Our RV Adventures

Today was going to be a daytrip day so I was up about 8:45, too early, since I didn’t get to sleep until about 3am. The things I do for Nick.

Jan and I started out with cheese toast made with some of the fresh-baked bread that Terry Russell brought over last night, which almost made up for Nick’s idea for us to leave at 10am. Some days I’m not even up at 10.

Our first stop was the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond, IN.

Besides being a very nice Welcome Center, its real claim to fame is the fact that it houses the John Dillinger Museum. You’ve gotta like a place whose motto is “Crime Doesn’t Pay…But It Does Charge Admission”.

They have an really amazing amount of Dillinger memorabilia, including the wooden gun he carved from a broomstick for an earlier jail escape, and the pants he was wearing when he was killed.

He was killed in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago after being ‘fingered’ by Anna Sage, the infamous ‘Lady in Red’. In reality, she actually wore an orange dress, but I guess ‘Lady in Orange’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This is an example of Dillinger’s favorite escape vehicle, a 1933 Essex Terraplane 8, renowned for its power and speed.

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They also had a very nice display of the many types of weapons that Dillinger and his gang liked to use.

Like Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, who really did not say “I rob banks because that’s where the money is”, Dillinger and his cohorts DID rob police stations because that’s where the guns were.

One of his real favorites was the .45 cal Thompson Submachine Gun, as displayed 2nd and 3rd from the top in this photo.

Strangely enough, it’s also Jan’s weapon of choice as well.

Though Jan prefers the magazine-fed model, rather than the drum-fed, because it’s less likely to jam.

And while we’re being picky, this not a Thompson ‘clip’. It is a Thompson Drum Magazine. Unclear about the difference between a Magazine and a Clip? This should make it clear.

But for what it’s worth, Willie Sutton also carried a Thompson on many of his bank robberies, because he said, “You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality,”

He further said that none of his weapons were ever loaded because “somebody might get hurt.”

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Leaving the Welcome Center, we headed east to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Welcome Center to get our National Park Passports stamped and to look around.

Later it was on to Michigan City, IN so Nick could check out the storefront of a kite place that he found at the Shipshewana Flea Market last Wednesday. He even got to try out a couple of models on the Lake Michigan beachfront.

About 5pm we headed back to Elkhart and had dinner once again at King Wha, a really good Chinese place. I’m gradually working my way up their hot sauce scale. This time they used two extra hot sauce amounts when cooking my Hunan Chicken. Next time I’m going for three.

Either they’ll run out of hot sauce, or my head will explode. We’ll see which one comes first.

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Apparently Yogi was wandering around Daytona Beach, FL looking for Boo Boo and his Pic-A-Nic basket, but decided to take a short nap in a hammock in someone’s yard.

Those short naps are so refreshing.

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Thought for the Day:

My imaginary friend thinks that yours have a problem.

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I spent most of this morning hobbling around and trying to stay off my feet, or specifically my right knee. Once it a while it goes out on me, and this time has been worse than most.

I’ve been banged up a lot in my life, but, between football and parachute jumps that didn’t quite go as planned, my right knee and leg got it worse than the rest. So sometimes I pay the price of my wild and crazy youth.

Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be on the mend.

About 2:30 Nick and I drove over to Phoenix Commercial Paint , Michelle Henry’s RV Paint facility. Michelle is well-known in the RV world as one of the best places to get your RV painted or customized. If you want a new paint job, Michelle is the person to see.

But today, I wanted to talk to Josh, to see about getting my cracked passenger side windshield replaced. Looks like everything’s now in motion. One thing I want to do is to pull out both the good driver side glass, and the cracked passenger side so the gasket can be replaced. American Coach recommend that be done, since the one on there now is 15 years old and becoming stiff and brittle.

Unfortunately we will probably have to put Beauty in the shop to have this done.

About 5:30 Nick and Terry, and Jan and I, drove over to George’s Gyros, a place recommended by Chris and Charles Yust of C and C RV Insurance fame. Nick and Terry had eaten there with them, and now it was our turn.

George’s Gyros (pronounced ‘your rows’, not ‘gy rows’) has a distinct Greek flavor. With pita bread, Greek olives, and feta cheese, you can indulge your taste for Greek salads and food. But they’re also known for their Rib Tips, BBQ Ribs, BBQ Chicken, Chicken Wings, and Burgers.

Jan, Terry, and I got the Gyro and Spinach Pie Plate below.

Of course, meat and potatoes Nick got a double-cheeseburger and fries. Just no sense of adventure.

For the gyros, you use the pita bread like tortillas, putting the gyro meat inside. along with tomatoes, sliced onions, peppers, and gyro sauce (a yogurt/sour cream mixture). Just like we do with fajitas down in Houston. The gyro meat is delicious. Really good.

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Jan’s sister, Debbie sent over this X-Ray of her granddaughter Ella.

Ella apparently decided to be her own piggybank, and recently made her first deposit.

A quarter.

Well, you have to start somewhere.

They’re still waiting for change.

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I got several emails yesterday about my Photoshop (well, Paint Shop Pro) tutorial. And today I came across this illustration,

It had the heading “When you see the creepy thing, hit share.” Well, to save you the trouble, the ‘creepy thing’ is the disembodied hand on the right arm of the little girl.

I figure she was crying in the original shot, so someone took her from another shot and put her in this one. Don’t know why they left the hand. Maybe thought no one would notice, or ran out of time.

Anyway, even without the spooky hand, you can tell this has been Photoshopped by looking at the blowup of the photo below.

The vertical bar in the center of the pic is a dead giveaway. You never really have abrupt transitions like this without some sort of anti-aliasing (the gradual transition of color from one pixel to another)

Look at the pixels over the rest of the photo and you’ll see what I mean.

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Tomorrow it looks like a road trip to Michigan City, Indiana. Assuming I can still walk.

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Thought for the Day:

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” — George Orwell

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