Small House, Big Yard - John O'Neal

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RV park so we could do laundry and get our bearings. The idea was to move to the repair center on Sunday afternoon so we could get started with them first thing on Monday morning. As luck would have it, when we were setting up at the RV Park, an F-15 fighter jet and a P-51 Mustang flew over the park in a tight formation. That could only mean one thing... that's right, there was an airshow in town! Yippee! Sunday morning we got up early and drove over to the local airport just as they were opening the parking lot. We parked the RV right next to the runway, opened the slides, put out the awning, got out the lawn furniture, set up the BBQ, and watched the show. It was a perfect day to be an RVer.

      While the RV was being repaired, we had plenty of time to sightsee in the area. For reasons unknown to us, northern Indiana is home to many of the RV manufacturers. Not only did we tour the Gulfstream factory, but we also toured two others. We would have toured the factory where they make HUM-Vs for the military, but they quit giving tours because of "security" concerns. We have heard that same security crap all over the U.S. at places we wanted to see. I suspect that most of the places are closed more because of "lawyer liability" concerns rather than security. In any event, it's very irritating to someone like me who believes in an open society. I fear it’s only going to get worse as more places decide they are “special” and let the security zealots wall them in.

      Northern Indiana is also Amish territory. We spent a day touring the Amish country side and learning about their way of life. We found it interesting that the local shopping malls had covered buggy parking for the Amish to leave their rigs at while shopping.

      When we left Elkhart, we went south a few miles, picked up Route 30 and headed east. Route 30 is called the Lincoln Highway. It’s a fascinating story. It stretches from New York City to San Francisco. Built between 1916 and 1925, it was the nation's first trans-continental highway in an era when there weren’t many cars and paved roads where a novelty. There is lots and lots of history on the 3,400 mile road, and one of these days, we would like to spend a few months driving it from end to end. This time, we stayed on it through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The States have put up Lincoln Highway sign posts every few miles to mark the route, kind of like the Route 66 signs out west.

       http://lincolnhighway.jameslin.name/

      Along the way, we stopped at Canton, Ohio, to tour the Football Hall of Fame; drove through Pittsburgh, saw the downtown; drove through Latrobe, PA, home of Arnold Palmer (you golf fans will appreciate that); and stopped in Ligonier, PA, an historic Revolutionary War village where my brother Michael retired to after spending 20 years as an Air Force fighter pilot. We set up the RV on the street in front of his house for a couple of days and ran an extension cord to his front porch for electricity. While we were there Mike took me over to spend an afternoon at the Steelers’ training camp. All the fans were trying to figure out how to pronounce the new rookie quarterbacks name. Nobody got Roethlisberger correct. I guess we’ll have to wait until he gets into a game, assuming he does, and see how the announcers say it. It was really good to see my brother and his wife again. We don't see them nearly often enough. A few miles after leaving Mike’s house we drove past the 911 Flight 93 crash site. The site is not open to the public and Mike told me there is nothing to see there anyhow. Of course the powers that be have only had three years to do something.

      Our next stop was northern Virginia near Washington D.C. We stayed at a state park near Herndon, VA, where we lived from 1983 to 1989. We went to our old neighborhood, saw the house we had custom built, and visited with some of the neighbors that are still there. It was a lot of fun to see them all again. It was like we never left. We also saw old friends and met their new wives and children. That was VERY cool. While we were in the area, we saw the new WWII Memorial that was built on the Mall in Washington, D.C. We also saw the new Air & Space Museum addition out by Dulles Airport. Both are worth the trip, but I think Cindi may have had her fill of airplanes for a while. :)

      From there, it was on to Delaware to see my #1 son, Mark, and his family. My only grandson, Logan, is four years old and full of energy. Ever since we left Oshkosh, we have been on a schedule to get to Mark's house the day after he arrived home from hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He was in a group of 14 hikers, 5 guides, and 70 porters. The porters carried all the camp equipment, food, and water. They also set up and tore down the camp each day and prepared all the meals. The trip up the mountain took 7 days and then 2 days down. (That's his idea of a vacation.) Through the magic of digital photography, we were able to relive the trip as soon as he got home.

      The RV is holding up real well and we are still loving life. Everyday Cindi and I look at each other and just smile at our good fortune. We like our new house and love being together. We can't imagine ever staying in a hotel again. We would actually be much more comfortable in the hotel parking lot. But, we have also learned a number of painful lessons this month. For example, dumb old us learned about severe thunderstorms and what that means to a RV. Our first day in Chicago we were watching the weather channel describe an approaching thunderstorm with a lot of interest because we could see it coming out our front window as it moved right at us. It never occurred to us to do anything but watch. When the first 60 knot wind gust slammed into the side of the RV and the antenna on the roof tried to unscrew itself and fly away, it occurred to us that maybe we should put the antenna down and disconnect our power cable from the RV park electrical system. You should have seen us running around like crazy trying to get all that done as fast as possible while the RV was bucking like a wild bronco in the wind. Being the slow learners that we are, the same exact thing happened to us again a week later in Indiana and this time we learned that rain hitting sideways on the RV goes right through the slideout seals and soaks our carpeting. We're not sure how we missed that bit of information the first time around. Now we know to put the antenna down and bring in the slideouts as soon as a bad storm gets close.

      Another lesson we learned the hard way is to ask if the park we are staying in has a closing time if it has an entry gate. Near Herndon, we stayed in a large County park that had a very nice RV Park on the grounds. It never occurred to us that they might close the park at 8:00 p.m., so when we came back from a night out at 11:00 p.m. we were surprised to find the gates closed and locked. We were debating whether we should spend the night in a motel or hike the mile or two to the RV when a maintenance guy drove up from the inside and unlocked the gate so he could go home. Lucky us! If we had been two minutes earlier or later, we would have missed him. We learned the next day that there is a back entrance to the park that is never locked.

      We also learned about bad RV parks this month. There are three types of places for RVers to stay. RV Resorts, RV Campgrounds, and RV Parks. RV Resorts have concrete pads, manicured lawns and hedges, few if any trees, club houses, swimming pools, Jacuzzis, and sometimes times, a golf course. RV Campgrounds have dirt pads, lots of trees, campfires, playgrounds, and lots of families. RV Parks are all the parks that are not Resorts or Campgrounds. The price to stay at all of these parks is about the same. $20.00 to $30.00 a night for the single night rate. Less per night if you get a weekly or monthly rate. While we prefer the resorts, we don't stay at them as often as we would like because they are not located where we have been traveling.

      Well, this month we learned about a new category of RV Parks. They are called "Sleazy motels that have a few RV pads out back for desperate people who have no other place to go" RV Parks. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we stayed at two such parks. One in Wisconsin and one in Delaware. Yuk! They were so filthy that we hated to even walk on the grass, much less touch anything. And, to add insult to injury, they were both outrageously priced because there was absolutely no competition anywhere close.

      We have a catalog that contains all the RV parks in the country. It is about the size of a large telephone book and it provides basic information about each RV park. It also provides a one to five star rating to each park. What we learned is to NEVER stay at a place with a zero star rating no matter what!

      We continue our practice of avoiding interstate freeways and especially toll roads whenever possible. State highways are more scenic and in better repair than the freeways. And while we may save gas because state highways are on a more direct line with where we're headed, our gas mileage suffers because of all the hills, curves, and stop & go driving through the small towns. We average 60 MPH on freeways and 50 MPH

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