Katie enjoying our patio deck upon our arrival at Emerald Cove Resort.

Katie enjoying our patio deck upon our arrival at Emerald Cove Resort.
Open Range 3X388RKS pulled by a Ram 2500

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Another day at South Bend, In


Going up to the front door of Copshaholm
Grounds of Copshaholm. 
We started off the day by going to Copshaholm again, this time to take the tour of the grounds and to take the tour on the inside as well.    Once again, we were impressed with not only with the mansion, but the portrayal of the family by the tour guide.  It simply amazed me that the family had no compunction with leaving so much of their stuff in the mansion when they moved out.  At the same time, there are no substitution articles inside, or donated articles from another collection somewhere that would've been used to make the mansion seem authentic because it already was and is authentic.  Our tour guide was very informative and told us more than just about the mansion, telling us about the various stages of the Oliver company from its beginning in 1855 until it was shut down in 1985.  Due to the length of time since I heard what was said by the tour guide and because Wikipedia has much more detailed information, I suggest you look at their article on the Oliver Farm Equipment Company as it will tell you pretty much the whole story.  Our time there was a good way to spend the morning.  

Katie trying to hide the satisfaction of
eating a really good polish dog at
Sweet Creams Soda Shop.
One of the reasons we went to Indiana was to see Elkhart and the area around Elkhart, which as most RV people know, is the RV manufacturing capital of the world.  I don't know how many are still there right now, but it's less than there were before the last recession which hurt the RV industry hard.  A lot of Elkhart is still in bad shape with an unemployment rate of 9.3% as of April of 2012 per the Department of Numbers website which is down from over 18% in 2009, but obviously nowhere near what a manufacturing mecca should be.  We went downtown where there were many empty shops which may have been caused by the recession, or could've been caused by the fact that the main road had been under construction for many months.  We found this out first hand when we visited the Sweet Creams Soda Shop in downtown Elkhart.  Deb, the nice lady that runs the shop, was kind enough to fill us in on all the happenings in the area, and show us around her shop which had a host of other activities in it.  I've urged readers to do things before, I urgently urge readers to visit  this shop if you're in the Elkhart area, you won't be disappointed.

With Elkhart being the RV manufacturing capital of the world, it would make sense that there would be a museum there dedicated to RVs.  It's the Recreational Vehicle and Manufactured Housing Hall of Fame and it contains lots of exhibits as far a recreational vehicles (travel trailers, popup trailers, and motor homes.  Another thing to checkout if you're in the area.  The link above takes ya to their website which shows a lot of the exhibits there, so it'd be something to checkout before you go to give ya a heads up on what to expect when ya get there.


The RV/MH Hall of Fame.  Check out the Elk in
front of the building.  There were lots of these Elks
all around Elkhart, each painted differently.


Beaver Ridge Family Campground
in September.
See the nice campground?
  The moho took us here!
I don't think I've included pictures (probably because I hadn't taken any before) of the campground we were staying at, so here are a couple of them.  Mind you, this is near the middle of September and that's why there's so few other campers in the campground.  It was a very nice place, but it was the first place that we learned that some campgrounds affiliated with Passport America (PA) only allow for a short stay so people won't take advantage of the low rates that are offered thru PA for stays longer than 2 - 3 days.  So our stay was only three days, and we were happy to have had the opportunity to stay there.  But before our departure from Beaver Ridge, we went to the Newmar RV factory in Nappanee and took the tour.  Had a great time, learned a lot of stuff about Newmar and how they're made, and met some really nice people.  The best part was that they would allow people to stay right by their factory for free!  That's right, free!  They had water and electric only, but we're in a self contained rig, so how big of a deal is that?  Guess where we decided to stay at next!

Another stop further into Indiana

Dunewood Campground campsite, the first place
we weren't able to get our satelite dish to work  due
to all the trees overhead!
It's now 9/11/11.  I realized that I hadn't taken a picture of our campsite here, so prior to our departure I snapped this shot.  This campsite was where I decided that I needed to have a campfire... no, I didn't cause a forest fire, ok?  But after we came back from the night glow the previous night, I sat outside trying to have a campfire in the campfire pit behind the moho.  Somewhere along the way, the wood had gotten wet, and despite how much lighter fluid I poured onto the wood, it would never light.    (Funny about how nonflammable wet wood is, huh?)  Having not been successful in having the desired effect on the wood, I just left it for the next camper who would probably be able to light it.  This campground had very few campers in it besides us and the germans across the street from us, and that was ok as we don't always have to have lots of people around us.  

We had to leave fairly early because we had a lot of places to go to that day.  Because it's been so long since this stuff happened to us, I can't say for a fact that everything is going to be correct, so please forgive me if there's an untruth somewhere along the way.  Our destination was Beaver Ridge Family Campground (part of the Passport America network) located in Lakeville, Indiana which is near South Bend, Indiana.  It wasn't until we did a little research that we found out about the heritage of South Bend.  We went to several places that day, starting with the Studebaker National Museum next to the Joseph D. Oliver House, and ending up with a visit to Notre Dame.


After going to the Studebaker National Museum, I was impressed with the motto of the Studebaker brothers: "Always give more than you promise".  What a motto to live by, huh?  That would be a real sign of quality.  Strangely enough, when I was a young man (many) years ago, I never thought much of Studebakers, and at that time they were facing economic woes which I thought was the cause of their cars being less than desirable.  The photos I have aren't of anything really exciting, with the exception of the 1951 Studebaker Commander that was in "The Muppet Movie".   Never thought I'd be able to see that car, but it sure did bring back memories once I saw it because "The Muppet Move" is one of my faves.  Remember what Fozzie said as he was traveling with Kermit:  "A bear in his natural habitat: A Studebaker".  Haven't seen too many other bears driving down the road in any kind of car, let alone a Studebaker!  Looking at the pictures below, I can't say that they're very exciting either, but it was neet seeing this old Studebaker in one of my favorite movies.  Having said all that, I urge you to rent or get that movie and watch it tonight.  I'd do that as well, but I already have the movie.
There's a fund raising drive on restore the
Fozzie-mobile, so if you want to contribute,
check out the website of the Studebaker
National Museum in South Bend, In.

A driver drove the car from the trunk.
Sorry if you had your hearts set on
knowing that a bear could actually drive.



From the Studebaker Museum, we went a few yards to the Oliver Mansion right next door to the museum.  The Oliver Mansion, Copshaholmwas the home of the Oliver family, who made the Oliver Cold Plow, which was a breakthrough back in the day as their plows lasted for a long, long time. We were told that there were many still in use in third world countries, or farms that still use plows pulled behind a horse.  From what we understood, descendants of the Oliver family didn't want the mansion when the original family had all passed.  They turned it over with all the furnishing, pots and pans, books, and various assorted knick - knacks.  We went through it the following day because all of the tours were booked by the time we got through the Studebaker Museum.  Pictures aren't allowed to be taken when tourists are inside, so if ya want to find out what it looks like inside, surf the web, or find another means of seeing what it's like inside.  It's really quite nice.  


As the Studebaker mansion was only a few blocks from where we already were, we headed there next.  Clement Studebaker, the co-founder of Studebaker Corporation, was fairly well off in the mid-1800's, and built another mansion along the same lines as the Oliver Mansion.  My sources are a little shaky here, so bear with me on what I'm saying as it may not be 100% correct.  Tippecanoe Place was a grand residence that was started in 1868 with 40 rooms and 20 fireplaces, but Clement lived in it only from 1889 - 1901.  Somewhere along the line, there was a fire which destroyed the entire top floor.  After Clement passed, the mansion stayed in the family with his son, George, living there until 1933 when the mansion was lost for financial reasons.  The mansion was vacant until 1941 when it was turned into a school for handicapped children, but was used by the Red Cross during WWII.  It's now a very fancy restaurant called (what else) Tippecanoe Place where the food and atmosphere are really nice, and we ate dinner there and toured the grounds.  I haven't included any photos here since the link to the restaurant has a bunch of photos better than the ones I have.  

Notre Dame Cathedral
This was already a long day, but when Katie gets it into her head that there's only a short time for seeing stuff, I do the best I can to hang on.  Her agenda wasn't going to be complete until we had gone to Notre Dame.  While it didn't take very long to get there, it took a long time to find a place to park and then to walk to where we were going to go on the campus.  The grounds are well kept, the whole place looked really nice.  Of course it was September so there wasn't any cold, white stuff on the ground either.  We went inside the Cathedral which was really nice and there was an organist practicing while we were there.  Would've stayed longer as one of my motorhoming goals is to listen to as many organ concerts as possible, but there just wasn't enough time.  From there, we walked along the path that led to the Grotto where we spent a little reflective time thinking about how blessed we were to be spending the time traveling around.

The Grotto at Notre Dame


We started heading back to the car when at one particular instant (I'm thinking it was like a bell was being rung or something letting everyone know classes were out, or evening Vespers were taking place), out of the dormitories came LOTS of people all heading in one direction.  Katie, being the extravert she was and still is, had no problem asking someone where everyone was going.  As it was 9/11/11, there was a memorial service to all who had died 10 years before.  After much cajoling on Katie's part trying to get me to go to this service, I acquiesced, and we just got in line with everyone else heading for the commons area.  Luckily, there were chairs set up as I'm not gonna attempt to stand up for long periods of time anymore.  There was, I dunno, probably over 2,000 people taking part in this service hearing the sermon, and a lot of songs.  It wasn't over until after 9 PM when there was a candle light walk to the Grotto in silence.  We didn't take part in the walk but the line was so long getting to the Grotto, I know that it took a long time getting there because it took us a long time to get out of the commons.  

Candlelight walk to the Grotto of Notre Dame on 9/11/11

It was a long day and it was good to head back to our home on wheels where our doggies were keeping the place safe.  We were gonna hit the ground running the next day as well and were glad to hit the bed so we could have some much deserved rest.  But it was really interesting seeing what was in South Bend; I urge anyone who is in the area of South Bend to stop there and take in the sights.


Thursday, June 14, 2012

The next stop(s) after Adventureland...

Mount Baldy is really a bunch of sand, ok?
Indiana Dunes State Park campground

OOOOOkayyyyyyy.  It was the 8th of September, we'd made it through the harrowing ordeal known as rush hour traffic in Chicago in a motorhome, and were in Indiana now.  Our campground was Indiana Dunes State Park located on the southeast corner of Lake Michigan, near the town of Chesterton, Indiana.  We stayed there just one night as that was all that was available since it was still the middle of the camping season for a lot of people, particularly the ones who already had reservations to stay there.  ...And since we didn't (we thought that since it was after Labor Day, fewer people would have the camping bug biting them still.  Duh!), we had to face the consequences.  Luckily, there was a federal park just down the road that we went to, but memory escapes me now as to what it was.  There were very few campers there, I remember that much, and we felt it was close enough to Chicago that we'd be able to drive there easily enough.  The campers camped across the street from us were from Germany and told us that they were gonna take the commuter train into Chicago the same day that we were gonna drive into Chicago to the art museum.  At the end of the day after going to the museum and seeing the paintings that we wanted to see and a few other things as well, and after paying OUTRAGEOUS parking rates to park next to the museum, and regretting the drive to and fro because of all the traffic, our German friends walked into their campsite with smiles on their faces.  They may have had those smiles because they were naturally happy people, or had a good time in Chicago seeing sites that they'd been looking forward to seeing for some time.  But I suspect it was because they had the foresight and wisdom to take the train.  If we do this again, we'll definitely follow their example!  However, there was a bright spot in our ordeal on the way back from Chicago in that we saw a billboard promoting the Valparaiso Popcorn Festival.  If you're familiar with popcorn, you'll remember Orville Redenbacher appearing in "popping corn" commercials.  He and his business partner, Charlie Bowman, started developing the perfect popcorn near Valparaiso in the 1950's and introduced Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn in 1970.  With the his popping corn becoming very popular in the mid 70's, the festival started in 1979 as a salute to Orville (and popcorn, of course), and the rest is history.  The festival features various activities, among them a parade, 5k run/walk, balloon show, and musical entertainment.  We decided to see the parade and peruse around after that.  The parade had as grand marshalls Marci & Courtney Crozier who were "The Biggest Loser" contestants on the 11th season. 

Parade doggies.  Again!
Oh Boy!  The Parade's starting!

Grand Marshalls Marci
and Courtney Cozier.  Couldn't
get them to turn around!
Balloon doggies (formerly known
as Parade doggies) next to Katie
impatiently awaiting the
night glow!
After the parade was over with, we just perused the various venders, and found out about the balloon night glow that was gonna happen that night.  Having missed the one at Indianola, Iowa earlier at the the National Balloon Classic that was scheduled while we were working at Adventureland, we were excited to know of the possibility to see a night glow still the same.  As you may know or have learned from the above link, a balloon night glow can be a rather dramatic sight when the sky is dark.  Although it took more than a couple of hours, the final word was given to the balloon crews to light their burners when they had their balloons full of hot air.

So... something good did come from going to Chicago after all.  We got to see this festival with another parade, and a balloon night glow to boot!  Life is pretty good, huh?
 Night glow at the 2012 Valparaiso
Popcorn Festival.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Life after Adventureland ...after a paragraph, ok?

While I haven't made an entry in this blog for ...months, we've been alive and kickin' in Las Vegas lately, as well as a few other places in the southwestern part of the country prior to that.  Primarily we've stayed at 1000 Trails (1KT) as we have a membership there, but we've ventured to a couple of campgrounds / resorts that aren't 1KT.  Doesn't mean that we don't like the others, just that it's much cheaper to stay there than it is elsewhere.  And since Katie likes to swim and all the 1KT we've been to have a pool, it's one of her preferences.

The last entry we had was during the last few days at Adventureland.   This was an experience that we'll remember, but as far as working there again goes, we probably won't.  Not that working there didn't have it's perks and good times, it's just that we didn't enjoy the high temps and high humidity combinations, along with the possibility of tornadoes, and there were a few issues we had with the working conditions there, which added up to a "not as pleasurable as we'd hoped for" experience.  Doesn't mean that it'd be the same for others, especially the folks who've done this year after year after year, enjoying it very much.


Amana Colonies RV Park
early in the morning.
I'm trying to look smaller,
does this work?  It does, doesn't it?
A Winnebago Industries travel
trailer, one of the first!
We left there on August 29th to go to The Amana Colonies staying at the Amana Colonies RV Park located just a couple of miles from downtown Amana.  Spent a couple of days there taking tours and contributing to the economy.  This was a place that Katie had wanted to see ever since she heard that her parents were gonna go there on their motorhome trip years ago.  It was interesting to find out how the colony started out and changed over the years, and what it's finally become.  As the colonies had the original intent of being self sufficient, there were and still are lots of crafty places there.  On the tour of the colonies, we stopped at the Broom and Basket Shop in West Amana which happened to have the Iowa's largest solid walnut rocking chair, a monster of a chair which helped me out in my quest to feel smaller and not as large as I've become.  As we toured around the area, we also saw one of the first Winnebagos made.  If ya look at how Winnebago Industries has changed over the years, you'd be able to see that they originally started out making travel trailers, and this is one of them.  Eventually, they phased them out of production, but recently started making them again after acquiring a trailer manufacturing company.  Does this mean that they've come full circle?



Not really sure I wanna
go in there, Katie. 
Grand Wood's American
Gothic in sculpture in
downtown Dubuque.
C'mon Honey, catch me
if ya can!
We headed towards Fox Lake, Wisconsin on August 31st, but had to make a stop along the way at the set of the "if you build it, they will come" movie, Field of Dreams.  The farmhouse in the movie is there, along with the baseball diamond, just no movie stars.  We both got pictures of us like we were walking into the cornfield, but we stopped before we got we got into the corn because (as everyone knows...) everyone we saw in the movie who ventured into the cornfield disappeared.  And since we still had quite a bit of trip left, we just posed ourselves as if we were going into it.  So... no, we didn't disappear.  All in all, it was a nice side trip, gave us reason to watch the movie again and say, "we saw that ...and that" more than just a couple of times.   Later that day, we made our way to Dubuque, Iowa and spent the night in a Walmart parking lot after doing a little touring of the city.  During our touring, we found the 25' tall version of Grant Wood's American Gothic.  As Katie is an aspiring painter, she was excited to see this.  Had to stop in the middle of traffic to get a picture of it, but it worked.  We also found our way to the Julien Dubuque Monument which overlooks the Mississippi River a couple miles south of the city.


Julien Dubuque Monument,
Dubuque, Ia




Beginning of the Kiwanis Korn Karnival parade, 2011

One of several marching bands.
So, do we have to stay in this
crowded thing?  Can't I get out?
When we got to Fox Lake by going through Randolph, Wisconsin (among other places).  Along the road, there were lots of billboards promoting the Raldolph Kiwanis Korn Karnival, complete with a parade, which was to take place in Randolph shortly after we got to Katie's sister's house in Fox Lake.  It was somewhere around this point that we decided that we'd enjoy a parade as we hadn't seen one in years.  After settling in at Katie's sister's house (her name is Kristi), we found out that they planned to go to the big event also when the parade happened, and then go to the Kiwanis Korn Karnival for a free cob of corn!  So we went,  had a great time, and decided that going to small town celebrations was really a lot of fun.  This was the first of several small town celebrations we were able to take in.  Having not been to a small town parade made me realize that there are things in a small town parade that aren't in a big city parade.  Things like the local barbershop chorus, good looking extinct cars, and Mr. Pig!  But, it seems as though the Kiwanis in Randolph have disbanded so can't say if the Korn Karnival will happen again.  
Where do they rehearse when
there isn't a parade?
Or do they rehearse?
That's right, this is a Studebaker,
 but what model is it?


Yes, it's Mr. Pig who works
at Piggy Wiggy!

In addition to the parade and corn feeding, we got to instruct Kristi and her family on the fine art of playing disc golf as there was a nifty 9 basket course only blocks from her house.  I'm thinking these pictures of yours truly and Katie are of us teeing of on the 2nd basket.  Of the seven days that we were there, I think we played four times, it was lots of fun!  (How many readers out there are disc golfers?  If you're not, you can get discs at fine stores such as Walmart, a large sporting goods store, a pro shop at a disc golf course if there's one there, or at fine online stores.)


Mrs. Renzo & Katie
Can't ya just taste em?
We then headed to Kenosha, Wisconsin just to go to Renzo's Pizzeria.  When we lived in Kenosha many years ago, Renzo's provided food for us several times a year, possibly as much as once a month even!  Their pizza turnovers, Renzo fries  (they're really nothing more than bread sticks, ok?) and marinara sauce are very, VERY good.  For anyone who would like this kind of diet, I encourage you to head to Kenosha for this good food.  But as you can see on the website, the open hours are limited; so check that before you go expecting Mrs. Renzo to serve ya!  After lunch, we did a little sightseeing in Kenosha to see how much it was the same as it was in 1993 when we left.  We were amazed to find that it actually had, indeed, changed considerably in the areas we looked at which was mainly the Lake Michigan waterfront area.  Kenosha Yacht Club was established in 1912, but we didn't see that much of it when we were in Kenosha even though we went down to the beach every now and then.  Now, it has a pretty good presence there, as does a lot of other stuff down there on the waterfront.  We wandered around there too long gawking at the different things before we left for Indiana.  Now if you know your geography well, you know that to get to Indiana, ya have to go through Illinois with the shortest route being through Chicago.  I won't go through the fun we had driving the moho during rush hour traffic on the various freeways, I'll let you read between the lines.  (Here's a hint: it wasn't fun, ok?)  

Ok, I think I've blogged enough for today.  Gonna grab a little rest from the keyboard and hopefully start up again tomorrow.  Thanks for all your patience waiting for this blog entry.