Amish Country in Ohio -- a visit with my brother

Roger here...  My brother lives in Central Ohio, a little north and a little east of Columbus.   A visit to see Dick and his wife, Pam, has been on our itinerary for months.  Unfortunately, Pam was forced to go to Indiana before we arrived to take care of a medical issue with her mother.  So, it was just the three of us, Dianne, Dick, and me.  


We parked in Dick and Pam's driveway, where we connected to their electricity.  We had a great time despite Pam's absence.  Dick prepared meals on his new outdoor grill. We played Mexican Train. (Dick won every game and he had never played before.  Dick always wins, and I am really getting tired of it :-).  (I especially missed Pam while we were playing Mexican Train -- a little female backup would have been helpful; just a bit too much testosterone in the room for me!  You can read into that that I came in dead last each and every game -- D.)  We also did a little shopping and sight seeing.


Ohio Amish country was about an hour east.  We spent a day driving through the rolling hills and well-kept farms.  It is an extensive community, consisting of several towns.   Horses and buggies were prevalent on the main highways and the side roads.  Dianne told me that it was bad form to photograph the Amish without their permission.  I agree.  I did, however, take a picture of an antique buggy that was on display outside one of the shops in the town of Berlin (the opening picture).  

We stopped at a wine shop to sample some of the local Ohio wines and bought a couple of bottles, a Malbec and a Sangiovese.  Surprisingly good!


The highlight of the day was a stop in Kidron, Ohio to visit the flagship store of Lehman's.  The gigantic store (30,000 square feet, nearly a quarter- mile long) is billed as the best of Ohio's Amish country.  It was founded in 1955 to serve the local Amish with non-electric, old-fashioned products.  Dianne and I did some serious damage in the store, purchasing new dishes for the motor home (lightweight and unbreakable), as well as a few other interesting items.  (This then necessitated a trip to a Goodwill Store to drop off our old dishes -- something in, something out!  -- D.)  I will be very surprised if Dick does not make a trip back with Pam to buy a couple of the most comfortable Adirondack chairs that my derriere has ever rested in.  

We stopped for some amazing apple-cinnamon doughnuts and fruit at the local orchard (a mile from Dick and Pam's house).  We made the trip a couple of times.  The first time we were in the car. The second time we walked, making the purchase of the doughnuts a little less of a guilt trip.

We don't have any pictures of my brother, but we do have a picture of his fancy sports car.  Here is a shot taken from the motor home while he passed us
on his way to check on Pam and her mother.

(We had said our good-byes an hour or two earlier in Ohio and watched him speed off into the horizon.  We were surprised to see him pass us again in Indiana.  A phone call to Dick received an explanation that he had stopped for "a quick lunch."  I pointed out to him that it couldn't have been very quick, noting the discrepancy between his swift little sports car and our lumbering motor home; good to see him again, nevertheless!  -- D.)
  
We are back in the Indy area right now, waiting for the annual service appointment for our motor home at Mt. Comfort RV tomorrow.  After the appointment, we will slowly make our way back to our winter home in South Texas.  


The pet picture of the day shows Chaplin and Bandido resting on the couch.

Back to the Midwest - Bob Evans Farm, Southwest Ohio

Hi all, Dianne here.  This is a quick update blog to catch us up, now that we're back in Indiana.  We will be busy here this summer (my to-do list is up to #55 already!), so we might not be updating as often.  Plus, how much can you really say about yard work and mundane chores around a stix and brix house??


We will update from time to time with progress reports on getting the little house ready for sale, selling off yet more "stuff," etc.  


Friday morning (April 30) we left Pipestem Resort State Park in Southern West Virginia.  

The entire day was pretty much the same scenic views out our large motor home windows.  As we neared Beckley it became evident by the rock face next to the highway that we had entered coal country.  My thoughts naturally went to the recent mine disaster.


I've been through West Virginia several times, different parts, and if there is a flat square mile there I haven't seen one.   After crossing the state north on I-77, west on I-64, then branching off on State Road 35 near Point Pleasant, we crossed into Ohio.  

As part of this new lifestyle, we are struggling to stay out of "vacation driving" mode -- you know, the drive-till-you-drop mindset.  So, as soon as we crossed into Ohio we stopped for the day around 2:30 at the original Bob Evans Farm homestead campground.  It's a small campground with only 12 RV sites, but we have water and 50 amp electric (no sewer).  It's quiet and pretty here except for the traffic on state road 588 out front.  At only $15 per night for water and electric, it's a bargain and perfect for a relaxing overnight stop to break up the long drive. 

 As you can see from the photo, Chaplin found the grass to be very relaxing!  You could almost read his mind:  "Um-m-m, soft midwestern grass!  No spurs, no fire ants, smells so good...."

As soon as we got set up, we drove across the street and down a "bit" to the original Bob Evans homestead to pay for our camp site.  The homestead is open for tours with no admission fee.  We were so hungry by that point that we skipped the tour and made a bee-line to eat at the original Bob Evans restaurant on the grounds.  I didn't photograph it, because it just looks like the normal Bob Evans restaurants you see everywhere. Not exactly gourmet fare, but a fitting start to welcome us back to the Midwest.


Saturday morning we traveled on until we were truly "Back Home Again in Indiana."  We spent Saturday night at Summit Lake State Park (mainly so we could dump our tanks to have them empty), then arrived at our little house in Pendleton Sunday morning.  


Now I understand why Indiana state parks are NOT popular with out-of-state travelers.  Always in the past we have had an annual pass to use for the various state parks.  This time, being South Dakota residents, we had to pay $7.00 just to enter the park, then another $25 or so for the camp site.  Not a viable option for just an overnight stay!  We might as well have found a private campground.  


We're currently in Pendleton, Indiana, parked in the driveway of the little house, plugged into the 50 amp outlet we installed last summer when we thought we'd be keeping it.  (Our two posts from this little house last year can be found under "Pendleton" in the sidebar).  An appraiser is coming this evening to appraise it for us, so we'll have a ballpark figure on what to ask for it as we try to sell it.  Wish us luck!

Gypsy Journal Rally - Celina, Ohio

Dianne here -- 

  We got the little house ready for winter, and took off for at least eight months, with the first stop being the Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina, Ohio.  We left Pendleton HOPING that our Main Street house closing would go through as scheduled on September 30 while we were gone.

   After 16 months on the market, it was really fitting that the closing took place while we were at a rally attending seminars on full-timing!   It was also ironic that a new full-timing couple who were parked right behind us (from Tennessee) had their house closing on the exact day and time as ours!   Theirs was actually scheduled for 4:00 p.m. and ours at 5:00 p.m., but with the time change taken into account we truly did have simultaneous closings.  We even got the final phone calls at about the same time, letting us all know it was FINALLY over and we were truly home-free!!!!   Boy, what a great feeling!   There was celebration all around. 

     Roger here... At about 6:30 p.m. after our 5:00 closing, our phenomenal realtor, Andy Liechty at FC Tucker, based in the Nobleville IN office, called me during the rally pizza party.  I went outside to take the call, leaving Dianne in the pavilion wondering whether or not the closing was a done deal, OR if there were problems. 

Andy is an old friend and one of the people that I hired as a teacher, before he skipped to realty.  So......... We talked and laughed for a while before I returned to Dianne.  She was white!   

(Dianne here:  I waited and waited and WAITED,  and as time went by I became more and more convinced that something terrible must have happened!)  

I gave her a thumbs up and the color returned to her face.  Nick, the organizer of the rally, had both couples stand up, to the applause of everyone.  It was a good moment.   Just as an aside, if you live in the Indy area and are in need of a realtor, NO ONE is better than Andy!

If you wonder what the Gypsy Journal is all about, there is a link on the left side of our blog page, "Gypsy Journal," that takes you to their web site.  Nick & Terry Russell are full-timers who publish a monthly newspaper that we subscribe to, all about living and traveling full time in an RV.   Nick has written several books on the subject, and over the past two years or so I have purchased them all.  He has thousands of people who read his daily blog and his monthly newspaper, so twice a year they put on a rally; one in the eastern part of the US and one out west (in Arizona).  Celina, Ohio is only a couple of hours from Pendleton, Indiana.  We signed up for the Celina rally last winter, and have been looking forward to it ever since.  We were not disappointed!!

Here are a sampling of the classes Roger and I were able to attend:  RV weight safety, RVing Alaska, Managing Digital Photos with Picasa, Hosting in State Parks, Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems, "Don't Replace, Refurbish," Google Earth, Highway History & Back Road Mystery, RV Travel & Camping Tips, Blogging, Beyond the Basics, Optimizing your RV Storage Space, and Volunteering at National Wildlife Refuges.  There were many more seminars available, so we needed to pick and choose those that were of most interest to us.  

Roger here... as a result of one of the seminars, we purchased a tire pressure monitoring system so that we would get an alarm if any of the tires on our motor home or dinghy lost pressure.  What a relief to know ahead of time of an impending blowout.  Unfortunately, I pushed too many buttons during the self-installation.  The ultimate result was that the vendor came to our RV, rectified the mistakes I made, and gave me a mini-lesson for the future.  Definitely an advantage of purchasing a product at a rally where the vendor is on-site.

Each evening the attendees gathered together and Nick and Terry made announcements and gave out door prizes.  The first night we won $10 off dinner at a local restaurant, which we made good use of the next night.

Nick has the rally thing down to a science!   As we pulled in, volunteers helped send us to the right place to have our motor home weighed before we even got parked.  We had signed up ahead of time to be weighed, because it is hard to find a place that will weigh all four tires separately and help you calculate changes that should be made for optimal weight distribution.

Another irony is that we were parked right next to an exact duplicate of our Mountain Aire.  If we'd had too much to drink, it would have been easy to go to the wrong one!

Each morning they served complimentary coffee and

 doughnuts, and on Wednesday evening we even had a giant pizza party!   I was amazed at the efficiency of that pizza party.  How on earth did they serve pizza to well over 150 people and it was still hot and delicious!!   I still don't know how they did it.   Terry Russell is truly a model of efficiency.  

One aspect of the rally we utilized was a book exchange table.  We had a whole bag of paperback books that we had recently read, and we were able to exchange them for another stack of paperback books.   We do love our Kindles, but we never miss the chance at a book exchange table!

 We purchased some DVDs which will help us plan a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Alaska someday, and others that will help us learn new tricks for the computer.

  

I especially learned a lot at the seminars presented by the "Geeks on 

Tour," who are also full-time RV'ers and gave classes on computer education geared to the needs of travelers.  They have their own web site, www.GeeksOnTour.com,  which is filled with tutorials and videos to help you learn all kinds of neat stuff.  We had used Google Earth before, but didn't realize all the things we could do with it.   Same with Picasa for photos.  I also learned some new tricks for our blog, and when things settle down I'll try to implement some of them.   

Roger here....   The last night of the rally, Dianne insisted that I take a picture of her and Nick.

  Nick constantly refers to the pretty ladies that he knows.  Should I be jealous?

There were vendors at the rally and we did our fair share of shopping for RV-related items.  

 All in all, it was a great experience, and we are already looking forward to next year's eastern Gypsy rally, which will be next August/Sept. in Elkhart, Indiana.