Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tuesday July 30, 2013-Addison Oaks county park

We had a nice day yesterday and I decided to go back over to Troy to capture some Munzees. Stella insisted on going with me and at the end of the day, I was glad she did. I finished up a shopping center that had several Diamond Munzee, worth more points and when I got through with them we went over to cap a large group of Virtual Munzees that should have been very easy to find. Virtuals (Virts) are electronic Munzees that you only need to be within 300 feet from to capture, so Stella volunteered to cap them while I drove down the street. Whoever deployed them did not do a very good job and some of them ended up on a golf course surrounded by trees on a college campus. We made three trips up and down a pretty heavily traveled road and got what we could before giving up and coming home.

When we got home, we rested (napped) for a bit before going out to light a campfire on our next - to - last night here. I took a few pictures of Stella and the dogs at the fire and had some trouble getting the right shot.

Stella had her hands full with Cassie in her lap and Tramp pulling away. She's got to have her coffee too...

Got rid of the coffee, but Tramp was distracted by something, probably the wind..

Cassie was looking my way but Tramp is barking at something and I cut Stella's head off!

I got everything in the picture but both dogs are looking away.  

Finally a decent one! Got most of the firepit, both dogs are looking my way and Stella's head is in the picture. Oh the woes of being the photographer!

We plan to spend today getting things ready to move out on Wednesday, so there won't be a post. We'll be on the move soon!

So long.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Sunday July 28, 2013-Addison Oaks county park

We have enjoyed our visit with our good friends Ted and Donna. I still think that this park is over priced but we still enjoyed our time with them. Their two daughters and their families spent  lot of time with us and it was fun to watch the difference between their young grandkids and our two older ones. 

We all went to a barbecue restaurant over in Romeo the other night. It wasn't Texas "cue" but it wasn't too bad. We had  good time with daughter Kelly, her husband Pat and their daughter and her boyfriend. 

Yesterday we went to Troy to a Mexican restaurant that we had found the last time we were here but sadly, the food wasn't nearly as good and they kept beating drums and singing for patron's birthdays. After the third one, it became annoying because it was so loud. I think that even if it had been one of our birthdays, we would still have disliked the noise. We came back home expecting to have another campfire but it began to rain and we cancelled it and played  game of Shanghai. It was a fun game and of course, I didn't win. Donna did, but then she was keeping score. Do you ever wonder how it is that the scorekeeper most always wins?

This morning, Ted and Donna pulled out. It had rained all night and was cold this morning, 53 degrees! We braved the chilly weather and saw them off, but then it started to rain again and we stayed inside around the fireplace. I don't know how we ever made it before having an electric fireplace and how hesitant I was about getting one. Now I wouldn't be without it.

Ted called when they arrived in Zanesville Ohio, where they had stopped overnight. He said that he met a couple of guys at a rest stop and struck up conversation with them. They were heading to Niagara Falls and were going to Wolfie's Resort, where Ted and Donna were going. The ironic thing is that they had spent a couple of days at the Heartland Resort, where we had left to come up here! It is indeed a small world!

So long.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Wednesday July 24, 2013-Moving Day-Heartland Resort to Addison Oaks county park, Leonard MI

Today was our traveling day from the Heartland Resort to Addison Oaks county park in Leonard Michigan. Our friends Ted and Donna have been here visiting their daughters and families for a couple of weeks and we wanted to drop by and spend a few days with them.

What a travel day it turned out to be!!!

This is our site. Notice the beautiful blue skies and the forest behind us? This is a nice park but in my opinion, still a bit overpriced for what you get. 50 amp electric service and water but no sewer hookup. They do furnish a free pump out service but only one day a week, Wednesday when you stay for a week or more. The rates are comparable to a full hookup site, private park. Off my soapbox now.

We are parked right next to Ted and Donna and right at the entrance to this loop of sites. It remains to be seen how much traffic we experience this weekend.

Sadly, these trees are likely dying from the bore-ash beetle. There many restrictions on the transporting firewood but they sell approved firewood everywhere. 

Now, back to our trip up here. We left the Heartland resort a little after 9 AM and made great time, staying on the freeway all the way. The problem cme fter we got off the Interstate to go down to the park. When we were less than 10 miles from the park, we're driving down a nice, paved road when I see a small sign that says Rochester detour-turn right. I knew that Rochester is the road that we needed to be on to get to the park, so I follow the detour signs. We went about four or five miles until we get into the small town of Leonard when I see a sign that the detour ended. I went to the next street and turned right, which my GPS was telling me to do. I followed the road for a mile or so and noticed a large truck ahead of me. Thinking he was taking the same detour we were, I continued follow him for a few more blocks until he just stopped in the road. I then realized that this was the construction area and the truck we were following was a large dump truck that was waiting to drop a load of road materials. I got out and walked up to the driver for directions. He told me of a route to take as soon as the road was clear. After a short wait, we were able to get through but we were on a rapidly deteriorating dirt road. Unknown to us, it had rained heavily yesterday, so the road was muddy and slippery. It was very rough and filled with potholes. Not only that, but every time I went around a curve or over the top of a hill, I didn't know if I would run into a dead end and have to back this 39' trailer no telling how far before finding a place to turn around.

Luckily, I soon met some traffic that included a man just coming home from work. He said that the road construction guys had the entire neighborhood riled up. He said that they had cut the road about two and a half feet lower than the end of his driveway and he hadn't been able to go to work for a day and a half. At any rate, he gave us directions on how to get back on the road to the park and approximately fifteen minutes later we were pulling into the park. We had only gone about five miles out of the way, but I was exhausted! 

Luckily for us Ted and Donna had fixed supper for us, so after doing our set-up, we were able to relax and have a nice meal. Their daughters and their families were also there, so it was a fun time with the three grandkids and seven adults but they pulled it off. 

When supper was over, we gathered around the firepit to enjoy the first campfire in awhile. It was very nice, in fact before the night was over all of us had put on either a jacket or sweats, it was that cool!
It was a chilly 57 this morning! Glad to be back in cool night country.

So long.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Monday July 22, 2013-Heartland Resort

Not too much going around here but at least the hot weather is gone at least temporarily. I guess it will be permanently for us because we leave here on Wednesday for Michigan. It should be cooler there (fingers crossed).

I recently discovered a small cemetery on the grounds here. It is surrounded by a pretty white picket fence and is well taken care of and when I went closer to look at the stones, I found that they are from the 1800's and unreadable. The stones have been painted and the inscriptions are impossible to read. I was able to see one year of 1830 something and another that said 1850 something but no names were visible. I stopped at the office this morning but the work campers on duty didn't know anything other than it is a family plot from the original settlers that lived here. It is believed that this was a dairy farm at one time and that this was the family cemetery for them. I had noticed another smaller stone monument with three first names with the years 2000, 2001 and 2003. This is for two long-time work campers and one man that stayed here for many years. They didn't know any more about them, but did tell me of another monument to John's son. I assume John is the owner. The very small stone is at the base of a pear tree and had a small picture of the man, but no name was attached.

We went to eat at the Ponderosa with Mack and Mattigene and their grandson Hunter. We had a great meal that Mack insisted on paying for and a very nice visit before they headed back home. This will be our last time with them this trip because tomorrow will be spent getting things ready to leave on Wednesday. We've had a great time with our good friends and will return here another time.

So long.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Saturday July 20, 2013-Heartland Resort

Mack owns an old Ford Model T and is in a club for these restored old cars. He has had his car in shows and has won several "Best of Show" awards with it. Today, Mack and I went to a fellow restorer's house out in the country outside of Indianapolis to see a young man that has done extensive work on some of his own old cars. There I met Allan, whose son Jacob has done the work on these cars and will be demonstrating replacing the main bearings in an old engine.

Here is the driveway leading into their yard with a couple of Jacob's cars sitting outside. I'm not sure of the year of these old cars, but they were built in the late 1920's-30's. 

 This car is a boat tail racer that is built and driven by Jacob in hill climbs and other races for these old cars.

The interior of the race car! 

The shape of the rear end of the car gives it it's name of boat tail. This is probably some of the oldest type of aerodynamics in an automobile.

I believe that this is Jacob's first rebuild, a 1929 T-Model. It was started when Jacob was 15 years old. He not only restored the car, he painted it too, right there in the garage. Great job Jacob!


I looked the car over and didn't see any defects on it. All of the lines of the body matched up and Jacob later moved the car and it started up better than some new cars.

This is a work in progress. An old T-model truck. Notice on this and the photo below the amount of wood in these old cars. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you might remember when we toured the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and saw one of Henry Ford's lumber mills. He wanted to control every bit of material of his cars and owned a huge amount of forest land and some sawmills. In case you don't remember, check out THIS LINK.


This is the old bed that will go on the truck. It appears that the metal in the bed is new, and of course, the wood planks are new also. 

Another old racer that Jacob is working on. He told us that the metal body pieces were bent and shaped by him and of course, he painted it too.


Jacob said that he hand made several pieces for the engine, which is original to this car. It's hard to believe that these cars and engines are 90+ years old.

The group, gathered around to watch Jacob work on another engine. 

The engine needs new main bearings, and Jacob will have them ready soon. 

The bearing material, called babbitt metal, is in a burner to Jacob's right, melting so it can be poured into bottom of the engine.

Jacob is warming up the forms that the babbitt material will be poured into.

One of the club members acted as Jacob's helper, warming the forms as he readied the now-liquid material is ladled out.

Jacob handled the molten material like the pro he is, never spilling a drop.

Knocking the forms out. 


The forms removed and ready for machining.  


Jacob works in a machine shop and will use a line boring machine to align and smooth the bearings. These bearings should last 80-90,000 miles. As little as these cars are driven or even run, they should last a loooong time. I am very glad to see the younger generation with a love of preserving the old ways of doing things and of course, preserving these old cars. 

After the demonstration, Mack and I returned to his house for lunch. It rained very hard on us on the way back which changed the plans to cook hamburgers outside. It continued to rain off and on for the rest of the afternoon. The grass and crops need the rain but the best thing is, it cooled things off. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees after the rain but it will warm up again.

We timed our meal just right. We had just finished up eating when Mack and Mattie's daughter and her family came down to drop off their son who will be staying with them for a week or so. It makes me miss our three grandsons back in Texas.

So long. 



Friday, July 19, 2013

Friday July 19, 2013-Heartland Resort

Let me begin by saying that for a long time I've been bragging about how nice the weather has been for us. I have to admit that summer has finally caught up with us. It has been in the mid 90's every day and the air conditioners are working hard to keep up. 

Today Mack and Mattigene came out and picked us up to go to the Indiana State Police Museum that is nearby.

Every Police Museum must have a collection of old cars, and this place is no exception. A bit before my time is a 1950 Chevrolet 2 door sedan. 

This is a 1980 Dodge, which is similar to the Grand Fury models that we drove for the first two or three years in Dickinson. It brought back many memories!

I believe this one is a 1937 Chevrolet, waaaaay before my time. Notice there were no overhead lights but fender-mounted red spots.

Don't be fooled by this one. It is coming and going! They welded two front ends from Chevrolet patrol cars to make an interesting display. There are no motor(s) in the car and they did a good job of joining them together.

Whats a police museum without a motorcycle? This is a 1937 Indian which is a collector's item in itself.

Gotta have a Harley Davidson! I never wanted to ride a motorcycle in my career. I liked my air conditioned, 4 door sedan.

The display on the left is duty weapons that were carried by troopers and investigators. The middle collection is weapons won by State Troopers in shooting contests and donated to the museum.

They had a large display of Indiana native, John Dillinger. He was a well known bank robber of the depression era. Dillinger robbed two dozen banks and four police stations. Dillinger was a big part of J Edgar Hoover's formation of the FBI. A group of local police and federal officers killed Dillinger in Chicago in 1934.

Uniforms from the early days on the left and center and more modern on the right. 

They even had an old still on display. I never knew that Indiana had moonshiners but apparently they did.

After finishing up at the museum, we returned to the El Nopal restaurant where we enjoyed another great Mexican food meal. It was a nice day, spent with good friends.

So long.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Monday July 15 2013-Heartland Resort

Today we went to the Irving Materials Inc. to see a collection of big game animals that the owner has collected. I found this place from my friend Kelly's blog called RoadsideAmerica.com that you can find interesting sights while traveling. I called and found that they allow people to come in and take a look at the collection. 

That's a big 'ol polar bear! 

 Lions, Tigers and Bears, oh my!

A beautiful wolf. 

A javelina with a striped hyena behind it. 

 Rhino head

 I believe this is a Kodiak bear, one of the largest members of the bear family.

 A buffalo or bison.

 A moose.

Large elk. 

Stella doesn't seem to be too concerned about this lion. There must have been 100 or more animal trophies displayed from all over the world. I'll bet this man can really tell some camping and hunting stories!

If you're ever in the area, go by to check out this place. And bookmark the Roadside America site and see what is around you, even at home. Have fun.

So long.