Cleaning Day

Well today was a bummer day - it was cold and windy (I mean really windy - gusts up to 30 miles per hour) - the high today was only 52 and with the wind - it was just nasty. Dan didn't even go out and build a fire - so you know the weather was rotten!!!

I spent most of the day cleaning house - I rearranged some stuff in the kitchen cabinets - everything gets turned over and messed up when we are on the road - bumpy roads play havoc on the organization. We even had to get out and find a place to throw away our garbage. Where we are staying doesn't have a garbage pickup place so we had to find a dumpster - luckily there is a state park just down the road (about 5 miles) and they had a dumpster. I'm not sure if we were suppose to use it - but it was better than littering - right???

I really don't have anything else to report - we didn't go out except to find a place for the garbage - hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow - it did rain hard last night and then the wind today - just not a good day for much of anything - The pups didn't even want to go outside. Oh well - tomorrow is another day.

Cara, thanks for the comment the other day - I just read it this morning - in answer to your question we are right off I-80 - so we are north and a little east of Greencastle. It is really pretty up here - every day it seems like the trees are getting more and more color (what the wind hasn't blown off today!). Dana - good luck with the hair color - I sure hope it doesn't turn out like the tree, but I have faith in Cori.

Dennis - those falling prices will get you every time - so watch out!

I'm done for today- take care and I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Just riding around

Today was a good day to just ride around and look at the scenery. This is a picture of a field just down the road from where we are staying - it is really pretty - and very deserted. There is no one any where near us. Which in one way is really nice - the pups and can and chase chipmunks all they want.

This is a creek that runs right beside the road on the way to Wal Mart - yes, we had to go back today - we forgot a couple of things yesterday - like butter and paper towels. We really didn't spend that much money today at the store and it did give us a reason to get out.

Don's (the man who owns the property we are staying on) parents came to see us this morning - we had a nice little visit. They were here about an hour I guess - it was a nice visit and we can sure see where Don gets his smile - from his mom. Anyway, it was a nice morning and it was really laid back also.

Now this next picture is one that I don't think you will see in a lot of places --------- if you look very carefully you will see what I mean---------------------------------

Do you have any idea what you are looking at ----- beside the parking lot of Wal Mart?????? No????? Well how about a hitching post for the Amish buggies to park at - yep, that is what it is. Pretty neat huh????

Well, I don't really have anything else to report - I played a little on Farmville today - and tomorrow I will clean the 'house'. We are going to have to find a place to throw our garbage away at sometime soon - oh, the trials and tribulations!

I hope you all are having a good week - can't believe I didn't get any comments last night - you guys awake???? Crystal - I know that you and Kim leave for New York tomorrow - I hope you have a grand time. See a Broadway play for me and tell Mandy hello for me also.

To everyone else - I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Day two in Pennsylvania

Hello everyone - I promised pictures of the place we were staying so here they are - this is the road into the property. As you can see, it's not that much of a road. Now you can understand why we were glad that Dave met us and showed us the way in.

Dan has had a fire going almost the entire time we have been here - it has been cold and damp all day - we have had the small electric heater on in the main part of the 5th wheel all day.

This is one of the trees that is showing it's color - not all the trees have turned yet, but it is only the first week in October. I have been somewhat surprised at the amount of color that is in the trees this early. Maybe tomorrow we will go out for a ride and I'll take some more pictures to show you.

This is behind the 5th wheel - as you can tell it is just a nice wooded area. It is really pretty - sorta park like, but because of all the trees we can't get any TV reception - which means NO FOOTBALL!!! And tonight is a big game - Minnesota vs the Packers. All I can do is hope that Brett does a good job and Aaron Rogers doesn't. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Oh - I did do the books today and we did HORRIBLE!!!!! Of course, buying the motorcycles didn't help any and we are on the road again - we have also discovered that when we are with family we eat out more which means we spend more money. Dan and I also bought some clothes - mine for the trip to Atlanta and Dan because he needed some new shirts - but they are all short sleeve knit shirts and I don't know when he will wear them. Anyway, we did not do well at all - so we need to get back on the budget this month even though we are on the road. Even without the purchase of the motorcycles we were off budget. Oh well, we will just have to do better this month.

Today, I have spent a lot of time on line playing "Farmville" on Face Book. If you haven't played it don't!!!!! It's very habit forming! I'll also need to check on my usage on the air card. I haven't look at it all day. I don't know how much air time I'm using. That may limit my time on Farmville.

Well, I don't have much else to report - hope you enjoy the pictures and continue to send comments. BTW - a belated Birthday wish to Carol J. Hope you had a good day.

On top of the mountain

Hello all - well, we made it to Don's property without a problem. We were only about 40 miles from the property and we called Dave - Don's friend that sorta oversees the property - and he met us and helped us to get settled. I don't know if we would have found it without his help. It is just down a little path - but the place is beautiful. Just out in the middle of the woods - but we have all the comforts of home (or just about) - electricity, water, and sewer. The only thing we don't have is TV - no reception because of the trees. Oh well, it just means I'll get caught up on my reading over the next few days.

I'm sorry, I did not take pictures again today - but I will tomorrow. After we got all set up we went into the Wal Mart Super Center about 20 miles away. Picked up a few things and then came home - I fixed a pot of homemade soup in the Crock Pot for dinner. It was a packet of soup that a friend down in Dowling Park had given us. It was a little spicy for me, but other than that it was pretty good.

Oh! I almost forgot - I opened a Face Book account this afternoon and I'm on Farmville now. If any of you out there want to be a "friend" please let me know - or if you want to be one of my "neighbors" on the farm let me know too. I'm just learning how all this works - Face Book and Farmville. Right now I have Strawberries, Eggplant and Wheat planted. I probably should have left some of my field's empty since I started so late in the day. Oh well, we'll see how it goes - but if anyone has any advice for me please let me know - I need all the help I can get.

I'm not sure what we are going to do tomorrow - Dan just likes to sit outside by his fire pit and look around - I'm not sure what he thinks about when he is sitting there - but he does enjoy it and that's fine. I want him to do whatever makes him happy.

Right now the plan is for us to be in Buffalo, New York next Monday and spend three days there - we'll get to see Niagara Falls and meet our friends from Dowling Park. Other than that I don't think we have any plans for around here. We are too far from Philadelphia to make a day trip down there and we are too far from New York to go there - sooooo, I guess we'll just hang around here and take it easy. Tomorrow I will balance the check book - pay the bills, and balance the "black book" to see how we did this month - with all the traveling and the purchase of the two motorcycles I am pretty sure we did not do well at all. But the truth is in the figures. I will let you know what the truth is tomorrow.

Well, I don't have anything else to report. Hope all is going well with all of you - Dana, we haven't heard from you in a while -let us know how things are - either on the blog or give us a call - we get worried when we don't hear from you. Crystal and Kim - I know you are getting ready for your trip to New York, but I hope you are getting things done in the loft also. Melissa, I'm sure you are still unpacking things in the new house - I'll be there in about a month. Carol and Betsy - I'm sure you guys are getting excited about your upcoming trip - hope you enjoy. Ruth Ann, aren't you on Face Book???? Let me know how to do things.

Okay guys - Hope to hear from you and until then - I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Pennsylvania

Hello all - this is going to be short and sweet. We drove all the way through Ohio today and are within 30 miles of our destination - but it got dark and we don't know exactly where we are going. Sooooo, we pulled into a KOA campground off the interstate and we will go on in tomorrow. We have not been able to get a hold of Dave yet - he is the caretaker for the place we are going to stay for the next week or so. Have I ever told you about this place???? Well, it belongs to Don, the guy we bought our 5th wheel from. He owns some land here in Pennsylvania and he set up about 5 camping spots - with electricity, water, the whole bit. Anyway, he invited us to come up and spend as much time as we want here. Originally we thought we would stay about three weeks but due to some other commitments we won't be able to do that. Anyway, we are looking forward to getting there tomorrow.

There is much more color on the trees here than there was in Indiana and the scenery is beautiful - since we drove all day and it's dark now I don't have any pictures to show you, but I will have some for you tomorrow.

The KOA campground is wooded so we don't have a TV signal tonight - which means we will go to bed early tonight and maybe do some reading for a little while and then off to "nightie-night". I have already gotten the coffee ready for in the morning, so that's one chore I don't have to worry about. Tomorrow morning, before we go up to the campsite, we will look for a grocery store - The refrigerator is empty - we ate leftovers for dinner tonight (yeah for fried chicken from the Blue Gate Restaurant in Shipshewana!).

I don't have anything else to report so I will sign off for tonight - Talk to you tomorrow!!!

Another day in Shipshawana

I know - I said that we were going to leave Shipshewana this morning - but we decided to stay another day. We spent the day shopping (yes, we did a few things) and staying inside out of the weather. It was damp, cold, windy, and some rain. One of the main reasons we decided to stay another day was the weather - the wind was horrible. We decided that we did not want to buck the wind. So, since we were unable to do the shopping we wanted to do yesterday it gave us the perfect opportunity to stay.

The one thing that we did not expect when we came here was the quality of the food. We have eaten out several times (three times we've had dinner out at the Blue Gate) and we have not had a since bad item - from lunch sandwich and soup to dinner. Even dessert's are good. It is really a good thing that we are leaving tomorrow - at least we can get back on our somewhat diet.

We went to the Amish - Mennonite story today - which was very interesting. It explained some of the differences between the two and some of their core beliefs. It was set up in different rooms with movies explaining the two religions. I'm glad we went. In fact I did not realize that Shipshewana has both Amish and Mennonites living here. The Mennonite are much more "liberal" in their thinking - allowing their followers to drive cars and go to college to name just a couple of things. As I said, it was very enlightening.

I really don't have much to report tonight - we are leaving in the morning (I promise) and heading for Pennsylvania. I'm not sure if I will post tomorrow night or if I will wait until we get to Pennsylvania - it will depend on what time we stop and where we stay. BTW, the picture posted at the top was one that DAN took while I was in Atlanta - it is of a deer in the field behind the 5th wheel in Michigan at the Nazarene Campground - thought I would let you see how Dan takes pictures.

Take care and I hope that you have a great weekend!

Talk to you tomorrow (maybe!).

Shipshewana

Today was a good day out looking around and seeing the country - first we rode around town before we headed over to South Bend - the farms of the Amish are lovely - very well kept and you would be surprised the size of the farms - most are very large. However, there is NO electricity in the homes. They do have natural gas (probably used for cooking) and fireplaces. Beautiful horses that are very well taken care of. I was surprised that the Amish do not just live in the Shipshewana area but up in Goshen and Elkhart as well. I'm sure that we will see some more in the Pennsylvania area.

Then we traveled over to South Bend to the Notre Dame campus.

Of course, for those of you that don't know, this is "touchdown Jesus" on the campus of Notre Dame. I didn't know how this mural became know as "touchdown Jesus" before - but the story goes that the students started calling this mural, which is on the side of a library, "touchdown Jesus" because His arms are raised as a ref would raise his arms to signal a touchdown and it is visible from the stadium. It is really pretty cool in person - the picture really doesn't show it very well.

Of course, this is the practice field on campus - but the team was not practicing while we were there - people were setting up a whole lot of tents getting ready for the home game on Saturday.

This is the stadium.

And another shot of the stadium - can you tell that I am a football fan??? I wore my Notre Dame cap today and everywhere I went I heard "Like your cap". It was neat being able to wear my cap in an area where it would be appreciated - just as a side note, for those of you that may not know me, No I did not graduate from Notre Dame - I went to Florida Southern College for my undergrad degree and University of South Florida for my Master's degree.

Anyway, this is a beautiful campus. We did not see too much - as it is a pedestrian campus and Dan is not a walker per se (plus it was pretty cool weather wise). However, the parts of the campus we saw were lovely.

We also went to Goshen and Elkhart - Dan wanted to go to the Keystone factory - which we were finally able to find (after going to Elkhart TWICE). Anyway, we were able to go to the factory and talk to some people, which made Dan happy. BUT a trip that was only suppose to take about two hours took ALL day! So we were not able to do as much in Shipshewana as I wanted to.

I did not take pictures of the Amish themselves, as I have read that they do not like to have their picture taken, but I did take a couple of pictures of the buggies they drive.

This is by the Bulk food store that we went into - we actually bought a couple of things (like homemade wheat bread and wheat noodles). When we went out of the store Dan asked some ladies if we could look inside the buggy - which they were very polite and let us - they are all different -some fancier than others (just like cars are all different). The horses are absolutely beautiful and you can tell that they are very well taken care of. As you can see in this picture, one of the buggies even had a little cart behind it.

We went to the Blue Gate Restaurant again for dinner tonight - we even had the same waitress (who was a wonderful waitress). Last night we had fried chicken but tonight we had bar-b-que pork ribs with a baked potato and Amish baked beans. It was excellent. Dan also had a piece of Old Fashion Cream Pie - which is brown sugar, cream, vanilla - and it was very good also (I had a couple of bites). I brought home an apple dumpling which I will eat later. We did not do any real shopping - we did walk into a store and look around - didn't buy anything though. We did go to the bakery at the Blue Gate and bought a couple of nut rolls for breakfast in the morning and some white chocolate pretzels (I love white chocolate pretzels NOT yogurt covered pretzels). We also bought a book about the Amish - to answer a few of our own questions.

Tomorrow we will leave here and start going toward Pennsylvania - I guess we will probably get there on Saturday or Sunday - we are not going to be in a big hurry. It is raining tonight and pretty cool - I don't know what the weather is suppose to be tomorrow - we weren't here to hear the news, but I'm sure we'll be able to handle it.

I have really enjoyed our stay here in Shipshewana and I would enjoy coming back at some time and do a little more looking around - like in some of the quilt shops. The people that we have talked to have been very friendly, but we have found out that they (the Amish people) also speak Pennsylvania Dutch as well as English. From what we have read that helps them stay separated from the "outside" world. There are many conflicting ideas - such as them being so friendly but also staying separated from us on the outside - That they don't own vehicles but are allowed to ride in cars (our waitress comes to work in a van that the restaurant sends to pick the girls up because it would take her over an hour with a horse and buggy - plus that is not good for the horses to be on the road that long). Oh, I forgot - on the road the buggies have their own lane right beside the lanes that the cars use. And the sound that the horses make as they trot down the road is just unmistakable - it will be a sound that I will remember for a long time.

Well, I guess I will close for tonight - thanks for the recommendation to come here - I'm glad we did. If you have any questions, please let me know - thanks for the comments last night - it's good to hear from you - please keep them coming!

Until then - talk to you tomorrow!