Our RV Adventures

The carry-on suitcases we ordered for our cruise came in late Friday evening but I didn’t bring them home until this afternoon.

And I must say they certainly looked bigger online than in person. I’m pretty sure I cannot get a month’s worth of stuff in these. And I KNOW Jan can’t. So we’ll almost certainly be taking one or two checked bags along as well as our carry-on’s.

Thought I’d repost our last visit with Butch and Fonda in Indiana, when we visited them in 2014 along with friends, Nick and Terry Russell.

At Least Two!

Today was a road trip day which meant we had to get to up entirely too early. Early enough to be on the road at 9:00. That’s how early.

Nick and Terry, and Jan and I headed out for Peru, IN so Jan could track down some of her old haunts from when she lived here in 1957 when her father was stationed at Bunker Hill Air Force Base.

But our first stop was in Twelve Mile, IN to visit Butch and Fonda Williams, long time RV friends from Nick’s Gypsy Journal Rally’s.

Nick was dropping off his RV fuel door locks to have them keyed alike and then we will pick them up on the way home.

By the time we got into the Peru area, it was after 11, so we made a quick stop at McDonald’s for a lunch bite.

The first place Jan was hoping to find was the house they lived in. Jan told me she remembered it was a little outside of town heading towards Logansport, and only a couple of blocks from the Wabash River.

So looking at the map yesterday, it looked like there was only one subdivision that was a likely candidate.

And when we drove down the first possible street, she yelled out, “That’s it.”

She said that when she lived here there was a big picture window on the front where they put their Christmas tree.

It looks like it hasn’t been lived in in a while, but it hasn’t been too long since there was a satellite dish on the back.

As we came into town, we saw a sign that Peru was the birthplace of Cole Porter, the famous Broadway composer, so we tracked it down so Nick could get some pictures for a Gypsy Journal story.

Our next stop was the Circus Hall of Fame located outside of town. At one time Indiana was the winter home for over 100 circuses. And 10 called Peru home at one time.

The first circus was held in Peru in 1884, and many started wintering here soon after. In fact Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show played here several times.

One of the stand-out exhibits is a very large diorama depicting an old-time circus, with a lot of detail.

Heading back into town, we dropped Nick and Terry off at the International Circus Museum in the downtown area. Jan and I headed a couple of blocks away for the Miami County Museum.

Jan wanted to look at old phone books and city directories to see if her family was listed. But we didn’t find anything. Apparently they weren’t there long enough to be in the books.

Jan also wanted to look for information about her old elementary school, which we figured out was called Ridgeview Elementary. She already knew it had been torn down in the 70’s, but she was hoping to find a picture of it.

We did find this photo from 1909, which means Jan’s school was already 50 years old when she went there.

We had already found this photo of her school on the Classmates website.

Leaving the Museum, and based on some info from the Curator there, we drove out to the cemetery so Nick could get some pictures of Cole Porter’s grave.

Leaving the cemetery, and also based some info from the Museum Curator, we stopped at the Carousel Ice Cream Shop for a cold treat. We been told how great the ice cream was there, and pulling into the lot, it was easy to see why their ice cream was so good.

They had a big sign in front that said, “We Proudly Serve Blue Bell Ice Cream.”

Well, of course it’s good. It’s from Texas.

By now it was about 4:30, time to head back home. But first we stopped off at Butch and Fonda’s again to pick up Nick’s rekeyed locks, and also check out this 1951 or 52 Crosley Super Sedan Convertible that Butch was working on for a customer.

Butch is well-known in the Crosley world as a source and manufacturer of Crosley parts. In fact he has a whole warehouse of parts and the machines to built new parts.

And yes, the propeller on the front actually spins in the wind.

But the real question of the day, is how many clowns can fit in a Crosley Clown Car.

And the answer is . . .

At least two.

For my part, I think the car is like Dr. Who’s TARDIS.

It’s bigger on the inside than the outside. That’s the only explanation for how Nick and I could both fit.

Finally leaving Butch and Fonda’s, we headed up to Mishawaka to have dinner at the Golden Corral.

After a really good meal, and eating ‘til we almost hurt., we got back to the rigs about  8:30 after a long but very nice day.

Thought for the Day: 

Sometimes, when you can no longer accept the things that you cannot change, it’s time to buckle down and change the things you no longer want to accept.

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We spent this morning on a number of different things, some trip-related, some not. We did look back through our possible extra-cost excursions, trying to decide which if any we want to add to our trip.

I also ordered a couple of these compact travel umbrellas to take along with us. They are pretty good size and have the best reviews,

but really they only have to last for the trip. And at $17 each that’s not too bad.

Jan got the Pink Peach version,

while, keeping the Van Gogh theme, got the Starry Night one.

While I was ordering stuff I went ahead and ordered another bottle of the Busch’s Aluminum Wash, since doing all four rig wheels pretty much uses up an entire bottle. FWIW I’ve tried a number of other brands that I’ve bought locally but this stuff is the only thing I’ve found that works.

And while I was thinking about stuff for the trip that we’d ordered, I thought to the TSA Prohibited List and found, as I had suspected, that our sharp-pointy walking sticks are not allowed in our carry-on bags, but must be checked. Not a big deal though since we’d already thought about checking a single, larger bag in addition to our two bags each that we will be carrying on.

I also made our coach once again legal to drive by digging out and installing our license plate stickers, so now we’re good to go for next Sunday’s test drive and the family trip up to Kingsland Friday week.

And on another coach note, I talked with Cummins on Friday about the burnt-on residue on my oil filter mount and the tech said it is pretty hard steel rather than aluminum, so I should  be able to scrape it if I have to without worrying too much about scratching it, as long as I’m careful.

And he also said the oil filter mount is replaceable. “Four bolts and it comes right off,” he said. However, I suspect this is one of those ‘MUCH easier said than done’ situations, based on the location.

Without orangutan arms I don’t think you can reach it from underneath, and you can’t see it from the rear engine compartment. So I’ll have to see if it’s at all accessible from under the bed.

So I’m crossing my fingers that the leak is fixed now.

We knew long-time friends Butch and Fonda Williams were coming through Houston on their way from Quartzite, AZ to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation Park in Summerdale, AL, where we stayed last October on our way to Florida. But we weren’t quite sure where or when we would be able to meet.

But they ended up ‘rest-stopping’ last night the other side of Columbus, and called this morning a little after noon to say they were at the Baytown Buc-ee’s. So we headed up to meet them there.

They’ve got a 1987 MCI bus that they converted and put in a new engine, and recently spent the winter at Quartzite. So now they’re heading back to their home in Indiana by way of south Alabama.

Sounds like 2008, our first year on the road, where we came home to Houston from Alaska via Gatlinburg, TN and the Smoky Mountains.

After catching for a bit, we headed right down the feeder about a mile to have lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse, their first visit to one.

Not only did they seem to like their steaks, but we turned them on to our favorite Wedge Salad. And luckily, the restaurant wasn’t really busy, so we were able to spend a couple of hours catching up without the guilt of hogging a table that was needed.

Finally saying our goodbyes, we headed home and they headed on east on I-10 to a nearby rest area for the night. Hopefully we’ll see them their next time through here.

Last week I posted the following as a Thought For The Day.

Wife tells programmer husband “Pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work and if they have eggs, get a dozen.” (If you’re a programmer this is hilarious!)

Several readers, who were programmers, or programmer’s spouses, disagreed with the hilarity of the statement, and said they didn’t get it. In hindsight I guess I should have clarified it as ‘OLD programmers.’

Several others, from my early programming time-frame, saw it the same way I did. So I guess you had to start out in the stone-age of computers like I(we) did.

In my case I started out at age 17 in 1966, programming in Fortran II on the IBM 360 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Everyone was talking about/waiting for, Fortran IV.

Never did figure out what happened to Fortran III?

So I guess you had to be there, or maybe ‘then’.

Thought for the Day:

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that’s falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?

ghjnh