A Good Day, But...

Since over a month ago (August 12, to be exact), we have been moving toward this day. We got up this morning with one purpose in mind, to tour the DRV factory in Howe, Indiana, and see our partially-built, new RV. At a few minutes after 8, I called to confirm the time of the factory tour, leaving a message with the switchboard. About an hour later, we received a call from Kyle of DRV. He was in nearby Elkhart, setting up for a dealer show of their new models. He said there was no salesman at the factory to give us the tour. I reminded him that we set up this appointment with him over a month ago. After a few fits and starts and phone calls, and several apologies from him, we arranged to meet with the chief engineer tomorrow to see our rig (and maybe a factory tour?).

Needless to say, we have been disappointed and frustrated today. We are glad we didn't just fly out here for one day. Since we now have all the time in the world, we made the best of it and spent the day browsing around nearby Shipshewana. It is an Amish/Mennonite community with lats of local artisan shops. Typical of Amish areas, we saw folks on bicycles and driving horse-drawn carts. Highway signs warn you of their presence.




There were lots of interesting shops. The first one we went into was The Sign of the Boot Leather Shop, which also houses the Center for Traditional Arts. The boot maker told us about many interesting wood carvings and explained that they host demonstrations of traditional arts from time to time.



We saw a small cafe that looked like a Coca Cola collector's heaven.



Nearby we saw an interesting music instrument shop. Look at the brightly colored violins.



These interesting-looking quash were on sale fro 25 cents each or 5 for $1.



There was this neat carousel.



A large grain mill, right in the center of the shopping district.



Great Amish-made toys.



And wonderful flowers and decorations all through the shopping area.

One street even had a water pump in the sidewalk. (I don't think it works anymore. Maybe it was to water the horses?)



All in all, it wasn't the day we planned, but it was an interesting one.

Birthday Celebration

This has been the year John and I turned 70 years of age. That was impressive to us. But even more impressive and important is turning 80 years old. John's older sister, Kendal, hit that milestone this past week and our family gathered last Saturday to celebrate.

Her cake had a sparkler candle for every decade. (They were very hard to blow out.)

Every time we get together as a family, there is the mandatory photo of the brothers and sisters.

And here is one of just the two sisters.

It was a warm, sunny day as Scott cooked the hamburgers. Kim wanted to make sure he did them right. Tim, Diane and Jennifer also came out to check on the meal-in-progress.

Over the years, we have all brought our pets along to family gatherings. This time, it was just Kendal's dog Bailey and Jennifer and Scott's dog Rosie.



Sarah loved playing with the youngest member of the family, Benjamin. His parents are Nikki and Brian.



Mike was there with his two sons, Alex and Kody.



Megan and Gabe and four of their five children--Andre, Jarid, Victoria and Jordan--were able to come for the party.



Scott and Cindy's husband John had a serious discussion about the food that was being served and Scott also spent time with Ed and Dorothy and their friend from Scotland.

We are a family of Johns.Two more, Kendal's husband John and my husband John chatted with Kim.

It was a good time with family before we left Colorado until next summer.

Day after Day

Monday, we got up, ate breakfast, put everything away, hooked the truck to the RV, and drove to Oakley, Kansas. There, we unhitched the truck from the trailer, set up the RV, relaxed for a bit, I cooked dinner, we read blogs and checked email, and went to sleep.

Tuesday, we got up, ate breakfast, put everything away, hooked the truck to the RV, and drove to Topeka, Kansas. There, we unhitched the truck from the trailer, set up the RV, relaxed for a bit, I cooked dinner, we read blogs and checked email, and went to sleep.

Wednesday, we got up, ate breakfast, put everything away, hooked the truck to the RV, and drove to Fulton, Missouri. There, we unhitched the truck from the trailer, set up the RV, relaxed for a bit, I cooked dinner, we read blogs and checked email, then went to sleep.

Today, we got up, ate breakfast, put everything away, hooked the truck to the RV, and drove to Effingham, Illinois. Here, we unhitched the truck from the trailer and set up the RV. Then, something new, we drove to a Chevy dealer and had the Diesel Exhaust Fluid filled, then drove to Walmart to shop for groceries. Then we relaxed, I cooked dinner, we read blogs and checked email. It was cool enough I could walk around the RV park. Now it is time to go to sleep.

Tomorrow will be more of the same. We will get up, eat breakfast, put everything away, hook the truck to the RV, and drive to Anderson, Indiana.

Have you ever heard of Effingham, Illinois? We hadn't. It is at the intersection of I-70 and I-57. I-70, originally the National Road, built entirely with federal government funds between 1811 and about 1830, opened the newly acquired lands of the Louisiana Purchase from the east to the Mississippi River. It eventually became US 40 and now I-70. The most prominent landmark in Effingham is this 198-foot cross.

We are going east on I-70, headed toward Indianapolis. Today, we discovered that the folks at Rand McNally who made our RV GPS don't know how to spell. Look at this:

The computer-generated voice must just sound out letters. We learned we are headed toward "eye-dianopolis." We drove on IL 32, pronounced "eye-el 32." In Colorado, we drive on CO-9, "see-oh 9." We have to learn how to interpret what we hear. We can't wait to get to Arizona and find out how the voice pronounced Ajo. Our previous GPS changed back and forth between "ah-joe" and "ah-ho."

What a Change

We are nearly 7,0000 feet lower and 35 degrees warmer than when we left Mueller Statw Park this morning. We drove 280 miles to Oakley, Kansas. The 95 degree heat almost knocked us over when we stepped out of the car. Tomorrow, we are on to Topeka.

It has been a wonderful summer, living in the Colorado Rockies.  We are both Colorado natives and we lived in two mountain communities, Granby and Grand Lake, in the 1980s.  This is our first time to live in the forest in the mountains and we have loved it.

These is a huge spruce tree outside our front window.  The warmest it has been has been 75 degrees.  The scenery is wonderful and this park is so very quiet.  On Friday afternoons, there is a lot of traffic of incoming campers.  But when you walk around Mueller, most campers are in the campsite, quietly sitting around the campfire or reading.  Even the children tend to be quiet--very little yelling.  Boaters tend to drink and party more than family campers.  Mueller has no lake.  Yea!

The park is located in Pike National Forest--a mixed conifer and Aspen forest.  Long familiar with forests, I came to really appreciate the trees.  I finally had to stop taking pictures of them and posting them in my blogs.  There is infinite variety here, but just how many photographs can I post?  We are surrounded by trees and we have seen them move through the seasons.  They have been ice-covered, bare and stark, stunning in their size and shape.  They frame everything, from the hiking paths to the meadows to the rising full moon and a stunning rainbow.  We will miss these trees when we return to Arizona for the winter.

On our trip through Canada and Alaska last year, we saw a great variety of wildlife. Colorado has more people and, thus, less wildlife.  But we have thoroughly enjoyed the deer, chipmunks, golden mantled ground squirrels and fox in our front yard and around the park.  John even saw bear twice and me, once.  Mueller has a fairly good-sized herd of elk.  We saw them early on.  But they moved to the north end of the park for calving season and we haven't seen them in the park since.  We are sorry Colorado elk aren't as comfortable around people as those we encountered on two different trips in Jasper, Alberta, Canada.

Mueller has received quite a bit of rain this summer, resulting in a profuse array of wildflowers. They started blooming in June and we still have quite a few yellow and lavender ones showing their colors in September. It has been fun to see new ones every couple of weeks. It is amazing how many things thrive at this altitude. I just wish I could identify all of them.

The American Robin seems to thrive all over North America and they were very prevalent here in June and July. We haven't seen any the past two or three weeks. I guess they have begun their migration south. We have seen a good assortment of birds throughout the summer. The wild turkeys here look almost as big as the ones we see in the store at Thanksgiving. I'll bet they aren't as tender, however.

The hiking, trees, wildlife, flowers and birds have all enriched our summer here. But, it has been the people that have really made this volunteer assignment special. The staff of Mueller State Park is the best, the most friendly of any place we have volunteered over the past nine years. From the park manager through the Visitor Center staff to rangers and gate attendants and maintenance staff, we have been impressed and really felt a part of the team that makes this such a special and popular state park. We have worked hard and we are tired and ready to move on. But we will miss the people. And we plan to return in future summers--as regular campers, not volunteers.

Cemetery Work

My grandfather George Polhill, my mother's dad, is buried in Sunnyside Cemetery in nearby Victor. When we visited the grave last month while our grandchildren were visiting, we realized the grave needs some care. Not ones to procrastinate, we got right to it--today, 3 days before we leave. This is what it looked like when we arrived. It is the grave on the left.

John did the hard work, using a hoe and a shovel to removed the grass and other plants that had taken root in the years since he last cleaned the site. The cemetery is not maintained, so any cleaning and repair is up to the relatives of those buried there.

I wasn't idle. I put all those plants into a bucket and made several trips to the edge of the cemetery where I deposited them. Eventually the grave looked respectable again and you could actually read my grandfather's name.

George was a gold miner. He and his neighbors all worked underground. Today, looking at his grave, you can see the huge American Eagle open pit gold mine. Those buried in past decades couldn't imagine what goes on there today.

Cemeteries give hints of so many stories. If only we could read those stories. I found three sets of father and son graves where the two men from one family died in the same year. I wonder why?

I can't help but wonder where this man drowned. (Click to enlarge the photo.)  There isn't a decent river or lake for miles.

Since our last visit to this area, numerous unmarked graves have been mapped and marked with small white crosses.

The name of the person buried here has been long lost.

The first known burial in the cemetery was in 1891. Some Wisconsin Civil War soldier decided to seek his fortune in the gold mines and died here. I wonder if Mr. Tyler found that fortune before he died?

A number of the graves are encircled with iron fences, man-made items of beauty surrounded by the majestic Colorado mountains.

What Else Goes On Here?

Our main responsibility is cleaning cabins here at Mueller State Park. So, what do the other people in maintenance do with their time? From 10 to 11 each morning, they clean the shower house. There are four showers on each side (men's and women's), as well as four toilet stalls in each. The time is the same each day so campers know when the facilities won't be available. It would be nice if they observed those hours, but as anyone who has worked in a park knows, campers often push the limits.

Another daily task is to clean each of the vault toilets. We have been impressed that this is done daily. In many parks, I am sure it is a weekly task, at best. Our first couple of weeks, we helped with this job, but haven't done it since then. During July new plastic toilets were installed in each building.

We caught John and Randy cleaning vaults one day.

John is retired from the US Navy, where he became proficient spray-painting metal surfaces. He took on the task of scraping and painting the metal garage doors at the maintenance building. After all the old paint was scraped off, he suited up to keep the paint off his clothes.

Now he is ready to do the painting.

And here he is, admiring the completed job. Don't the doors look good?

With 132 campsites, there is a lot of work in the campground area. A couple of weeks ago, the crew did some improvements in the Turkey Meadows walk-in camp loop.

Dan was supervising when we first went to check out what they were doing. We could hear the tractor backing up and went to see what was going on.

Jeff was using the tractor to pull out a tree stump and removed railroad ties that outlined the tent sites. They were expanding those sites by removing those tent area borders and leveling the surrounding ground.

Dan and John were using a very large hand-help electric saw to cut some of the railroad ties to shore up the edges of the camp sites.

Randy, who is still in high school, is a talented welder and he has built a rack to store signs in one of the garages and a framework for the new sign at the park entrance. He also helped put together a trailer for back country fire fighting equipment. Sorry, no photos.