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.