Out and about in Dayton, Ohio

Dayton is bigger than I thought, over 800,000  people in the metropolitan area, home to Wright-Patterson AFB, the largest AFB in the U.S. It's mission is research, development, flight training and intelligence.  The base is so large we keep getting lost, we can't leave breadcrumbs because we kept going the wrong way, ending up in dead-ends or going in a circle.  It is home to the Wright Brothers and (who knew?) 4-H.

Saturday, April 18th, A beautiful day, maybe spring is springing in the mid-west, with highs in the 70's we blinded Daytonians with our white legs.  The sun feels so good.  We drove to the downtown area, the base is about 10 miles NE of WPAFB.  We tried to visit the Visitor Center, closed, looks like we're on our own.  The downtown area was pretty quiet except for the Riverscape Area, volunteers were completing clean up of the various parks in Dayton and were being treated with lunch.  I thought it might be a Volkswalk at first, walkers heading toward the canopied area along the river.  We walked around a bit before searching out a place for lunch.  We happened upon Brixx Ice House, a restaurant and bar housed in a historic building.  Since Luci was with us, we sat outside, it was very pleasant.  While we were there a guy came in with his Eskimo dog which made her go nuts.  Went back to Fam Camp to enjoy the rest of the day.  Our neighbors, Ed and Gail are from the area, having recently sold their large home and waiting to hit the road.  About the time they left their home Gail was diagnosed with cancer, her fourth bout, so they need to stay in the area until her chemo is finished and she gets a clean bill of health.  Their little dog, Tootsie, a little cairn terrier like Dorothy's dog, wanted to get to know Luci but was a little overwhelmed with her energy and size.  I made a salad for dinner then we watched the movie Gone Girl. It was a bit "naughty" in places, but I enjoyed it as much as the book.  We tried to rent a DVD in Indy but couldn't get it to play.  The technicians in Decatur discovered the player wasn't connected. 

Sunday, April 19th, Mother Nature played a dirty trick on us, yesterday was so beautiful, today-well not so much.  A cool, wet and windy day, no shorts for us!  We worked on our itinerary, since nothing is planned after Dayton.  I did a little laundry, mostly just hunkered down (again).  I decided to go to the Commissary to pick up something for dinner, hmmmmm, they locked the door as I walked up.  Seems they close at 5 on Sunday.  Being very resourceful, we went out to dinner.  Since the weather was so nasty we wanted to stick close to the base.  We found a family restaurant  amongst a slew of fast food chains,  in your typical base neighborhood.  Well the nicest thing I can say, it was a waste of calories. Our tummies were full that's all that counted.  Gary picked up "Fury" at Red Box only to discover when we got back to the coach that our player is not Blue-Ray.

Monday, April 20th, A very, very windy day.  There are many advantages to staying in Fam Camps, however reveille is not one of them.  Our plan today is to go to the National Museum  of the Air Force, we just got an earlier start than we'd planned.  On CBS Sunday Morning there was a segment on the last 2 surviving members of the Doolittle Raiders receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor on April 15th, then donating them to the AF museum on Sunday.  Col. James Doolittle and his 80 Raiders in April of 1942  launched  attacks on Japan that led to the ending of the war, all of the men volunteered for the mission.  It was interesting to read that some of their  training was in Pendleton, Oregon because it's location  on a hill is with strong winds were  similar to taking off an aircraft carrier.  The museum has close to 500 planes in four buildings.  A segment to the Early Years of Aircraft, WWII, Korean, Southeast Asia, The Cold War and Presidential Aircraft and Research and development in a separate building on base.  The old style airplane hangers look like large quonset huts housing the planes.  The first building was devoted to the early years and WWII, the second, Korea and SE Asia, the third the Cold War.  The last building was on base, half was research and development and the other half the Presidential airplanes.  We were able to go through four of the AF1's.  Roosevelt's had an elevator and a special width chair that enabled him to go down the aisle.  Truman used the plane next for a short while, then the next AF1 was built just a little larger.  Following Truman, Eisenhower used it for a short while too, but since blood was bad between Truman and Eisenhower, Eisenhower wanted his own plane.  The next AF1 was Kennedy's and Johnson's.  We stood in the same spot where Johnson took the oath of office standing beside Jackie.  Originally the casket was going to be put down below but Jackie insisted be in the same area as her.  They had to made adjustments by sawing part of a wall to get it in.  The last one we were able to see was used by the Bush's and Clinton.  Reagan's AF1 is in his presidential library in Simi Valley, Ca.

Tuesday, April 21st, We missed reveille this morning, just a little slow getting going.  We headed out to the Wright Memorial on the hill overlooking Huffman Prairie, the sight of Orville and Wilbur's field and barn that they tested their planes.  It is true the first flight was at Kitty Hawk North Carolina but previous to that they had short flights on Huffman Field. In 1903 Orville flew the first power-driven machine, he flew 120 feet in 12 seconds, later Wilbur flew 852 feet in 59 seconds.  They had to quit because the stiff winds flipped the "plane" damaging it.  Back to the drawing board in Dayton.  The Wright brothers were quite the inventors, in high school they developed a printing press so their pastor father could print the Sunday bulletins.  They went on to own a bicycle shop building a better bicycle, all the while researching flying.  In 1905 Orville flew the latest flying machine, staying in the air 39 minutes before running out of fuel.  And the rest is history.  After lunch at the Brixx Ice house(when we're in Dayton we always eat at the Brixx) we went to the Wright Brother's Visitor Center and the Wright Cycle Company.  Of course no visit to Dayton would be complete with out a visit to the cemetery, this being the Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum located on the highest point in Dayton.  In the 1840's the 40 acres were chosen for the hilltop views and rolling hills.  Today there are over 200 acres in one of the oldest garden cemeteries in the US.  Gary commented he would hate to be a pall bearer, some of the areas are very steep.  Notable people buried there include the Wright Brothers, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and Erma Bombeck.  We searched and searched for her gravestone.  Turns out it is just a 29,000 lb rock.  Dog and boy is notable because after the boys burial the dog sat at the grave for days, people started bringing food.  To this day, people leave toys and trinkets at the gravesite.

Wednesday, April 22nd, While in Rockport, Texas we became friends with Chef Betty, an Ohio native, who owned Coldwater Café in Tipp City only about 10 miles north of Dayton.  Gail, our chum in Rockport suggested we try it out.  Her son now runs the restaurant after working with her for several years. We didn't know what to expect, a café to us suggests just a little restaurant that serves good old home cooking.  Not even close.  Wow!  Finely decorated, even the ladies room was nice.  I had the hummus, veggie pita with a cup of mushroom/sherry soup and Gary had the Rueben. We lived it up and had the chocolate mousse cake made in house. Delish, if you're ever in Tipp City be sure to stop at the Coldwater Café.  Thanks Gail for the suggestion.

Thursday, April 23rd, Our day started very early, the alarm went off at 5:45, we are taking the coach to Freightliner for the 16,000 mile service.  We had to be there at 7:00, then we dropped Luci off at Pet Smart for our drive down to Cincinnati, about 60 miles south, to tour Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals.We got there about 9:00, since the Pro Shop didn't open until 10:00 we killed time geo cacheing.  We walked around the stadium on a cool windy day.  I have to say this was the most enlightening tour we've ever had. The rest of our tour group were staff and residents of a special needs group home.  The seven level stadium, built in 2,000  holds 67,000 people.  There was major construction going on, they were replacing the jumbo trons, and the other scoreboards.  We visited all the usual places, the press box, the club suites, locker room and the field.  This was the first time there were players on the field, they reported on Monday, this is the cool part.  One of the players took a moment to come down to the end zone to hug a man with downs syndrome.  I felt tears well up.  I asked Amy, our tour guide, who the player was. Giovani Bernard, a young running back.  The stadium is owned by Harris County, the Brown family, owners of the Bengals, are the tenants.  We rode back up to the Pro Shop in the freight elevator, a first.  We walked several long blocks downtown for lunch at the Jefferson Social Club, Gary had a huge taco salad and I had by far the best taco's ever, carnitas with pickled onions. Yum,yum, yum!  After eating too much we walked down to the Riverfront, a new project that is revitalizing the area between Paul Brown Stadium and The Great American Ball Park, better known as Reds Stadium. The bridge crossing the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Covington Kentucky was finished in 1867 and was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge.  We decided to walk to Kentucky, what a cool bridge!  Then we walked back to Ohio, boy what a hike, then we had to walk back up to the stadium parking lot for the car.  We got out of Cincinnati before rush hour, getting back to Centerville, stopping at Costco for gas and "stuff" before picking up Luci.  We got back to Freightliner about 5:00 to pick up the coach, they weren't quite done, we ended up sitting in the parking lot until 7:00 then back to the base to set up, finally having dinner about 8:00, a long day.

Friday, April 24th, Moving day, we are headed to a park in rural Ohio just north of I70.  It's only about 170 miles so we took our time getting our act together leaving about noon. When I said rural, I had no idea how rural.  About 50 miles from the border of West (by God) Virginia, we left the freeway driving north into hill country.  It seemed like we drove forever on a narrow, curvy road to Rocky Point Resort, besides a RV park, they have cabins and stables, hosting a rodeo in the summer.  We are supposed to be here until Monday but it's a little remote for our liking.
Enjoy the pic's

TTFN

Gary and Pam

WWII Training Scenario

Stealth bomber

Gary in front of a bomb

Roosevelt's elevator

AF1 Plane Johnson took oath  of office

View of Huffman Field/Wright bros test field

Wright Bros Cycle Co

Replica of Wright bros flying machine

Steep hills at Woodland Cemetery

View from top of cemetery of downtown Dayton

Wright family plot

Dog and boy stone

Literally, Erma Bombeck's stone

According to brochure, most photographed stone

Bridge from Ohio to Kentucky

Paul Brown stadium and field

 

View of Red's field from bridge

Gary on bridge. skyline of Cincinnati

Our spot at Rocky Point RV Resort(?)

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China, Mi., Decatur, In and Dayton, Ohio

Wah hoo!!  After months of fussing and stewing,  the coach is fixed.  I have to compliment Allied Recreation Group, they went through our entire list of "issues" completely and satisfied each and every one.  The coach was in the shop for two weeks, the first week and a half entirely in the shop.  The body work on Gary's "boo-boo" looks like new.  The time went fast for us thanks for Suzanne, Gary's sister, we stayed with them for 12 nights, she and her family were gracious hosts. 

Saturday, April 11th, Suzanne got up very early to pick up 6 laying hens.  She was so excited to finish the chicken coop and fence. (made out of what else, chicken wire).  The hens had a traumatic trip, an hour drive, hen- pecking each other along the way, some of them looked a little bald.  Suzanne said there was no picking or choosing her hens, the lady just grabbed them from the crowd, which was frenzied.  Gary, Luci and I geo cached the Macomb Orchard Trail, a rail road bed from days gone by, picking up 13.  The trail is 23 miles long, we only walked 4 miles, very busy with bicyclists, joggers and walkers.  After getting back and admiring the chickens, we prettied up to go to Fishbones, a sushi restaurant in St. Clair Shores about 40 minutes  drive toward Detroit on Lake St. Clair.  We had some excellent rolls, Boom Boom, made of smoked salmon, eel and shrimp, a spicy tuna and salmon skin, we'd tried the salmon skin one in Austin and it was delish, this one not so much.  We ate way too much, then we topped it off with DQ ice cream---bad idea.

Sunday, April 12th, Gary, Luci and I went back to the Macomb trail for more geo cacheing.  We walked a little more than 4 miles this time picking up 15, they were all real easy to finds.  This time there was a lot of spandex, many serious bicyclists.  When we got back, Suzanne was so excited, she got her first egg!  She fixed BBQ's baby back ribs for dinner,  excellent!

Monday, April 13th, Gary called Decatur, the coach will be done Tuesday.  The day started out to be nice so I washed my car, oh man was it gross.  I made (thanks Costco) a pot roast with veggies, salad and biscuits, Suzanne made an apple pie.  Gary isn't used to home made pies, he was in heaven.

Tuesday, April 14th, Well one more day, Gary called Decatur, they were waiting for the liquor cabinet mirrors to arrive from Indy.  The "mirrors" have been flawed from the day we brought it home, I thought they just  forgot to clean them, but no, I couldn't get the spots off.  Why would anyone send something out of the factory that was obviously bad.  We left Luci with Suzanne while we took a drive to the top of the thumb of Michigan, north past Port Huron our first stop was Port Sanilac, thought  we'd go to the lighthouse since we have a Harbor Lights replica in our collection.  Yes, we still have our stupid lighthouse collection, no one wanted to buy any at our sale.  We walked out a short jetty, we were so surprised to see the clear blue water.  We think we saw ice off shore a little ways.  A local lady stopped to visit with us, she's lived in Port Sanilac about 15 years, a retired photographer, she took several pictures of us in front of the lighthouse.  While we were there we picked up a geo cache in a park across the street.  We continued north along the shore, catching glimpses of beautiful mansions, to Port Austin at the "top", we walked out a jetty, it was such a beautiful day, as Jeff would say "a perfect Michigan day".  We had lunch at the Stock Pot, Gary had piergoits (sp) a gob of goo deep fried.  I think it was a Polish dish, if so, now I know why there are so many Polish jokes. I ate breakfast, yum, yum, yum!  On the drive we noticed many barns and homes  collapsed, they were aged, it looked like the weight of  snow must have been too much for them.  Suzanne told us to stop in Lexington to walk the jetty there.  We saw the prettiest duck, since the water was so clear we see him dive to the bottom for his dinner.  After the jetty walk I checked out a few of the tourist stores, cute clothes, good thing Gary was there I might have parted with a little cash. After getting back to Suzanne's I called our CPA in Salem, he hadn't e-mailed our tax returns to us, I was a little "tweaked",  I took him all of our information in February when I was in Salem.  So again, we had to do an extension.  That's all I'm going to say about that!  Suzanne fixed lemon shrimp fettuccine for dinner, Gary isn't used to good cooking like that.  We started packing for our early departure to Decatur, they close at 2:30 and it's a good four hour drive.

Wednesday, April 15th, Tax day, I did get our extension in the mail, that frees me up to worry about something else.  We left by 8:45, a pretty drive after we got out of the Detroit blight, through mostly Ohio countryside.  Still waiting for the mirrors but everything else was completed.  We've had poor water pressure for a year, wow, what a difference.  They cleaned a lot of construction "gunk" from the pipes.  No food in the frig so we drove 10 miles out in the country to Hoagland's Pizza and Pub. Lots of local flavor, smoking is allowed, cough, cough but the pizza was good.  Bev, the bartender/waitress, is a credit union manager, but says this is her fun job once a week.  She gave us complementary "Dick bites" baked garlic bread bites, just what we needed, but we couldn't turn them down.  Delish!  We ate a few and took the rest along with pizza back to the coach for re-runs. 

Thursday, April 16th, We had to get up early to take the coach for a fuel stop (it took 93 gallons, the most ever) then back to ARG to await the mirrors. We had heavy rain during the night but woke to a beautiful day.  Gary and I took the 2 hour Fleetwood Factory tour, only given Friday mornings because the production line is closed.  They also manufacture American Eagle, Monaco and Holiday Rambler at the plant, all high end motorhomes.  The only work going on was clean up in building one and painting and prep for delivery in building two.  The first building was divided into three lines, the first for the smaller motorhomes and class C, the second, mid size up to 38 feet and the third for the big rigs, 39 feet and up to 45.  We started, naturally, from the chassis, engines, floors etc to the roof, then on to building 2 for painting.  It was interesting to see how the design is put on, stencil like papers are taped on, then the first color to be applied are the smallest, graduating up to the over all color.  Three coats of paint (4 for the high end coaches) followed by a clear coat.  Then we got to tour completed coaches, the first, an American Eagle, which retails for $800,000 and up.  This last week they started production on the 2016 models, we toured a 2016 Discovery, exactly like ours (I did check out the liquor cabinet mirrors) except they added an adjustable bed.  No cameras were allowed in the factory, dang!  Poor Luci was stuck in the car, it was sunny but fortunately still cool. We grabbed a Subway sandwich then drove into town to pick the geo cache we had to skip last week because of muggles.  Stacy called, he is doing good, more mobility and less pain.  Still enjoying the afternoon naps.  As we were sitting on the park bench talking to him, a Amish couple went by in their horse and buggy, making Luci nuts, she hates horses.  We'd seen several couples of Amish the day before in the Dollar Store wearing the same style clothing but when they drove off in their mini-van I figured they must have been Mennonite.  We picked up the coach (yes, the mirrors are good) and headed toward Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, home to the largest aviation air museum, arriving around 5.  It is a nice Fam Camp, the spaces are nice size and lots of grass for Luci to run.  We will be here a week, making side trips to Cincinnati (home of the Bengals) and Columbus.

That's it for this week,

TTFN,

Gary and Pam

Jeff's man cave, all his trophies

Jeff, Suzanne, Gary and me at Fishbones

The first egg

Three of the girls

Port Sanilac LH

Us  in front of Port Sanilac LH

View of LH fro jetty

View from Lexington jetty

Duck ( we don't know what kind)

Decatur, In & E. China, Mi.

The saga continues.  We dropped the coach off at the factory in Decatur, In. for repairs. Greg, our service advisor said they should finish up Monday.  Suzanne, Jeff and Harrison are very gracious hosts, I hope we don't wear out our welcome.  Spring hasn't sprung here in Michigan yet, not seeing any buds or blooms, everything looks brownish grey.  We're looking forward to coming back during the good weather.

Friday, April 3, Today is my brother's birthday!  Happy birthday Punch.  Looks like we got out of Kentucky just in time, there has been heavy rain and flooding.  Greg, our service advisor came by at 8:00 (we had to set alarm clock  to be up on time), to go over everything needing to be done. He was quite thorough and patient with us.  He said it may take up to 2 weeks in the shop, perhaps they could start Friday after lunch, our appointment is for Monday.  We don't have to empty anything except the clothes closet, the technicians will empty everything else and store them in boxes and bins in the shop.  We scurried around packing our things to take with us up to Suzanne's house in E. China, Mi. which is northeast of Detroit about an hour.  We took the closing papers for our timeshare to Fed Ex on our way out of town.  PTL it's almost a done deal.  We headed out for Michigan, thinking we would stop at Ft. Wayne for lunch, we passed a cute looking restaurant on our way out of Decatur so we did a quick U-turn, turned out to be a hog line,  not our favorite type of restaurant but we decided to try it anyway.  I've never seen a buffet with an appetizer bar, I would have been happy with that and the salad  bar but no, I had  to "stuff" myself with everything including  delicious dessert.  Off we waddled to Michigan.  Our route took us from Indiana to Toledo, Ohio to Detroit.  We picked up two new geo cache states within an hour.  We arrived at Suzanne's about 5:30, a drive of 200 plus miles. As we drove through Detroit we were surprised to see all the empty buildings with no windows and graffiti all over. We took a wrong turn (of course) and drove through rough neighborhood.   We wished we had the spray paint concession in Michigan.  The town is just deserted, would the last person leaving Detroit turn the lights off?  Jeff and Suzanne BBQ'd 3" steaks.  They have a lovely home, with a pool in the backyard and quite a man cave in the basement with at least 20 trophies on the wall and a bear on all four's.  Luci was quite taken with all the smells and promptly pee'd on the floor. 

Saturday, April 4th, Jeff's brother invited us over to their new home they finished building, only moved in 3 weeks ago,  for Easter dinner.  Steve and Dawn have 3 kids, 14, 11 and 8, the oldest and the youngest are redheads.  Nice kids.  Jeff picked up Madison, their niece, who recently became a foster child, to go with us.  Grandma arrived with 80 Easter eggs, Harrison, J & S son, hid all of them.  It was so fun to watch them search the house for the eggs, some of which had special prizes.  My grandma never did things like that.  Steve made meat loaf, not your typical Easter dinner, but is was delish.  He got the recipe from the Food Network. Jeff has a fun family.

Sunday, April 5th,  Happy Easter!  We woke up to a light dusting of snow, it was pretty watching the big flakes come down, thank goodness there wasn't much of an accumulation, melting before noon.  We went to Jeff's Mom's for Easter dinner about 3, Steve's family was there along with Aunt Joyce, Uncle Bob and a friend of theirs, Pansey, 97 years old, you'd never believe she was that age.  She is trim, dresses young and sharp as a tack, I'd have guessed maybe she was mid 70's at the most.  Jeff's Mom, Elaine lives right on the St. Clair River, freighters pass her  home going to and from Lake Huron, we didn't see any ships but did watch the ice flow by.  In the spring ice breaker ships pass by so freighters can navigate the river again.  It was strange to realize that just across the river, about as wide as the Willamette, is Ontario Canada.

Monday, April 6th, Stacy, our son is having back surgery today, not the typical ruptured disc, but he has spinal stenosis, the spinal cord narrows and compresses.  The surgeons go in to the spinal column and repair the damaged tissue.  At least that's how I understand it.  He came through the surgery fine and surgeons are pleased with the result.  The hard part will be getting him to follow doctors orders and not over-do.  Gary and I walked 2 1/2 miles of the Bridge to Bay pedestrian/bike trail, the weather was "sort of" decent.  We picked up a few geo caches along the way and saw a garter snake.
After, we had lunch in a local St. Clair restaurant on a canal off the St. Clair River.  We were the only ones there, it was after 2. our waitress, a local, filled us in on the area.  The best part, homemade potato chips with a reduced balsamic vinegar sauce on the side.  We kiddingly asked her for some chips to take home with us, she brought is a large take- out box full with the sauce on the side at no charge.  Didn't last long around here, everyone loves their chips.  I made a pork loin dinner, with roasted red potatoes and a salad.  Jeff goes to bed very early, his day starts at 3:30, he drives to Toronto, a 4 hour drive, to pick up garbage to bring back to Michigan for disposal, usually a long day due to traffic and getting hung up at the border.  Suzanne and I ended the evening watching DWTS.

Tuesday, April 7th,  A quiet day, I did laundry.  At 4:30 Suzanne and I went to her hairdresser for haircuts.  Lindsey did a great job.  For dinner we had bacon wrapped shrimp, rib eye steak and a salad.  I'm going to try this, it was delish! 

Wednesday, April 8th,  We had a lot of errands to run, Gary, Suzanne and I went to Nordy's, Costco and Gary went to a dermatologist in Shelby Townships. The counties are very small here and the smaller towns are called Townships.  Suzanne and Jeff live in E. China Township.

Thursday, April 9th, Gary, Suzanne and I drove up to Point Huron, about 20 miles north, the bridge to Canada crosses the St. Clair River there.  Jeff suggested we drive up there, at the mouth of St. Clair River and Lake Huron to see the huge ice flows.  We had lunch at the Blue Water Restaurant, right on the river watching the chunks pass by.  The weather was pretty dreary, as we ate lunch, a fog formed over the river, giving it an eerie look.  As we headed back to the house it started just pouring, the wipers couldn't keep the rain off.  By the time we got back, it had stopped, the wind died down and got real warm.  The lull before the storm, as I was starting to take the burgers off the BBQ the thunder rumbled, sending me back to the house. Someone else had to finish the job.  As we ate dinner, the lightning flashed and I crawled under the bed, well not really but I hate T & L as much as I hate snakes.  There was a tornado warning for the area about 15 miles from here.  Welcome to the mid-west.

Friday, April 10th, Gary and I headed into Detroit on our quest to visit as many NFL stadiums as we can.  Ford Field is downtown Detroit, an area that still seems vibrant but a few buildings are empty and graffiti covered.  The area the stadium is built was originally a warehouse for the JL Hudson company, similar to Macy's in that era, they saved existing walls, building from there.  The stadium holds 67,000 but for the (ill-fated Seattle/Pittsburgh) Super Bowl in 08 they added 5,000 more seats.  Beats me where they could have put in any extra let alone 5,000.  Lydia, our tour guide told us how much it cost to build, she said 500 billion, I couldn't image so I asked billion or million.  She said billion.  On game day it takes a staff of 5,000 to take care of security, concessions, etc.  While we were there a group of Cub Scouts were having a mini football camp on the turf.  We saw the press room, locker rooms, suites, and went out on the field.  The seats in the Club section are the actual seats from a Ford Explorer, very soft and cushy but no leg room, not even for me.  In the suites the seats are from the Ford Navigator.  After we toured the visiting and home locker rooms I asked Lydia where the cheerleaders locker room was located.  Can you believe this, the Lions do not have cheerleaders, Gary asked what the guys were supposed to watch!  The turf is composed of recycled tires and sand, the softest field I've walked on.  After 5 games they take it up, recycle and replace it.  Ford Field also has other venues, Monster Trucks and some kind of motocross.   We got a call from Suzanne while on the tour, it seems Luci ate some rat poison and she was taking her to the vet.  All is well, they put some kind of pill in her eye to make her vomit..  I've never heard of such a thing.  We have to give her 2 Vit. K pills at dinner every night for a month to make sure her blood coagulates, rat poison makes the rats bleed out.  We went to dinner at a small bar near here, out in the middle of nowhere for fish fry night, they are famous for their fried perch.  We thought we'd get there early but the parking lot was packed already.  We only had about a 10 minute wait, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm the fish was delish!  And by the way, we Googled Ford Field, it cost 500 million not billion.

That's all for this week,

TTFN

Gary and Pam

Saturday Easter dinner, l to r Jeff, Suzanne, Harrison, Elaine, Dawn, Steve, Gary and me

Snack time, l t r  Madison, Dawn, Suzanne & Mara

Gary and Suzanne, isn't is nice they share?

Suzanne and Luci

Gary and I in front of bridge to Canada

I've got to stop "sassing" him

Gary and Suzanne

Ice flow in front of restaurant

Fancy garbage cans Ford Field

Ford Field, Cub Scouts mini camp

The Explorer seats in Club level

Lydia in Lions locker room

Front of Ford Field

Harrison and Luci

The man cave

Nashville, Mammoth Caves, Louisville & Indianapolis

We're on our final leg en route to the lovely town of Decatur, In. (?) We've had some really great weather and then the lousy stuff creeps in just when you think winter is over.  We leave tomorrow for the Fleetwood Factory, we hope to get there early enough to find out what we're going to need to do before the coach goes in for repairs Monday.

Thursday, Mar. 26th, It's grandson Tim's 23rd birthday today.  Happy birthday Tim.  We woke up to thunder, lightning and heavy rain about 3:00 am.  Our last day in Nashville and it's windy and nasty.  We braved the wind and cold to go to Centennial Park to see the Parthenon, built for the Tennessee Centennial in 1897, made out of wood and plaster it didn't weather well, in 1921 it was rebuilt as a permanent structure.  It is a full scale copy of the Parthenon in Greece. We didn't realize there was a museum inside, (no dogs allowed)we had taken Luci with us so Gary went inside while Luci and I walked around the park.  Inside the building is a statue of the Goddess Athena, 42 feet high all gilded in gold leaf.  I did some geo cacheing while waiting for Gary, I tried to find a "micro" on a steam locomotive.  Gary found us, we searched but didn't find it.  We did manage to pick up a couple more before going to lunch at Blackstone Brewery and Restaurant to warm up.  After lunch we went back to the coach and "hunkered" down for the rest of the day.

Friday, Mar. 27th, It's still cold and windy!  We left the KOA about 9:45 heading toward the Mammoth Caves NP area.  We stopped at the Kentucky Welcome Center to pick up maps and brochures.  We picked up our first Kentucky geo cache in the rest area before heading to Bowling Green to visit the Corvette Museum.  We were talking to the man at the information center about the caves in Kentucky, he said caves were under most of the state.  I don't know if he was exaggerating but he blamed the sinkhole last March  at the Corvette Museum on caves.  The sinkhole "ate" 8 irreplaceable Corvettes, 3 were in good enough condition to fix but the other 5 were in various stages of rubble. The cars ranged from the classic 50's to experimental cars.  We had lunch in the coach, Gary took Luci out for a run in the Kentucky grass while I kept warm.  He picked up 2 caches on the property.  We arrived at Diamond Caverns RV Park about 1:30, the trip was only 75 miles. the park had nice roomy spots with lots of grass around for Luci to run off leash. 

Saturday, Mar. 28th, It was 24 degrees when we got up, brrrrrr.  I put my "big girl" panties on, today I was going into my first cave. I've tried several times to go, I either couldn't go in the door or walked out after a short distance.  Mammoth Cave National Park was only about 10 miles down the road from the park.  About 10 different tours are offered.  We took about a 10 minute bus ride to the cave opening.  We chose the domes and dripstones tour, you first take 280 step staircase down to large canyons and underground hill climbs, past the Frozen Niagara formation then the dripstone area. take  Ranger Dave gave us the do's and don'ts.  He said after 40 steps down if you don't think you can do it you can go back but after that you're stuck.  I was doing okay, the walls were narrow and we were with 120 of our best friends.  All of a sudden Gary says "I've got to get out of here!"  The walls were closing in on him and it was getting stuffy.  I put my big girl panties on for nothing.  They called a bus for us to take us back to the visitor center, we were the only ones to bail from the tour.  I'm glad we had the Golden Age Pass, we only wasted $15.  We walked some of the trails, one of them led to the original entrance, we followed a tour to the opening but again just too close for Gary.  At   Diamond Caverns, a private business, Gary decided to check the passage way out to see how narrow they are.  Well, off we went with only 6 other people.  We both managed to get through it without difficulty.  Gary asked me what I thought about the cave, to me it looked "fake", maybe Mammoth Caves has more colors.  One good thing, we got warm in the cave, compared to the outside it felt good.  We picked up a few more geo caches before heading back to the coach.

Sunday, Mar. 29th,  We woke up to 22 degrees, our plan for the day was geo cacheing, it didn't seem like such a great idea due to the weather.  I made some calls, we left a day early to head to Louisville, we got reservations at a RV park in Clarksville, In., just across the Ohio River.  We took the long way around, thanks to my fine navigation skills, our drive turned out to be over 200 miles.  It was strange, we changed from Central time Zone to Eastern about half way to Louisville.  Gary's favorite whiskey is Jim Beam, the distillery is only  off the freeway about 10 miles.  We weren't able to take a tour since it was so late but he did some tasting.  When you enter the tasting room you're given a code card for 2 half ounce shots.  I didn't partake, Gary used both.  In the Still House (gift shop) he bought  bottle of special label JB.  The trip through Louisville was a bit hair raising due to road construction arrived at KOA Clarksville about 5:30.  This RV park wasn't so roomy, with our slide open and the neighbors too, we had just a couple of feet to spare.  No way we could open the awning if we'd wanted to.  The picnic table was under both slides  Friends jokingly told us if you want to find a RV park, just follow the RR tracks, more often than not it's true.  The berm behind the park looked like just a hill, well on top of that were tracks.  The good news was he didn't need to blow his whistle but the rumbling felt like a cement truck was going to hit the side of the coach.  And to top it off, it was expensive!  So if you ever need a RV park in Clarksville, In., don't go to KOA.

Monday, Mar. 30th, Hooray!  It's a nice day!   Neither Gary nor I are horse people but when in Louisville you must go to Churchill Downs.  It is the longest running sports event in America.  William Clarks' grandson went to England, saw a horse race there, in 1875 he started horse racing in Kentucky.  Race Day brings in about 190 million dollars to the track, wagers must pay only with cash.  No debit cards, checks or credit cards are accepted.  Our guide told us about a lady, she made a million dollar wager on a horse to win, it came in 13th.  She got some bad advice from someone.  For $60 you will get general admission into the infield, she told us to look on line to see what it costs to sit in the grandstand.  In the infield, besides not being able to see the race you have to stand with 80,000 others.  The good (?) part is, a major party out there, so much so they have 4 jail cells for those who party too much.  More good news, you can still make a wager from you cell.  We grabbed a quick bite before heading back to the RV park.  As we were crossing the Ohio River we spotted a riverfront park in the small town of New Albany, parts of it were still under construction.  We walked along the river, picking up a few more caches.  On our way out of town we noticed we were on Mansion Row, the historic homes were beautiful.  When we got back to the park we had happy hour in a vacant spot across from us, enjoying the sun.  Before dinner in the coach we managed to pick up a couple of caches in the neighborhood.

Tuesday, Mar. 31st  We left the wonderful KOA behind to head to Indianapolis, our last stop before our trek into Decatur.  We stopped at the Indiana Welcome Center for information and a much needed map, arriving at Lake Haven RV resort a little after 1:00, just a short drive of 112. miles.  Lake Haven, compared to the KOA was first class, we had a little breathing room.  I did laundry and some cleaning preparing for our week or so out of the coach. 

Wednesday, Apr. 1st, Happy April Fools Day!  Another beautiful day,we got ourselves out the door early for our only day in Indy, for a city with a population of almost 2 million it still felt like a small town. We dropped Luci off at day care, our first stop was Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Colts and this week-end the Final Four.  No tours this week, they had to put the floor down and arrange it for basketball.  We visited the pro shop where we bought our sticker for the coach slide.  We now have seven, our goal is to visit all the NFL stadiums.  In the downtown area we walked through War Memorial Mall, which honored Indiana's lost soldiers in WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam and Desert Storm.  At the end of the Mall is the Indiana War Memorial Museum.  The building is huge and beautiful, the shrine room contains 24 stained-glass windows.  After feeding the parking meter we walked up to Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument Circle, unfortunately it was under refurbishing, it was encased in scaffoldings.  Located in the center of downtown, the 284 foot tall Monument was completed in 1902, ordinarily visitors can go in the lower level museum or climb 333 stairs  to the observation point at the top of the statue.  We walked from there down to the state capitol building, not as many steps up to the building as Tennessee's, thank goodness.  It was built in 1878 taking 10 years to be completed at a cost of a little under 2 million dollars.  It has to be one of the most beautiful capitols in the country.  As we took the elevator to the fourth floor with three other people I just has to ask "What is a Hoosier", one of those things I wondered about.  The lady chuckled, said we'd get three different answers from the three of them. essentially it's like the term Oregonian, locals are called Hoosier's.  Now you know.  I'm sure you heard on the national news about Indiana's controversial new law, we stepped out of the elevator to a sea of TV cameras and reporters.  We got to look into the Senate and House of Representatives before racing back to the car before we got a ticket.  Indy has a lovely canal similar to, but on a smaller scale than San Antonio, we had to skip visiting it though, we couldn't find a parking spot.  Finally, about 2 we had lunch at Tavern on South.  Delish!  No visit to a city is complete without a visit to a historic cemetery.  Crown Hill Cemetery, established in 1863 with 555 acres it's the third largest cemetery in the US.  And of course we did a little geo cacheing while we looked at the old gravestones and tombs. Some of the notables buried there are President Benjamin Harrison, John Dillinger and Dr. Richard Gatling the inventor of the Gatling gun.  It was time to pick up Luci at day care and head home. 

Thursday, April 2nd, We wanted to get an early start for the drive to Decatur, about 130 miles to the Northeast, only 6 miles from the Ohio border.  Thunderstorms, high wind and heavy rain was forecast to come from the south, it was a pretty nice drive, a little windy but not bad.  We got to the Fleetwood Factory about 11:30, checked in, then parked in the large gravel lot, we discovered the only utility was power, no water.  Hmmm we had a problem, the receptionist told us where to go to fill up.  Just as we were driving to get water, we got another kind.  The skies opened up and dumped on us, thunder and lightning and high winds.  Poor Gary got soaked to the skin.  When we got settled I had to throw his clothes in the dryer.  His shoes and hat are still dripping.

I don't know when I'll publish the next blog.  Saturday we are going up to Michigan to stay with Gary's sister Suzanne.  It will be lovely to spend Easter with her and her family.  We find out tomorrow how much stuff we'll have to empty out,  but the good news is they have big bins and boxes here we can use.  Enjoy the pictures, it's hard to choose from 100's Gary takes.

TTFN,

Gary and Pam




The Goddess Athena

The Parthenon

Looking for tiny geo cache on steam engine

Gary and Luci in Centennial park

Corvette Museum in Bowling Green Ky

Roy Orbison's Corvette



Me lifting the frame of a new Corvette

Diagram of the 8 cars that fell into sinkhole

Can you guess what this used to be?

Entrance to Mammoth Cave we bailed out of

Inside Diamond Caverns

My first trip down under

More Diamond Caverns

Entrance to Mammoth Cave NP

Gary in Jim Beam tasting room

Gift shop

Jim Beam himself

Home sweet home at the cozy KOA

In front of Barbarro, Churchill Downs

Do you think this hat matches my outfit?

In museum jockey shirts

Me at the starting gate

Grandstands

Race track and infield

Churchill Downs

Mansion in Clarksville, In

Lucas Oil Stadium

Scottish Rite Cathedral seen from Memorial Mall

Memorial Monument Circle

Indiana state capitol as seen from circle

Rotunda

reporters waiting for us to get off elevator haha

Crown Hill Cemetery, downtown in background