Indiana, a state of relaxation and hidden treasures.

 

We’ve moved up to Indiana to visit our friends, Charlie & Sue Schaffer.  We had a water front site at River Bend Campground in Noblesville about 30 miles north of Indianapolis.

We had preventive maintenance done on the truck.  I’ve been using Wal-Mart for this simple task, I find them very well trained, quick and a great value.  Note there a 4 fellows doing this job, they keep cross checking with each other.  As an item is inspected, they dab a paint splotch on is to show status.  Every 5,000 miles I get my splotches renewed.

 

 

Much to our delight, Amelia, {our Jr. Granddaughter} attended and engineering camp at Purdue University.  We drove up and surprised her during the commencement exercise. 

She had a very good experience at her great Grand Father’s School.  He would only be prouder if she played football and beat Ohio!

Note who the short one is!

 

 

 

 

We treated ourselves to Lunch at ‘Jake’s’

I had to retire to go to Purdue, it was most impressive!

National Camping Travelers, A Masonic Family Camping Club. Rally 2012

Our Connection with  N.C.T. goes back about 20 years, we are members of Chapter #6 based in Connecticut.  We bring out about 20 families to our local events. 

This year’s Rally was held in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  A pleasant town with several Belly Busting Restaurants.  They are also the home of Chevrolet’s Corvette assembly plant.  The Corvette Museum is a 4 hour journey into the past with a great many displays of note worth cars.  I’m thinking the silver roadster goes well with my hair…

Our weather continued to be oppressively hot, several folks had to leave Beech Bend Campground as they could not maintain 110v to all campsites.  Beech Bend had a large water park / Amusement park which the young folks enjoyed.

We had a nice air conditioned meeting hall where we had entertainments and served meals several times to the crowd of about 250.  This being Kentucky, the festivities were always dry in keeping with local laws

Nice Rail Road museum in Bowling Green.  We toured several Pullman cars.

Dining Car With Server.

 

 

 

 

 

Kitchen help, taking a well deserved break.

Typical view of spoiled wealthy tourists on their private rail car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good time with our friends here, we now move on to Indiana for more adventures in farmland.

Bourbon, Caves, Lakes and Corvettes in Kentucky 2012

We spent Most of June and July in Western Kentucky.  It was in the midst of a horrid heat spell, daytime highs usually to the 100° area.  In conjunction, there was a long drought, major lakes were 4’ low.  The corn crop was lost before the 4th of July.  We left Louisburg and moved into the area of Bowling Green in late June.

We stayed at a Corps of Engineers {COE} campground at the Wax Recreation area on Lake Nolin.  Being Seasoned Citizens, we have 50% reduction of the rate.  We had water and electric at our beautiful large site overlooking a small section of the huge lake.

Details at: http://www.recreation.gov/recAreaDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&recAreaId=371&agencyCode=70902

What a great choice we made as the oppressive heat caused us to spend a large percent of the days in the A/C of our unit.

We did a day trip to the Patton Museum which was pleasantly cool.  I was pleased to see the restored 38’ Cadillac staff car which he was in during his untimely fatal accident.

Note this Series 75 is a near twin to the ‘39 Dark Blue Caddy my Dad had during the early ’50,s.  Dads car had the interior glass separator deleted but did have a sunroof which was novel at the time.

We are in the center of farm country amongst gentle folks and a few moonshiners. Every time I started the truck, we drove 50 miles.  The Library was 17 miles, A/C + Good WiFi made for a pleasant afternoon.

We were just short of the 20 for the Wal-Mart.  That being the case, we were pretty happy to find this farm selling produce, cash box was on the porch, how do you like the Mellon Fence?

 

No ‘shine ;-( 

 

The Masonic Lodge at Cub Run had about 60 members, the building was about the size of a 3 car garage.  We attended one  of their Saturday Lunch Fish Frys.  A wonderful small group of fellows in a farm town where there is little else but a gas station.  I bought a ticket for the raffle, put the lodges name on it as I already have all the guns I need.

 

So, I asked my barber where the Leitchfield’s Masonic Lodge was.  He told me next door and that he was a Past District Deputy.

Fourth of July at The Knights of Columbus Hall

You have to have Fireworks on the 4th of July!

But 1st we had great $1 hot dogs. No Beer! It seems that most of Kentucky is dry. This is hurtful to their tourist economy in this area as there are very few nice places to eat with out to ability to serve liquor.

It seems that some vices get blessings down here, Anne-Maries was introduced to ‘Pull Tabs’! She made $1 after buying 5 tickets at $1 each. That makes her a winner in my book!

Karaoke was a big event, I think we were amongst the few that kept our mouths closed.

Little kids were funny, for a while….

 

 

Mammoth Cave Tour.

These folks are standing in 104°, waiting to descend 500 steps to about 250’ below the surface where it will be 54° and DARK when the tour director does the lights out demonstration.

To quote from brochure:

A wonderful complement to the Historic Tour, this trip includes a dramatic series of domes and pits, typical large trunk passageways, a short journey through dripstone formations and stairs, stairs, stairs! (Small children may find this trip overly challenging.) • 2 hours, ¾ mile. Tour limit: 114. Total stairs: 500, including 280 on initial descent. Elevation change: 250.• Includes the complete Frozen Niagara Tour route and a portion of the Grand Avenue Tour route. • Meets at the Visitor Center. Difficulty: Moderate.

I really like to ‘Difficulty; Moderate’ quote. This was written buy a finalist in an Iron Man competition for sure! I sure wish my cardio Doc had been with us. He could have billed me for a stress test on the walk back up to the surface.

Try as I may, I could get no decent pictures with my phone or camera. Our guide {Steve} warned us that it required professional equipment and skills. The best way for you to see what we saw is to follow the link here:

http://www.nps.gov/maca/planyourvisit/gocavetours.htm

We’ve decided to not go to the fuel meet in Norwalk Ohio. This based on the oppressive hot weather, we must have full time A/C. Racetrack camping usually means no water and electric.

In order to make this lifestyle work, we are learning to plan our destinations well ahead, this allows us to plan nice RV parks which are cost effective. I figure the cost of towing to be close to $1/mile, got to minimize towing miles while filling our goals. So far we are doing well on both counts.

test 7/8/12

Test Post

Bristol TN, Fuel Meet 2012

I do love going to the Bristol Fuel meet.  I was ‘released’ from Doctor and drove the 700 miles in 2 days, not too smart but we have to set goals in life if we want results.

Cootie Browns is a favorite watering hole, eclectic to say the least with a large menu and about 150 bottled beers!

The ‘Flowers’ look familiar?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is across the road from our favored campground, Lakeview RV Park.  Campground gives us 50% off {Passports America}, even during race weekends.  3 way hookups cost us about $12/nite.

 

I enjoyed myself in the activity of the drag races, other info at nhra.com

Next we are off to ‘The Rally’, an annual Good Sam event the will draw 1800 units with a very nice entertainment schedule along with dealers and vendors selling million dollar motorhomes and all manners of snake oil.

Good Sam in Louisville, KY

We’ve been GOOD SAM members for 25+ years. Good Sam’s mission was to be a volunteer operated group of campers that networked with various local groups for the welfare of all. During the last 20 years they have partnered with several other RV orientated companies with mixed results. Marketing Insurance, RV’s, Supplies and campsites seems to have taken the company into a new direction. Quite frankly, we pay our dues and use very few of their services. This year we will make a few events, participate as possible and judge our future actions on the results.

The Rally at Louisville Kentucky is a big annual event. In fact it is one of 3 events this year, Phoenix in the spring and Daytona in the late fall. These are not cheap events, they do have expensive venues and stellar entertainment.

For more info, Go to: http://www.GoodSamClub.com

We arrived at the Kentucky Fairground in Louisville 2 days early, a bonus of being retired.  We were greeted by well organized parking committee member who located us in a site with electricity.  He noted that we could also hook-up to water as it was close to this site also.  There were a total of 1800 rigs present, they tend to park in groups and socialize as such.  You have to be just a bit forward, bring a lawn chair over and plop yourself down.  I’ve never felt rejection, some groups don’t meet my agenda so I don’t return.

My camera does not do justice to the great venue they used for entertainment, very professional lighting and sound systems.  Thursday  was The Gattlin Brothers, very nice.  On Friday 84 year old Bert Batrack  stood the crowd up with a 90 minute show of all his great music.  His band was outstanding!  Cheryle Crow’'s music just hurt my ears on Saturday, lots of old folks went home early.  There was an Elvis in the building as an event closer on Sunday.  3 out of 4 was my score, Pretty happy with that.

 

Did I mention that there were vendors selling stuff?

 

Did I mention that some of the ‘stuff’ was shoes?

 

 

 

 

This would tow our 5th wheel just fine!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots to see and do in the Louisville area.  We visited several Bourbon Distilleries on ‘The Bourbon Trail.

Note my 5th wheel parallel parked on the Main Street of Midland, KY.  The whole town took notice during my fancy ‘U’ Turn!

Oh yea, there was food.

Hot Brown**, defines Southern Cooking.  This is followed by hot blackberry cobbler.  Did you want yours to go?

** Hot Brown:  Pictured is 1/2 of an order.  Croissant, Turkey, Bacon, slice of tomato, white sauce.  Note that Anne-Marie has her eyes closed, this keeps the calories away!