June 2008

June has started...
We are parked at the Monaco factory in Elkhart, Indiana getting some work done on the motor home. We took advantage of the free Wi-Fi, and the fact that we could not be in the MH during the day. Check out the other web pages, Michigan Tippling and Heritage Trail to see what we were doing...

Camp Monaco, Elkhart, Indiana style... The "park" is full, it will hold up to 24 RV's with electric & water. All pavement, just line 'em up and stay. It is free, along with 2 washer/dryers for our use (free also). There is security at night and Jim was whining about the bull frogs (we have been parked next to a drain pond) and their mating call ALL night long :)	I thought this was quite fun, the Ringling Bros. & Barnum/Bailey Circus train was going through town. They had to wait for a little bit until they could get back onto the track. They mostly travel by train (they own their own) from place to place. The next time I looked, they were gone but a train full of military hummers was sitting here.
We had time to do a few things while the RV was being worked on. When Jim was done for the day, on Tuesday the 3rd, we drove over to South Bend, IN to walk around the University of Notre Dame campus. There were people (not that many) going places across the campus, teachers, some students, etc. It "felt" different there, a little old, a little rarified and VERY academic. It was a beautiful campus and a lot of things (dorms, new wings, the main chapel) were under construction or renovation. ND was founded in 1842. The Hesburgh Library and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart are the best known landmarks of ND (but don't ask a Fighting Irish football fan if that is the case :) We did walk past the football stadium, it was pretty darn big. There was a tour or something going on, lots of people getting ready to go in but they were all in suits & ties (not for us!).

Hesburgh Library at ND. I thought the mural was beautiful and with the reflecting pond (too cloudy for a reflection today) it was very serene.	Main building of ND, I am not sure whether that is true gold on the dome and statue, but it sure shined like it was when the sun hit it.

To the far left is the steeple of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart Chapel. It is under exterior renovation (had lots of scaffolding around it).	While driving around, we drove past the factory where the Hummer is manufactured, both the "pedestrian" models and the military models. You just never know what you are going to come across.
I'm always looking for a winery to go taste at and found that we were very close to a wine trail in Michigan of all places! We are just a few miles from the border, so, I planned a little day trip to enjoy a few wines. We traveled on a very small part of the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail. Check out the Michigan Tippling page for this nice little day trip. We had exciting weather again today, high winds and strong thunder storms were predicted. The first rain showed up around 2:00pm, but we didn't see it, we were inside the "lounge" area (a TV room that is for those getting work done on their RV and their RV is in the shop for the day) playing on our computers. We finally got our RV back around 3:30pm and we noticed it had rained. I went over to do a little laundry and then next rain cell came over, LOTS of thunder & lightening. We were now under a tornado watch. I called Jim to take a couple of pictures of the storm. He did OK, but I need to work on him. By the time my load of laundry had been washed and dried, the cell had passed, the torrential rain had stopped and the sun was shining. Those clouds were moving fast, the wind was moving at about 35 miles an hour, they even had shutdown I-80 north of us to all oversize traffic (RV's, 18-wheelers, etc) because of the wind and tornado warnings. The security came around and explained where we were suppose to gather if it got worse. They have a tornado shelter in the basement of the lounge area. Luckily, we didn't have to use it! As of 9:30pm, we are now out of the tornado watch... (knock on wood!)

Looking NE of the RV, if you look closely, you can see the line of "scary" clouds (the black part) from the not so scary clouds (the lighter parts) just along the horizon. I was trying to get Jim to take a better picture of this, but hey, you take what you can get.	More big, dark, scary clouds and the higher, better clouds to the right. I could not believe how fast they were blowing over.

American Countryside Farmers Market, we came down here to do a little shopping on our 2nd to last day and to get some dinner. They had quite a nice food court and we ended up getting some excellent sautéed sirloin tips with mushrooms to enjoy. This is part of the Heritage Trail that we traveled on our last full day before leaving Elkhart.	Our last evening at Elkhart, IN was a wet one, not so many RV's in the camping area. We rested the last night knowing that we were going to be very busy once we got to Ohio :)
	Our official maintenance paperwork. We had one of these hanging in the RV front window and then one hanging in our tow car to show we were allowed on the property, especially over night. We got most of the work done, we are very happy with the paint sealer on the roof, the toilet is happy, the front suspension is not making any noise and the 3-M on the chrome has been removed. They could not get the AC to fail, (but of course it did right after we left...) so Jim ordered a new electronic board for the front unit, replaced it himself and it too is now much happier!
After we got "released" from Elkhart, we drove over to Jims' brother (Phil) and sis-in-law's (Terri) house in Painesville, Ohio. It wasn't a long drive, shorter than normal. They knew we were coming the following week, but we decided to "surprise" them a week early! Terri walked outside to get something out of the garage and we were driving into their driveway. I think they were glad, I hope they were glad, since we were parking in their driveway for 2 weeks! I even talked Phil into putting in a 50-amp plug-in for our RV since we probably will be visiting every 2 years :) Besides, they are thinking about getting their own and will need someplace to plug it into. We had several adventures while staying with Phil & Terri, we were included in their sail boat races, we went wine tasting, and had just an all around great time with them.
The first evening in the Waddle driveway, we had some great showers and then the clouds started to clear up and the sun tried to come out.


Terri was on a mission, she was having new wood floors installed in the living room; she needed to get the ceiling painted before the floor was installed. Jim was helping out.	All four of us drove up to Cleveland to have an afternoon with Jim & Phil's sister, Tink. She is the one in the middle. We went out to lunch and then over to a nature park to check it out.

After we walked around the nature park, we went back for dessert, we all decided on Cheesecake Factory. This is a mural on the ceiling over where we were sitting. The cheesecake was just way too yummy!	To keep the boys out of our hair, I talked Jim into buying new batteries for the coach and installing them. We had been talking about it for a year! Here, they have the coach all taped off as they made the battery compartment look like new with a new paint job.

Here are the old batteries, the one on the left is still good, it is the driving battery. The two on the right are the "house" batteries that were replaced. They are not suppose to leak, they are AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries, totally enclosed, they are attached to the solar panels and the inverter to store power for the house.	I know, this is a weird picture, but I was trying to show the "yuck" they cleaned off the batteries with the baking soda. They went through several boxes, so it should be fully neutralized, but it left a lovely trail where the water flowed in the driveway.

Jim and Phil installing the shiny new batteries. They better work, they cost a small fortune!	Jim turning on the inverter from the inside of the bottom basement once the batteries were installed. He could sleep in their if I got really mad at him ;)
Terri wanted to show off her new wood flooring and to have a little fun with their friends, so we got ready to have a wine tasting party. Hummm, got to love that theme! Friends were invited, they each brought a bottle and something to munch. We had a few bottles of our own to share and we prepared a few tasting items ourselves! There was lots of great food and fun wine to try.

1972 Chateau Mouton Rothschild (going for around 249.00 EUR today), Phil brought this bottle to share with the group. We decanted it and Phil (not b-in-law) and I enjoyed it, others just weren't into older wines, they like the young, jammy wines...	Friends hanging out in the kitchen where all the food and wine was just waiting to be tried.

If they weren't in the kitchen, then the place to be was out on the back patio.	Grant is making sure that he gets what he likes to munch :)

Some of the girls, "moi", Terri, Betsy and Lorraine...	The food and wine is always a great place to hang out with friends.
Those two weeks literally flew by! Phil and Terri were such wonderful hosts and we can't thank them enough. We even enjoyed their hot tub the last couple of nights there. Then it was time to continue our trek east... we are heading to the Buffalo-Niagara area to enjoy a couple of weeks in the Niagara area. Our primary goal was to visit with some long-time friends while they were vacationing in Buffalo and have some original Buffalo Wings and to visit Niagara Falls (check out the Niagara Falls page from the July page). We got lucky and did a couple of wine tasting trips to boot! One of them was over to Canada, to the Niagara-on-the-Lake wine trail, the other was local to the area where we were staying.
	This was the strangest site, as we were driving down the interstate, a caravan of Geek Squad cars and vans went past us. Haven't a clue where they were going, but it was an interesting site to behold.
This is our current address in Niagara County, New York State. We are where the yellow stick pin is, way out in the country and not far from Lake Ontario and about 1/2 an hour from Niagara Falls State Park. While driving back and forth to do a little grocery shopping, etc, we decided to wander into Lockport, NY on our way home. Our GPS would always steer us around the main part of town, so we got bold, didn't listen to her and went our own way. We checked out the locks in town along the Erie Canal.

These are part of the Historic Locks along the Erie Canal, Locks 34 & 35. We thought we would just wander around and look at them. We have seen locks before, but they are always interesting and these are pretty historic.	Little did we know (until we read the sign ;) that we were walking across one of the widest bridges in the world (is that still so?), anyhow, it was kinda cool to think about since it was built in 1914.

We looked down to the lower lock and low & behold, one of the lock cruise boats was coming through so we stayed to watch the locks do their thing... Here the lock is filling up with water to take the boat to the next level.	The lock doors opening to let the cruise boat into the next lock chamber...

The next chamber has filled up to the top...	and there they go, driving (what else would you call it?) under the worlds widest bridge...

There were some really neat old homes in Lockport and the surrounding area. Many of them were small businesses	some were still homes

and some were further out towards the country. I loved looking at these places, always wondering how old they really were. Too bad no one puts plaques out so that we can actually know...	One of our anticipated trips was to meet up with Steve & Grace Bauer for wings at the original Anchor Bar where they were "invented".

In the waiting area, checking for everyone to show up. There was a LOT of stuff to look at, at the far back, there were some really nice old Ducati motorcycles... (they owners are Italian...)	The first main party for our wings lunch at Anchor Bar... That is Steve and Grace on the right. Everyone else was part of Grace's very large family.

More of Grace's family, just waiting for those wings to show up!	Grace's brother and Jim, chowing down on their portion of wings. We ordered two plates full (one seen above) that had 50 wings on each plate! Yowzer!

I was excited to check this out, but alas, the site was closed, they were rebuilding the carriage house. This would have been the house where Teddy was sworn into office after McKinley was assassinated.	This way to Niagara Falls. We ended up making three trips there, the first to just check it out, get bearings & our tickets, then plan a full day to do the wet stuff and then to come back to watch the 4th of July fireworks.
We found this little out of the way stop as we were driving home from doing a short wine tasting trip in the local area. I asked Jim to head up to Lake Ontario so that we could get a good look at it, we hadn't been that close to it yet.

A mini light house in Olcott, NY along Lake Ontario, the plaque says 1873 on it. This is right next door to a few small bars/taverns and some small shops.	A small, touristy, place along Lake Ontario. We stopped to check it out and to see if there was something to eat in the area. Our dinner wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best either. Mostly the shops were getting ready for what they hoped would be a great 4th of July weekend...

Not too warm of a day, they had this tiny beach on Lake Ontario all to themselves, but they were making the most of it. I stuck my big toe into the water, it wasn't very warm...	I took a picture of us by using the reflection in the plate glass window, but if you look in the middle, you will see a reflection of us again in a mirror in the back of the room that we were looking into. Pretty cool, huh?
I can't believe how much fun stuff we crammed into June. Jim did take a week off while we were staying at his brothers house. So much to do, so little time. Now it is time to head into July... Hope your summer started off with a bang! catch ya later... Kim

June has started...