Our RV Adventures

Despite the overcast, spitting rain, weather today was another day trip day. We headed at about 11am, first over to Batesville to check out Weberding’s Carving Shop.

Celebrating their 70th anniversary, they’re one of the largest suppliers of custom church furniture in the US. They even have a display of miniature versions of some of their offerings.

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Need a finely detailed camel? This one is only $6500.00!

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They even have a line of all-wood furniture made with a tree limb frame.

Our next stop was a few miles up the road at Metamora, IN. Metamora is the home of one of the last visible sections of the Whitewater Canal. Built between 1836 and 1847, the seventy-six mile canal, ran between Lawrenceburg, IN on the Ohio River and Hagerstown, IN.

Developed after the opening and immediate financial success of the Erie Canal, the State of Indiana financed the building of the Whitewater. But the steep route, twice as steep as the Erie Canal, required 56 locks, seven dams, and even 4 aqueducts to carry it over other rivers.

The high cost of this route, plus the damages caused by heavy rains, delayed construction several times, and even led to the State of Indiana going bankrupt in 1839.

The canal was only open along its entire length for a few months before severe flooding took parts out of commission. It never was completely open after 1847.

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The Benjamin Franklin III is a replica of the boats that actually plied the canal, and you can take a ride on it today.

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This grist mill opened in 1845 and is still in operation grinding corn and wheat.

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This 12 foot waterwheel powers the mill through an underground shaft.

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After getting to Metamora we found that most of the many shops were closed on Monday and Tuesdays, but the Canal House was open.

Home to over 2600 cookie jars and a thousand salt and pepper shakers, the jars range from Darth Vader and Batman to Hopalong Cassidy and Dilbert.

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But now they have one less cookie jar since I brought home this moose jar for Jan.

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Leaving Metamora, we headed up the road about 50 miles to Greenville, OH, home of the KitchenAid appliance company, where Jan was looking for a new hand mixer.

And while we were there we saw this KitchenAid mixer that used to belong to Julia Child.

It’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll finish up our trip tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." – P.J. O’Rourke

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We decided to let Jan rest up a little more before hitting the sightseeing trail again. She’s doing better, but the voice is hit or miss. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just squeaks and fades away.

So Nick and Terry headed down to Frankfort KY to check out some yarn and loom places while Jan and I goofed off back at the rig. I did work on a couple things, but overall, the cloudy, trying to rain, day made goofing off almost a necessity.

Daddy Lowell posted some new Landon pics to Facebook.

Nick called a little after 3 to say they probably wouldn’t be back for supper, so we were on our own tonight.

So about 5 we headed over to Batesville to check out Skyline Chili, which along with Goldstar Chili, is one of the premier Cincinnati Chili places.

We each had a Chili Cheese Coney,

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along with a plate of ‘Ways’. ‘Ways’ is plate of spaghetti topped with chili and then covered in shredded cheese, lots of shredded cheese.

That’s a ‘3-Way. If you add diced onions or beans, it’s a ‘4-Way’. And if you get onions AND beans, it becomes a ‘5-Way’. In this case, Jan got a ‘4-Way’ and I got a ‘5-Way.

Cincinnati chili tastes a bit different than Texas chili. Although you can get it in a bowl, most people eat it on coneys or spaghetti. It seems a little sweeter, and most of the Internet copycat recipes call for cinnamon and allspice, not normally used in Texas chili. But Texas or not, it is good.

After dinner we ran by Kroger’s for a few things, and then did the DQ drive-thru thing for a couple of vanilla cones before heading back to the park.

Getting home we found Nick and Terry back so we talked over tomorrow’s plans before turning in for the night.

Hopefully Jan will continue to improve.

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Thought for the Day:

"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous." — Robert Benchley

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And here’s where we were 3 years ago.

Canada, Oh, Canada…

Originally posted on September 16, 2009

Today we headed back into Canada for a few days on our way to Rome, NY and Niagara Falls.

We could have gone back by staying in the States, but going through Canada was only about 50 miles further.

So why not?

About 9:30 am we drove the truck down to have breakfast at our favorite Big Stop truck stop and then by 11:15 we were back there with the rig filling up with diesel. While we were in Canada last week I just put enough in to get us back to the States since diesel is about $1 more a gallon there.

We put in 102 gallons for $280 and by 11:30 we were on our way up US 1.

We were heading toward Quebec and the town of Notre Dame du Lac (Our Lady of the Lake) about 150 miles away.

One of the things we wanted to do was to drive to the end of US 1 in Fort Kent, ME, since we had been in Key West, FL at US 1′s Mile Marker 0, and although we didn’t travel all of US 1 between FL and ME, we did travel a lot of it.

Here is the photo I took of Mile Marker 0 in Key West.

And here is the other end in Fort Kent, ME.

And then about a block past the end of US 1 we took a right turn across the Rue Ferry bridge and we were back in New Brunswick, Canada.

Customs took about 10 minutes and we were on our way. And about 12 miles later we entered the province of Quebec for the first time. Then an hour later we pulled into our park in Notre Dame du Lac.

This may be the most beautiful site we’ve been in so far. We’re parked on a bluff overlooking a lake.

And Mister really enjoys the view too.

After we puttered for a while we headed to find a place to eat. We drove about 6 miles north to the town of Cabano and found a nice-looking restaurant called ‘Bistro du Duc’ or ‘Duke’s Bistro’.

Our waitress didn’t speak much English and I don’t speak much French. Spanish and German are more my thing. But we did get our order OK. We ordered the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and it was really good.

One thing I’ve noticed is that in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, pretty much all signs, i.e. traffic signs, street signs, billboards, etc, are in both English and French. However that apparently doesn’t work both ways.

Here in Quebec, everything is in French, with no English at all. Even Stop Signs say ‘Arret’, and not ‘Stop’.

We saw this last year too, going through Canada to Alaska. All of the English TV channels had French subtitles and/or French audio subchannels.

But the French language channels had no English translations whatsoever. When I mentioned this to a waitress in Whitehorse, she just laughed and said “You’ve noticed that, have you”.

Getting back to the rig, I got the satellite set up and Jan and I enjoyed the view. By then it was starting to get a little chilly, so we went in for the night.

Tomorrow we will head for Quebec City about 150 miles away.

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