On the Road Again!

Ok, I'm starting another trip log!

We have this nifty wireless internet card from Verizon and it enables us to get online just about anywhere, and we haven't found anywhere yet where we can't get on.

We left Friday morning in a blinding rainstorm, against my better judgment. Then, just east of Indy, the windshield wipers stopped working. This gave a whole new meaning to the term "blinding rain!"

We were on I-70, 2 miles from a rest area. I drove along at 35mph on the shoulder, trucks whizzing past, till we got to the rest area, and we waited there all afternoon, evening, and spent the night. Saturday morning, the rain had stopped and bright sunshine ushered us eastward to Richmond.

Richmond was a good stop. We had a couple of little things that needed to be adjusted... and we had our wipers fixed with a new motor and some arm adjustments. I hope it holds this time!

This afternoon we're chilling (literally) at Effingham, IL, after driving 220 miles from Richmond, IN today. The driving was easy and we had a pleasant walk and lunch at the Honey Creek Mall (great mall) in Terre Haute along the way. We also collected nibbles from Cinnabon and Blondie's Cookies. We ate the cookies on the way here. :)

Getting back to my blog

If you've wondered where I've been, because I have not posted in here, well... we ARE back from our vacation! We had a wonderful time in the northeast. I didn't have internet connection for that time, and I just wanted to take some time away from the computer, anyway.

We visited Aunt Dots, going on two boat rides during our stay! We went on the Thimble Islands tour the day we arrived. What an interesting and fun thing that was! We got to see mansions and tiny houses alike built on these wee volcanic islands sprinkled out in the Long Island Sound off Stony Creek, CT. This is where my camera battery went dead, and the spare... was dead too. Duh.

We went to Block Island on another day. This is a tourist spot off Rhode Island, and we got there via ferry ride from New London. The day was lovely, and just suited for such and adventure!

We lunched at Ballard's, enjoying wonderful sea fare. Then we walked around the island a bit, seeking out fudge, which we found in delicious abundance.

After waving arrivederci to Aunt Dots, we headed over and up to Bellingham, Massachussets, which was to be our basecamp for the next 5 nights. During this time, we got to visit and explore with our friend Dave. And we did fun things! One day we went to Cape Cod, winding down lovely seaside roads, taking photos along the rocky shoreline, and eventually making our way to the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory. The "tour" was windows through which we watched the workers, but it was still very cool to see my favorite food coming down the assembly line, fresh from the hot oil, salted, crunchy... mmmm ;)

Another day, Dave took us on a tour of obscure but cool places near Milford. We saw the world's largest globe at Brabson college, the Peace Abbey where they have an actual grave of a cow, and to a creamery where we had ice cream!

On another day, we went to Southwick Animal Park, a beautiful and well-maintained zoo, where we walked and enjoyed the happy animals in realistic habitat environments. We loved this! And this day was topped off with a visit to the Imperial Buffet with Dave's Dad coming along, too. The food was delicious and plentiful.

On one of these days, we began at Stella Dieci, a massage salon owned and operated by Dave's daughter Kristen. And I got a massage -- best ever -- by an expert and strong masseur. This I followed with a shower in their very special sensory experience shower, warm soft towels.. all good!

While we were in Bellingham, on a couple of the days, we drove down to Providence, RI, spending the days with Joanne and Pat! What fun we had with them, too. Our visits were centered around delicious food, some of the best of which was prepared by Pat at her house. Yummy! It's a wonder that Rhode Island people are not all huge, as good as the food was!

It was great to meet and talk with Joanne, with whom I've worked since 2002, and to enjoy the sights of Wickford and Providence.. all was just perfect!

Our drive back home was fun, with stops in Hershey, PA, and someplace in Ohio, before we got back to Richmond, IN for our oil change and service on the RV.

More in my next posting.

Corning Museum of Glass

We arrived in Bath, NY on um... Wednesday, I think. (I know I'm on vacation and feeling relaxed when I start forgetting what day it is!) Here's Michael relaxing:

We drove into town and went to one of the Finger Lakes, where we were determined to take a cruise on a dinner boat. Well... we found the place and things were not quite as nice as we envisioned. Though the lake was pretty, the area around the dock smelled bad, and things looked pretty worn out. They were not having a cruise that night, and we found out from someone else that the food isn't very good, anyway.

I shot a few pics from around the dock.

Then we went to Stephanie's in downtown Bath for a most delicious dinner!

They were having a concert on the green. We didn't stay for it, but I did get a pic of the gathering crowd.

Yesterday we visited the Corning Museum of Glass. It is a pleasant 30 mile drive from Bath. We started our visit at the Cafe, where I enjoyed my mac and NY cheddar cheese, while Michael suffered through a mediocre hamburger on a cold bun. Then we saw glass artwork and some history and philosophy of glass. Did you know that some glass will bend?

We watched the glass blowers create a beautiful bottle, perused the items for sale, and enjoyed our day!

We had pizza slices at Pizza Deelight in downtown Bath when we returned to town. Mmm!

Then this morning it RAINED! Hard... all morning and part of the afternoon. We did aerobics -- serious aerobics -- in the RV!

Posting from Bath, NY

We arrived in Bath day before yesterday. The internet is charged by the day here, so I waited till I had something worthwhile to do online before starting the clock.

I have pictures to post! These start with a sky photo that I took in Elkhart with my little camera. Recall that my card from my big camera is still in the "black box" in my computer!

Here are pics I shot of our grandkids:

Liam:
Wren:


Josie:


and our new grandpuppy Annie:



Here are some pics from our campground in Ypsilanti. Thisis where we stayed while visiting the kids:
Leaves of three? Let it be!


Michael washing up the breakfast dishes:
Walking the trail around the lake:

We saw many wildflowers like these on our way here. These are Queen Anne's Lace and chicory:


I'll post more pics in my next posting!

A new day!

We awoke early this morning, and I'm happy to say that I have no real pain to speak of. I'd been suffering for about 6 weeks with wrist pain and for about the same time with pain in the ball of my left foot. Maybe it's the chocolate cherry bread with peanut butter that Michael gave me for lunch ydy as we drove! :)

The day is sunny and lovely. We walked around the campground and Michael's knee isn't even bothering him. Maddy of course never complains of anything.

I'm all caught up on my email, the ones that I'm going to answer today, that is. If you have written lately wanting me to be your pen pal, I am not going to answer that. ;) If you've written wanting to know how to do something in PS, I'll answer you, but not today.

Nettie!!!! Happy Birthday to you! Another step closer to 50! LOL! You can actually say now that you're in your late 40's. Congratulations!

We've decided to go on and head up the road a piece today, and maybe get as far as Corning NY. I'll check in from there, if they have internet access!

We are heading east!

Contrary to what you're seeing on our "Where are we now" link, we HAVE been moving! On Saturday, 22 July, we drove about 130 miles across southern Michigan over to Ann Arbor. There was lots of construction and eh... difficult driving! We were happy to arrive at the Greenfield KOA near Ypsilanti, Michigan in the early afternoon. The kids had things to do and so we just got ourselves settled, ate, and then went to bed early. (We had spent our 40 minutes in the pool at Elkhart before we left!)

On Sunday, we first walked! The KOA has a large lake with a very nice path which goes all the way around it. We walked for 40 minutes each of our days there.

After our showers, we went over to son Dave & Kelly's house where we were met out in front by an eager Wren and Liam! The early afternoon consisted of playing in the backyard with the kids, while Maddy and Annie (their new dog!) played happily. There was water in the little pool to Maddy's utter delight.

Then we all piled into the van and went to PotBelly's, over by the U of MI campus where we met Dave and all enjoyed a delicious lunch. A short walk over to the market and we got food for dinner. (It seems that we Aronoffs live to eat, doesn't it? LOL!)

Dave cooked steaks and salmon on the grill while Grandpa Dad and I read to Wren, played with the dogs, swung on the swings with Wren and Josie, and watched Liam pitch his baseball. After our delicious dinner, we headed back to Ypsilanti and collapsed in an exhausted coma which lasted conveniently till morning!

Monday, we took Wren for the day. This bundle of 7 year-old fun was happy to see our RV and was thrilled to be going around the lake with her grandparents in a rowboat! Then we watched as she went swimming in the swimming section of the lake. As if that were not enough fun, we went to the mall then, where we bought some Origins soap and a 6-pack of sparkly earrings for Wren!

We drove Wren back home and then returned to the RV where we again collapsed. ;)

Today we awoke early, did our walk around the lake, and headed out ... to Zingerman's! We got cherry pecan croisants, a loaf of chocolate cherry bread, a loaf of Farm bread, and 2 cookies for later. :)

After breakfast we unhooked and drove on down the road, achieving nearly 300 miles before we stopped at Erie, Pennsylvania. Tonight we are at a nice KOA campground with ... drum roll... WiFi internet! YAY! That's why you're hearing from me.

I'm looking at an Inbox with about 20 yet unopened items. If one is from you, hang on! I'm going to try to get through them tonight!

Roadmaster Factory Tour!

We found our gym, one called Fitness USA near the Concord Mall. Michael did the recumbent bike and I did the recumbent bike, the elliptical, and weights. Great fun and the gym was a nice change.

After that, we were heading back up SR 19 to our campground when we passed by the Roadmaster factory. This is the company that makes the chassis for our particular RV. It was nearly 2:00 and we knew that they give tours at 10 and 2. So... there we were!

Well.. I know that this sounds VERY boring, and I thought that I was going to be collecting some points toward a future chick flick. Well.. was I wrong about "boring?" Yes!

This tour was fascinating. Ron was our tour guide, and he showed us the whole thing. We saw how they get in all these bits of steel in various rough shapes and make it into pieces that, welded together, make up the chassis of the RV.

There was a machine that is computer operated that drills holes and cuts the metal just like a jigsaw would cut wood. Engines! Huge and powerful, diesel-loving engines by the dozen. We saw the station where there is a guy who fills the RV chassis with various fluids. It was just cool.

We learned lots about how the RV chassis needs to be maintained and how it works overall. We left there very impressed.

By then it was almost dinnertime. We heated up our burgers and beans from the day before. Then we did a Dairy Queen! :)

This morning, we got up earlier. Michael did the laundry and I cleaned the inside of the RV. Then we went swimming. Good fun. There were kids doing dives.

After that, we cleaned up and went to Nappanee, south of here about 20 miles. We bought a few things in their fine store. Then we had the "Threshers' Dinner." Mmmm!

Disappearing CF Card!

Last night I was trying to upload my photos that we'd taken on the trip. I poked my CF card into the CF slot, as I've done many many times. And POOF! It disappeared! I looked with a flashlight and I could see it in there... above the slot where the prongs were supposed to catch it. Who knows how this happened? I tried and tried to retrieve it, but there was no wiggle room and I ended up pushing it back beyond the prongs. Ultimately, I heard it clunk into Never Never Land.

We tried taking the computer apart to see if we could find it, but it clunked into an enclosed black box. I'll have our computer guys at PCMax take it apart when we get home.

Other than that, yesterday was a pretty much dumb day. We did our exercise in the pool (We like that!) and then I did some work on the computer, getting some lessons out to some of my Independent Study students.

We went grocery shopping, finding the Martin's Supermarket in Elkhart to be a most accommodating stop! They had everything we needed, and all fresh and delicious. We bought hamburger for the grill, and Michael also enjoyed their Deviled Egg Potato Salad.

We'd also bought a bottle of wine for our neighbors, Nick and Terri, from the Gypsy Journal. They have a satellite internet connection, and we'd been hooking onto their wireless network. We brought them the wine and they most graciously invited us to continue to use their hookup.

We stayed up late, just horsing around with movies on TV and our computer games. I was playing Boggle at my new favorite Boggle site. This was after I was successful in the USA Today Sudoku.

We awoke this morning to a rainy gray day. They're predicting thunderstorms and so it's not going to be a good day for swimming, unfortunately. So we're searching for a gym. Hey.. it's not good for us to do the same thing every day anyway.

Touring the Monaco Factory

Monday night we had a storm. We were awakened in the wee hours by the window awning flapping and vibrating. We tossed on clothes and ran out to secure things. The air was strangely hot and very windy. And the sky was bright with lightning everywhere! The clouds were roiling like something out of a movie. We got things put up and made it indoors before the rain hit, and it hit hard! This area had 3" of rain in under an hour. There was plenty of lightning and loud claps of thunder, but it wasn't windy enough to rock the rig.

The pets slept right through all of this. Maddy, of course, was oblivious to it all, and Eddie mewed at us only once.

For those of you just joining me, Eddie's our little orange tabby cat. He wasn't amused by our moving out to this RV for our vacation. Nor is he amused by the moving of the walls or the rumbling and changing of scenery as we move down the road. To punish us, he kept us awake by mewing constantly for the first two nights out. But he's been fine since then.

So we awoke and then went to the pool to do our exercise. Michael "jogged" back and forth in water up to his chest, and I swam in the deep end for 40 minutes. It was a splendid workout and we'll do this whenever we get the chance. This is far superior to the scroungy gyms that we found in Richmond. Urgh.

After a shower, we headed south to Wakarusa. Here we toured the Monaco factory, seeing more different components of our RV. (This is the company that made ours.) We also got to tour several of the 2007 models. They always come up with ways to make us greedy. Our tour guide, Julie, was very knowledgeable and competent, making our tour a real joy.

Wakarusa Indiana has a place called "The Dime Store," which is actually... a huge candy store! We had been there before and we knew we wanted to go again for their huge jelly beans. We spent just over $25.


From there, we drove up to Middlebury, to a restaurant Julie had recommended -- the Essenhaus. This is an Amish-style family restaurant, where they pile the food onto the table in bowls, allowing you to eat all you want. Everything was delicious. We thought it was even better than Amish Acres in Nappanee, but we may have to revisit Nappanee to be sure. ;) We did take our pie home from Essenhaus and ate it here last evening. We also bought a few things from their gift shop.

It cooled down a bit last night, so much so that we had the windows open and do still, at 10:30 am!

Hey.. the pool's open and we're going swimming!

Travel day

Yesterday was a "dumb day" where we had no goals.. and accomplished all of them! As always, we enjoyed our stay in Richmond, Indiana. The guys decided that our radio was not as Sirius ready as they thought, and so they are ordering a new one. We will be getting our radio put in when we return to Richmond AFTER our vacation. Oh well, we don't know what we're missing, so that's ok.

Today we awoke early, after a good long restful sleep. Eddie got us up only once, mewing at 3 am. This was a huge improvement over Friday and Saturday nights! We headed to the Cardinal Greenway, where we've done many walks before. And we walked! Maddy and I walked fast, doing "laps." I started with 15 minutes out and then back. Then I went 5 minutes out and then back.. And finally I went out 2.5 minutes and back, totalling 45 minutes. Michael walked more slowly, but still did 30 minutes, without killing himself.

Then we packed up the rig, hooked up the car, and headed up the road. After about 200 miles of 2-lane stop-start winding roads, we made it to Elkhart. We're staying at a pleasant place called, creatively, Elkhart Campground. ;) Wireless internet... good power for our air conditioners (93° heat!)... what else can we ask for? I will add some photos ... soon! :P