Our RV Adventures

We left Little Farm on the River RV Park in Rising Sun, IN a few minutes after 9 and headed north on US 127, arriving in Celina, OH about 12:15.

We drove into the Mercer County Fairgrounds and spent about 10 minutes driving around trying to find where to check-in. Finally saw a small sign in front of an RV parked over in one corner that said “Camp Host”.

Way to make it easy, guys..

We parked and got set up along the side of a barn with no problems, and settled in.

This fairgrounds is a lot nicer than others we’ve stayed at, and makes for a pleasant stay. We were here last September for the Eastern Gypsy Journal Rally and really enjoyed it then too.

About 1 pm we headed out to China Wok Buffet, one of our top five Chinese restaurants, and it was as good as we remembered. After lunch we drove over to WalMart, and along the way we encountered “Big Bob”, “The World’s Largest Man-Made Bass”, a promotion gimmick for Grand Lake here in Celina.

Constructed in the 1800’s as a reservoir for the Miami and Erie Canal which connected the Ohio River with Lake Erie, Grand Lake was once the largest man-made lake in the world. Strangely though it covers over 13,000 acres, it’s only 5 to 7 feet deep.

And in case you’re wondering, Owen Falls in Uganda is now the world’s largest man-made lake.

After getting back to the rig about 3 and having a short nap, I got the satellite set up.so we could watch some TV.

Then about 6:45 we drove over to our other favorite restaurant here in Celina, La “Carreta Mexican Restaurant. They make a great Chicken Tortilla Soup, and Jan really likes their Grilled Chicken dishes. The chips and salsa are really good too.

Tomorrow we travel about 155 miles further north to Elkhart, IN, where we’ll be for a month.

More tomorrow…

Quote of the day:
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. – De La Lastra’s Law

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We’re presently parked at the Little Farm on the River RV Park in Rising Sun, IN, about 25 miles from Cincinnati, OH.

This park is in the middle of a working farm that runs right down to the Ohio River and we’re surrounded by corn and soybean fields

About 10:00 am we headed into Cincinnati. Strangely enough, although Ohio is just across the river, we have to go through Kentucky to get there. Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky all come together right here in this corner of the country.

Our first destination was Quaker Steak and Lube, a hot wing place we first ate at in Buffalo, NY last year on our way back from Newfoundland. When we were there the big promotion was their “Atomic Wings”. These rate about 150,000 on the Scoville Heat Scale (a jalapeno rates between 2500 and 8000) and you have to sign a release before they will serve them to you. Jan and I got a sample order (5 wings) and we both thought they were pretty hot, hotter than anything we’ve eaten before. Jan could only eat one.

This time they have a new deal. “Triple Atomic Wings” with a 500,000 rating. Unfortunately they don’t offer a sampler of the Triples, and I didn’t want a whole order of 10, so we didn’t get to try them.

But Jan and I both agreed that either we had both lost a lot of taste buds, or these “Atomic Wings” today weren’t as hot as the ones we had last year. But they were good. We also had some regular Hot Wings and some Buckeye BBQ, which rates at about  5000.

One thing I really like about Quaker Steak is that their chicken pieces are a good bit bigger than either Hooter’s or Buffalo Wild Wings.

After lunch we stopped off for gas and car wash before heading over to the main course for the day, EnterTRAINment Junction. Yes, it’s spelled correctly.

EnterTRAINment Junction is a trained-themed attraction that has a railroad museum, and what I was really there for, the world’s largest indoor model railroad.

With over 25,000 sq. ft., 90 trains with more than1200 cars, 2 miles of track, and over 6000 handmade trees, it’s really something.

I had a large HO layout when I was a kid, and if we weren’t living in the RV I might think about building another one. But in the meantime I still like reading about them, and visiting large layouts when possible. Last year I visited the Model Railroad Museum near Lancaster, PA, but this one is much bigger.

As I said, my layout was HO, which at the time was the smallest scale at 1/87 real size. The trains we say today were G scale, or 1/22.5

Now there are two smaller scales than HO  N scale, at 1/160, and Z scale at 1/220. An locomotive in Z scale is less than 2 inches long.

We also enjoyed the American Railroad Museum, which had a lot of interesting displays and artifacts. One thing that I found funny was that when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific work crews approached their meeting from opposite directions, they passed each other by and kept on going for another 100 miles. They were getting paid by the mile and didn’t want to stop. Finally the Government stepped in and declared Promontory, Utah the meeting point.

Leaving the Junction we head back to the rig, but detoured through downtown Cincinnati to get some flavor of the city. It’s a very nice town with a lot of new big buildings going up.

I kept looking for the Flimm building, but never found it.

Getting back to the rig a little before 5 we decided it was nap time for an hour or so. Then about 6:30 we headed out for dinner at Skyline Chili, one of two chili-based restaurants in this area, the other being Goldstar Chili.

Everything is pretty much chili. Chili Dogs, chili burritos, salads with chili on them, and even chili spaghetti. And of course, all of it covered with grated cheese and onions.

And it was delicious. Hopefully we’ll get to try Goldstar some other time.

Tomorrow we head north about 135 miles to Celina, OH for the night before getting into Elkhart, IN on Sunday.

More tomorrow…

Quote of the day:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye. – Miss Piggy

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