couple who travel full time in their class C camper.  They lived in their house 3 months after they retired and then decided to hit the road.  There was also a man who we heard playing his guitar and singing at his picnic table.  He sells CD's of his music at farmer's markets.

• There is corn and there are windmills for as far as the eye can see.  Got corn?  Yup!  Corn - it's what's for breakfast!  Check!  

Who is Albert Lea and why does he have a city in Minnesota named for him?  He was a topographer who surveyed Minnesota in 1835.  Daniel Boone's son Nathan was in his party.

• A sign marking the x,y,z (I forgot the real name) Ranch prompted a discussion about the name ranch vs. farm.  According to the dictionary, a ranch involves raising grazing animals and is a term most often used in the west.  So we aren't seeing corn ranches or sod ranches (yup places where they grow sod) nor are we seeing cattle farms.  So there.
• The South Dakota state motto is "Under God, the People rule".  We think that they should change it to "At least we aren't North Dakota".
• I would love Minnesota if for no other reason than Hormel Foods is headquartered in Austin, MN.  We drove by the corporate headquarters today.  It is also why I love Hawaii because this is where I learned about Spam Musubi.
• I don't know if it is a nice place or not, but I would like to live in a town with the name Blue Earth.  Maybe I'll speak to the Bowdoinham town fathers about renaming our village.
• I90 is a very long road.  This morning's GPS directions were "drive 296 miles to exit 335".  That is all.
• We haven't seen many ponds or rivers today but the first pond we did see had a very large flock of American White Pelicans in it.  There goes my idea that pelicans live by the ocean.
• My New England upbringing makes me think the farming process is "cut down the trees and then plant the crops".  Out here the process was "plow up the prairie, plant the crops and then plant some trees".
• In South Dakota there are gates (like we have at railroad crossings) that are used to close I90 in case of severe snow or ice conditions.
• We stopped at a rest area for lunch and encountered a nice truck driver.  He was nice because he was driving a double layered animal transporting truck full of big, smelly pigs and he parked down wind of us.  Thank you nice truck driver.  PS.  I know the pigs were smelly because I went over to have a look at them.  Big mistake.
• This sculpture can be seen from I90 near Montrose, South Dakota.  It's at a place called Porter Sculpture Park and I wish we'd been able to stop but we wanted to get to Mitchell in time to pay proper homage to King Corn

  The Corn Palace is a multi-purpose function center in Mitchell, SD.  It is in the Moorish Revival style and is decorated with Crop art.  The murals and designs are made entirely of corn and grain and they are changed each year at a cost of about $130,000.  The first one was built in 1892, then another and finally the present structure.  I guess the old ones didn't stand up to fire code.  That corn can get pretty dry. 

This very nice lady told us quite a bit about the history of the building.  She was surprised that I wanted to take a photo of her but was very gracious.  The primary exhibit inside consists of photographs of the palace for most of the years it has been decorated.  My favorite was this one where they felt the need to explain that the symbol on the building was an "Indian good luck sign".
The year was 1937 and the symbol looks like the swastika.


Our hosts at the campground told us that they make the best popcorn balls ever at the concession stand.  He was correct!   We saved the popcorn balls for dessert and headed out to find a Culver's restaurant in order to try out the Butterburgers.  Lowell said that all of his friends from this area recommended them so we felt it was worth a try.  They were quite good and probably won't do us much harm if we don't make a habit of eating them.

Our campground (excuse me - Kampground) is the KOA in Mitchell, SD.  They have done a nice job of making a little tree dotted oasis in the middle of a big windy prairie.  And they have their very own windmill.

It has been another wonderful day (if a bit windy)!

Day 5 - We Keep On Trucking

Day Five dawned dark.  Our location in Indiana was at the very western edge of the Eastern Time Zone.  Consequently it was very dark at 6am.  So the plans of leaving early were but a dream as we did not really want to put things away in the pitch black.  It is considered poor form to rustle about too much before it gets light outside.  But we were on the road again (sounds like a song!) by 7:30am.  Indiana turned into Illinois and by dint of a change to Central Time Zone, we made it to Chicago about 1/2 after we left Indiana.  Huh?  Thank goodness we did the drive through the city on a Sunday morning instead of a workday.  Even  today there was a lot of traffic.  Even with GPS the navigation was especially tricky in one spot and we pretty much slowed to a crawl waiting to be let into the proper lane.  We certainly looked like out-of-towners with our big whale of a 5th wheel and Maine plates.  To add to the fun, GPS directed us to I90 where there were big signs saying "Express Lanes, No Trucks".  We aren't officially a truck (at least that's my story should any law enforcement official ask).  But our concern was that maybe some of the bridges were too low for us.  We committed ourselves to the route and held our breath as we did encounter one 13' 9" bridge.  We are 12' 9".  So we made it, none the worse for wear and without any citations.

 Why yes, it is still there!  This is the view that I want from my rear window.  Another of my jobs is to alert the driver if I do NOT see this.  As you might be able to guess, roadside sights kept me amused for most of our 441.9 mile drive today.

• EZPass has worked on all the toll roads so far.  The midwestern states seem to be replacing something called IZoom with it.  
• I saw an interesting sign advertising "Full season control of corn root worm"
• We accidentally engaged in the sport of turtle tipping this morning somewhere east of South Bend.  The silly turtle really shouldn't have sauntered out in front of such a big camper.  Brett said it flipped over once but did appear to be headed off the road on its own power.  
• A sign advertising an Amish market prompted the following conversation:  Q -Would you like to buy an Amish?  A-I'm not sure.  Q-What would we do with one?  A- Put it in the living room and force it to watch TV.
• When all the people riding on 3 motorcycles give you the thumbs up sign, it does not mean that they think you have a nice rig.

 I really need to work on my 65mph photo taking.  This picture shows 2 rainbows that appeared in the sky just before we got to Chicago.

Just when I decided that the scenery looked a lot like Maine, we began to get more and more farm land covered with corn.  Boy howdy there's a lot of corn growing out here.  Somebody told me once that it was tall so I for some reason got a mental image of corn the size of the pine trees along the interstate at home.  I'm happy to report that it isn't quite that tall.  Here we have stopped at a rest area in Wisconsin.  We spoke with a man who was delivering a new RV to British Columbia.  We noticed quite a few trucks from this delivery company hauling new fifth wheels.  I guess that's how all those new recreational vehicles get from Indiana to their new owners.          

Wisconsin was the first place where we encountered bio-diesel for sale.  It is .01 per gallon cheaper than regular diesel.

We crossed the Mississippi River this afternoon.  I knew it would happen but it just took me off guard to do it between Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Somewhere in my brain I equated Mississippi River with the South.  After this rest area, the highway climbs up the Great River Bluffs.  These must have been formed as the river eroded the banks and got to the present location.

 The silo looks like a smoke stack with that cloud just behind it.  And there was corn for as far as the eye could see.

Minnesota settled into beautiful farmland from the border to Rochester where we are spending the night.  Brett likes the fact that the road signs here aren't making things up.  We drove 45 mph through much of Illinois under the "Road Work" warning signs but there wasn't any road work happening.  Minnesota put out a "Bump Ahead" warning and then at the exact spot of the bump, had another sign with an arrow pointing to the bump.  Dear Maine, please come take a look at this.  I'm tired of guessing whether the frost heave sign is serious or just left over from last season. 

 We got to our pretty campground at about 4:30pm and the nice people here showed us to our very easy to get into pull through site.  Did I mention that the two nicest words in RV'ing are pull through?  We set up the electric grill on the picnic table and I cooked bacon and banana pancakes with fresh raspberries.  A breakfast for dinner camping event was had by all.  Then a walk around the campground where we admired some more corn fields and smelled the smells of harvest.  And oooooh'ed and aaaaah'ed over the enormous corn harvesting machines (my phone was being charged so I didn't get any pictures). 

It was another great day on our great adventure.  I wonder what we'll learn tomorrow?

Day 4 - In Which We Admire The RV Capital of The World

Day Four started after a restful night.  The only noisiness we noticed were the train whistles (which sounded as though they were about to come through the front door) and the 6 guys in the rental across the road who had lots to laugh about.  They left early this morning and I am assuming they were headed for the stadium and whatever festivities awaited there.  Home football game days seem to be a big deal around here.  I read that they bring in about $10 million tourist dollars per home game.  There were pre-game shows on the local television stations where a cute woman interviewed various tailgaters and sampled a lot of food.  Then all manner of sports punditry while counting down the minutes to the game.  Then the game and then all the post-game punditry.  I have a confession.  I don't know who won the game.  But it isn't very noisy around here...

We are staying very near Elkhart, IN which is known as the "RV Capital of the World".  So there was really only one "must see" spot and that is the RV/MH Hall Of Fame.  This is a huge building and we were very curious to see what was inside.

But first we had to admire the flag festooned Elk which I am guessing is some sort of icon/mascot for Elkhart.  I seem to recall seeing it a few times.

 After a quick introduction to the place by a lovely man whose name I cannot remember but who offered to give me his autograph for $15 (he was going to throw in his book for free) we were able to go into the museum section and see a wonderful assortment of vintage recreational vehicles.

This is a rather iconic shot taken from an observation deck over the main exhibit.  Many of the trailers were open and it was possible to go inside them.  I was surprised that there was so much to look at that we took almost 2 hours to go through.

 There is a miniature trailer and tow vehicle that was once driven by a campground owner's daughter to the delight of visiting campers.

 This 10 foot long Airstream was my favorite.  It is the smallest ever made and one of a kind.

 Some vintage towing vehicles and motor homes.

 There was everything from pop-up tent campers to tiny little towables to a HouseCar built by Paramount studios to bribe Mae West into making movies.

If I squint, I can see similarities between our Montana High Country and the Tennessee Traveler.  Maybe.

 Brett was a good sport and posed with this cutout so that I could have a compelling picture of him to document the Hall Of Fame experience.









All the touring left us with an urge for lunch so we went in search of a non-chain restaurant.  The folks at the RV HOF recommended El Maguey so we gave it a try.  I just discovered that they are, in fact, a chain.  But since we've never been to one I won't hold it against them.  Their menu says they serve "real Mexican" food.  Apparently as opposed to real Tex/Mex I guess.  But a burrito by any description tastes pretty good to me. 

Our final outing involved a trip to the grocery store.  A Martin's was near the campground so we gave it a whirl.  I must say COOL!!!

The shopping carts have CUP HOLDERS!  How civilized is this?  They also have what felt like 6 square miles of shelves and I had no idea where anything was located.  But a fun time was had trying to find everything on the list.  We were shocked when Brett knew exactly where to find the hummus.  We also helped a panicky little girl find her lost father.  Always nice to do a good deed.  $111 later, I remembered that I was buying groceries for a 36 foot camper and not for my house.  There was some creative shelf stocking done when we got back but I managed to fit all the food somewhere and still have room left for Brett and Lowell. 

The laundry is done, the recliners are secured, the blog is updated and it's early to bed tonight.  We head for Rochester, MN in the morning.

Important sighting!!  I saw my first Wall Drugs sign today.  It was a small thing on the side of a barn and said "Wall Drugs, 979 miles".  I have no idea what we are in store for but I will be stopping to visit.

Day 3 - Notre Dame? I thought she was Votre Dame!

 Day three dawned and that is a good thing.  We thought that 8am was a good start time yesterday and aimed to do it again this morning.  Because we had more unhooking chores we set the alarm for 15 minutes earlier than we had previously.  Efficiency is my middle name!  Everybody was fed, clothed, packed up, put away and ready to roll at 8am.  Everybody except Brett (aka Mr. I will get to know everybody I encounter eventually) who. after a thorough search, we found visiting with the neighbors in the next campsite.  He had determined where they were going, where they had been, what vehicles they have now and what vehicles they had before they got the ones they have now.  Okay, so 8:30am is a perfectly acceptable time of day to begin.  We are on vacation after all.

Roughing It 5th Wheel Style

 I know that when Lowell goes camping he tends to have fewer amenities.  He slept in the bed of the F150 when he drove home from Arizona.  So I think that in keeping with his "less is more" philosophy he feels that sleeping on the floor is the right thing to do. 

Dexter has his "dark passenger"; we have Eisenia Fetida!  (I just had to use a semi-colon somewhere.  It makes me look so smart.) The sneaky Worm Wiz managed to stow away one small wiggle room.  Something no camper should be without.  But I don't think they like riding in the front basement compartment.  Some of the sisterhood were trying to climb out of the bin.

The Best Road Food Of All

 One of my friends requested more pictures of food.  Here you go! 

Brett enjoys his hearty lunch which was prepared lovingly by my very own hands.  That's an egg salad sandwich (eggs boiled prior to leaving on our journey), Hint of Jalapeno chips and red grapes.  Maybe somebody will accidentally get healthy while we are on the road.  Out the window, you can't really see an I80/90 Service Plaza in Ohio.  Please, please somebody tell me why on earth those two interstates share the same road bed for most of Ohio!  There was a small moment of panic when the GPS directed us from our innocent ramblings on I90 to I480 and then I80.  What?!  But a closer look at the atlas revealed that all was not lost and that we would in fact end up where we hoped to be.  After the confusion, I settled down to start noticing things again.  I had my first sighting of a triple trailer truck.  Those puppies are huge and I would never, ever want to try backing them in to anything (like a parking space - NOT a wall).  Many of the Ohio service plazas have separate sections with electric pedestals where RV's can park overnight for $20.  This would be so much nicer than parking in with all the trucks which do not tend to turn their engines off at night.

Today I thought I'd try snapping a few pics from the truck as the scenery unfolded.  This is Lake Erie from the highway as we were trundling through Cleveland.

Progressive Field baseball park in downtown Cleveland.

I've decided that if your structure can be seen from the road then there needs to be a sign on it so that ignorant travelers can learn what it is.  I wasn't too sure about these so I messaged a friend back home who grew up in Missouri.  He told me that they are for grain storage so that's what I'm going with.  

While not using my iPhone as a camera today (I gave up trying to text Lowell), I worked some more on my portable craft for the trip.  Kumihimo is Japanese for "braided cord".  It is Thompson for "what in the heck am I going to do with all this braided cord".  If you are on my Christmas list, I'm sorry but you may have had a sneak peek at one of the components of your gift.

Brett decided that we should have a picture of me standing by the campground sign.   We are in Granger, IN which is very near Notre Dame, IN which is home to Notre Dame University.  Said university football team is playing Purdue at home this weekend.  I don't know if they are any good this year or not but they certainly have a lot of fans at this campground.  When we checked in, our hosts were surprised to learn that we were not going to the game.  I explained that we chose our stops based upon what was available about 300 miles from where we started in the morning.  If it's a football weekend, so be it.  We will be staying 2 nights because the campground requires it for these events.  But it's a very pretty place and we'll be perfectly happy taking a short breather (and getting some laundry done).

Oh dear God!  Don't ever take another picture with the front facing camera on your iPhone.  What was I thinking?  I guess I was caught up in the heat of the moment.  Relaxing on the porch in a rocking chair, enjoying a root beer and a chocolate chip cookie.  It doesn't get much better than that.

So we will wait out the rain that is falling and see what adventures await us tomorrow.  Perhaps we'll explore the RV/MH Hall of Fame.  Our 5th wheel (and many others) was built in the area; maybe we'll tour the birthplace.  And I bet we'll see how Notre Dame football fans behave after a game.

Day 2 - Shuffling Off Past Buffalo

Day Two is history and I'd say that it went very well.  Our first official night's sleep on our first official really grand trip was the stuff dreams are made of (see what I did there?).  Possibly a teeny, weeny nightmare as well.  I'm a sign reader and during our walk around the campground I happened to read the sign that warned me that the beautiful creek that was my view could rise and flood very suddenly.  I know there wasn't any rain in the forecast and I know that there was nothing to worry about.  But the sound of that water babbling away every time I woke up gave me visions of a 20 foot standing wave that caused a goose bump or two.  The only emergency situations occurred in my mind.  I'd come to terms with the water by the time the 7am call to breakfast and packing up came.  We parted best of friends.
Our destination for today was McKean, PA for our second camping stop.  

I thought I'd share what has been my view for the last 713 miles.  I sit in the back of the F250 all cozy with my pillow and comforter and laptop and GPS and iPhone and Kumihimo loom (I may be doing the world's longest braid).  I probably told Brett that I sit where I do so that I can have the best view but actually it's because I can see the gas gauge and the speedometer (I may also be the world's most curious passenger though some would say nag).

 Today I discovered that NY State very politely places Service Plazas at roughly 26 mile intervals AND they generally have enough places for trucks and RV's to come to a stop.  Take THAT Massachusetts!  A conveniently placed service area appeared at lunch time and we got to park with the big rigs.  Weird, but I find it thrilling to be milling about with these big trucks as though I understood what they and I were supposed to be doing here.  I've noticed quite a few women truck drivers and think I might be okay at that kind of a job.  Plus I would get to wear one of those cool bluetooth headsets and people wouldn't look at me like I was crazy when I spoke out loud to what looked like nobody in particular.  Ah, the nice sound of a manly diesel...

Our Favorite Thing to Not Have to Do

Items of note from today's travels:

• It was wondered by several what is the definition of a skyscraper - this prompted when we saw a tall building standing by itself in the middle of a field.
• Need to know what is the best way to find a donut in the morning when you are pulling around a 36 foot impediment to turning on a city street if you make a mistake.
• It is possible to amuse oneself by sending text messages to the other occupants of the vehicle.  It is not however very amusing when they ignore your text messages.
• Therefore, it is most wonderful to have good friends who find it fascinating when you text them with a picture of the back of your son's head.
• We saw a blue heron on the side of the road take what looked like dead aim on the car in front of us and narrowly avoid flying into the side of it.  This could indicate that blue herons are quite careless.  But I might have seen the first proof that they stalk motor vehicles and this one was just clumsy.  
• Today I went further west on I90 than I have ever been before.  I felt a bit like Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings when he stopped at the edge of the corn field to note the extent of his previous travels.
• I caught a glimpse of Lake Erie.  It is big! But then it would be, wouldn't it?

• Quite a bit of time can be passed discussing the subtle variations on the meaning of the word skwudge.  As in, the right lane is about to end so you need to skwudge left now. Or, Lowell there isn't room to open the slides so can you skwudge past the dining table and eat your lunch over there on the desk.

 So we arrived at the Erie KOA in due course.  It is in a pretty location.  There seems to be a lot of corn growing around here.  I learned today that the McKean PA mascot is a turtle.  So that probably explains why one of the campground rules is "No Swimming in the pond on account of snapping turtles". 

We are all cozy in our campsite now, dinner has been served, blogs have been written and Brett is puzzling over how to buy something on the iTunes store.  Life is good!

Day 1 - Go West Old Man

The entry on Brett's calendar this morning said "Go West Old Man".  It made me smile.
Here we are at just before 7am getting a very good start to our day.  I did declare that 7am would be the start time and was pleasantly surprised to get moving at 6:58am.  This is probably a record for us.  Usually the minute we are set to leave, somebody has to go to the bathroom or dust something or brew a pot of tea.  But other than carrying out a couple dozen more bags (well, maybe 3 more bags but honestly why do I need to pack the whole house when we go away?) we just got up, fixed a cup of coffee and hit the road.  Seattle is a long, long way away but we'll take it 300 miles at a time and see what happens.

 The first thing that really, really needed to happen is another cup of coffee.  Kennebunk rest area is such a friendly sight when you've been noticing for an hour that you've only had one cup of coffee.  This stop also invigorated and prepared us for our second traditional stop on any trip (the NH Liquor Store).  We should have enough alcohol to make it to Juneau and back if we should choose to do so.  I wonder if the truck would run on Limoncello?  It would certainly smell better and I KNOW it would be cheaper.  $4.25 for a gallon of diesel?  Really!?  Of course, if we had to go to the Limoncello pump we'd miss out on all the diesel driving big rig characters who are plying I90. 

 Speaking of characters.  No first, let's speak of the service plazas on the Mass Pike.  I've got this great book called Exit Now and as the navigator I'm expected to be able to tell the driver where the next fuel stop is or where we might pull over to fix some lunch.  The book lets me know what exit has what.  It has rarely failed me.  But what it doesn't do is warn you that even if you follow the arrow marked "trucks/trailers" there won't be one darned place where you can actually stop your truck/trailer and get out.  Two service plazas later, we finally get to actually stop by going into the "cars" portion and pulling off the side of the road.  This did however allow us to open the main slide and actually have room to prepare and eat our own lunch.  Then our driver needed a nap and, not being one to look a gift nap in the mouth, our college student decided to take one as well.  So I was left with my knitting, sitting in a recliner, watching the world go by on I90.  If I had a penny for everytime I've said that...

So, back to that character.  A young woman in a small sedan just looks out of place at the truck diesel pumps.  Lowell mentioned that he was going to ask her if she knew she was pumping diesel.  No chance to do that as she moved over to the regular gas pumps but AFTER she pumped some amount of the diesel.  I'm told that a diesel engine will run really hot for a short time if you put gas in it but we're not sure what happens to a gas engine if you add diesel.  We did not happen to notice any fireballs along the rest of the route so maybe she did all right.

We decided not to do a mad rush on this trip and settled on about 300 miles a day with a campground at the end of each day.  I'll sleep in a WalMart parking lot if I have to but it's much nicer to be able to fix dinner and take a shower.

We found the Herkimer Diamond Mine KOA in Herkimer NY.

According to Wikipedia, this area is a favorite collecting area for rockhounds because of its vast deposits of large quartz crystals known as "Herkimer diamonds." Although the minerals are not true diamonds and not generally used as gemstones, they have become popular as small trinkets. The minerals formed in Cambrian age limestone and dolostone, probably from ground water action after the original formation of the rock in an ancient sea.

There are about 10 other people at the campground tonight; it is very quiet and a lovely spot.

 We got site #59 which is right next to the West Canada Creek.  There was a big rainstorm last night so the ground is still a bit damp (is an ankle deep puddle damp?).  But with trees and the pretty stream behind us, it is a very nice spot to spend the night. 

 This is the view from our rear window.  Per Wikipedia:  The West Canada Creek got its name from being the western boundary of Sir William Johnson's Royal Land Grant, and because the Iriquois word for village is "Kanata" or Canada. Following the Revolutionary war, Arthur Noble II purchased some 80,000 acres (320 km²) in the present town of Ohio, and called it "Nobleboro", a vast wilderness empire for that time in history. He also founded Nobleboro, Maine on land he inherited from his father. The timber, fish, and game of the area have been exploited for centuries.

Per Sandy:  Even though he looks like a crusty old curmudgeon and I seldom manage to snap a picture with him smiling, he is having a great day. 

Monsoon Marketing

There hasn't been too much traveling yet so it has been pretty easy to keep up with me.  It seems that many of my entries involve grocery shopping doesn't it?
 
Summer is in full bloom now and the weather has been full of heat and humidity and lots of thunder and lightening.  It should be possible to plan my outings around the weather but lately every trip to the market has involved a sudden torrential rain.  When it comes to $1.99 per pound chicken breasts, one does what one must.