bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We left early to go to the Gerald R. Ford Museum. It’s the 40th anniversary of his inauguration, so the museum was free. We didn’t plan it that way, it was just luck. We arrived just prior to 9AM when the museum opened. 

The museum is located in Grand Rapids, Ford’s childhood home and in his former Congressional District. The Presidential Library is located in Ann Arbor on the campus of the University of Michigan. It is the only Presidential Library/Museum which is located in two separate places. There is a Ford Presidential Foundation which helps to support the two entities.

Our first stop was for the movie which was an overview of his short presidency. Since it was the 40th anniversary, they also ran a video of his inaugural speech which was very interesting.

We proceeded upstairs to visit the exhibits which included a lot about his rise to being the first non-elected Vice-President and then President.  The tour started with info about the 1970’s, then went back to his childhood.

When you look at all he accomplished, much of what was not popular, during his short Presidency, you have to give him credit for doing the right thing, (mostly), not the popular thing. To bad that we do not have elected officials who put the country first, before their own political gain now, like Gerry Ford!

Of course they had the replica of the oval office.

There was also a replica of the ‘board room’ used by all the Presidents, not just Ford, which we had not seen before.

 

There was also a temporary exhibit about the Ford Class aircraft carriers. The Ford class’s first ship was named for President Ford.

President Ford knew about the air craft carrier class, but died before it was completed. Susan Ford did the Champaign bottle christening of the Gerald Ford. The last of this class of battleships is to be completed in 2016. Below is a model of the Gerald R. Ford. While we were in the room looking at this, one of the TV stations was filming the museum. We did not make the cut and were not on TV on the evening news.

The above plaque was at the entrance to the museum. We went outside and walked along the front of the museum, facing the river. Where the Betty Ford garden is located.

 

The President and First Lady are buried at the back of the museum, facing the river.

 

The fountain is also facing the river.

Above and below are pictures of Grand Rapids. It was hard to see the actual rapids, which are behind the bridge in the distance.

We went to lunch at the Founders Brewing Company, one of thirty- one breweries in town! Following lunch, we went to the Downtown Market Grand Rapids. The inside market, which is open all year, hosts 21 vendors. We found them to be very expensive.

Outside, since it was Saturday, there was a Farmers Market with the usual produce. There were only about 10 stands. We did not find all that we wanted, so we went to a different Farmers Market, which had more produce vendors, in the historic district.

Next we cruised through the Heritage Hill Historic District which has 60 different architectural styles and 1300 houses dating from between 1844 to the 1920’s. Here are a few.

Below is the first Frank Lloyd Wright home built in Michigan. This is the Meyer May House, built in 1908. It is a Prairie design and is the most complete restoration of a FLW home in existence. It is open to the public on Tues, Thurs, and Sunday and the tour is free. Unfortunately for us, it was Saturday!

We stopped at Costco and bought gas($3.34) and some food items, before returning to the RV park. We ate dinner and sat out again enjoying the beautiful weather.

Sunday- We left around 10 AM to drive south on MI 131 through Kalamazoo, and into Indiana. We continued on IN 13 to IN 20 and then south on CR 19 to CR 6 and back to Pla-Mor RV Park. We wanted a quieter place to stay!

As I was checking us in, the gal said that our friends had just arrived. Barbara and Raymond Vaughn were here. They came over to look at the MH. We ate lunch, then continued to visit with Barbara and Ray. We ate dinner at home, then sat out talking. All the while,we were also doing laundry.

Monday- We were up early and went to McMillers at 8AM. We met with PJ and Megan, giving them a list of items that we found that needed to be repaired.

We left and went to Mishawaka to shop. We started at Aldi’s for their Sweet Potato chips and bananas, then we went to Joanne’s to look at fabric for curtains for the MH. Next we went to Lazy-Boy to look at recliners and chairs. We found some that we are interested in, but we do not want to buy at this time.

We ate our picnic lunch in the car, since it was raining. We went to Batteries and Bulbs to pick up some batteries for the tire pressure monitor. Then we went to Walmart and drove back to Nappanee, arriving in time to pick up the MH. We returned to Pla-More to spend the night.

Tuesday- We left early again and went to Mikes for some painting touch up. We left the MH there and went to Goshen. We stopped at a nail salon for me to have a Mani/Pedi. We stopped in Walmart looking for a tension rod, but instead we found some nice valences. We went to Lowes and picked up the tension rod and a wall fan. Note that we have hung it crooked. The fan lowers, but only in one direction, so we hung it so that the air hits the bed. We will take the fan off the wall for travel, as it where the bedroom slide comes in.

We have had a standing fan in the bedroom, but it gets in the way, so we decided to make a change.

We stopped for lunch at Steak and Shake, since we had never been to one. Bob had a portabella mushroom steakburger and I had one with guacamole and pepper jack. Both were good.

We decided to go to the Goshen Library since it was raining and cool, and we could leave the dogs in the car. The library did not open until 1, so we tried connecting to their WiFi and were able to do so from the parking lot. I promptly fell asleep in the car and Bob went inside when the library opened.

At about 2 PM, Mike’s called to say that the MH was ready, so we returned to Bremen to pick it up and returned to Pla-Mor.

Wednesday- It was Megan and PJ’s daughters birthday, so Megan was taking her out to breakfast. This meant a later start, so we did not arrive at McMillers until about 10:30. They kept working on our list.

On Monday, it had been pouring rain and we had a leak in the big slide. They found a hole in the roof of the slide, which they repaired. It appeared to have been done after the paint job. We are not sure where this occurred.

They did a lot of the little extras we requested and we finally left there at after 5 PM, so we went to the Newmar lot to spend the night. We kept the windows closed and the fan running to help to mitigate the train and motorcycle noise, which worked pretty well.

Thursday- We had planed on leaving yesterday for Ohio, but the repairs took longer than anticipated, so we tried to leave this morning. We went to put in the large slide and it would not come in.We played it back and forth but that did not work, so Bob drove back over to McMillers (PJ did not answer his phone, he never does) and came back with PJ and his brother Glen. Glen pushed the button with PJ and Bob pushing on the slide to get it in.

We left a little later than anticipated. We went east on CR 6 to CR 15. We went north, through Goshen to the corner of IN 20 and CR 15 where there is a nice new Marathon gas station. We finally found where the diesel pumps for the RV were located and tried to pump the diesel. The pump was not working, so Bob went inside to find that someone had pushed the emergency button resulting in shutting down the diesel. The new staff could not figure out how to restart the pump! So we left and continued north to the IN toll road, I-80/90. We went one exit east and got off to go to another Marathon for diesel. There are not a lot of places to purchase diesel on the toll road. Of course it cost us $2.90 for the toll road.

We stopped at the Marathon, and after running twice through the lot trying to find the pumps for the RV’s, we pulled into the pump to find that it was not working! The reason we had to find RV pumps is that IN has non-taxed pumps for trucks and we have to pay the taxes, so they have different pumps in IN.

Anyway, we went back onto the toll road to drive to Angola IN, where we found a Flying J. We filled up with about a quarter of a tank because the diesel is less expensive in Ohio. $7.10 for this part of the toll road.

We continued on to the end of the IN toll road, another $2.90. We paid $20  to use the Ohio toll road, and stopped for more diesel.

We switched drivers and I drove. We ended up going through Cleveland during rush hour which was not fun, but could have been a lot worse!

We drove about six miles off of I-90 to the Kennisee Lake Thousand Trails. This is one of the nicest TT’s that we have been to, and we have been to a lot of them!

We backed into a 50 amp, FHU, flat site on gravel ($3 extra for the 50 amp). The roads are a packed gravel and it seems like all the sites are FHU, either 30 or 50 amp. There are some pull thru sites, but they were all full. There is a large lake and three ponds, with fishing. There is also a very cold swimming pool. Even the tent sites are nice!

We had put a dinner into the crock pot at one of the rest stops, so we had dinner all ready! It had been a long day, as we arrived at 5:30.We sat out after dinner, enjoying the nice weather.

Friday- We slept in this morning, as we had been up early every other day this week. After breakfast, we worked on some issues around the MH.I cleaned the bathroom and wiped down the walls. Bob worked on clipping the backup camera microphone cord and cleaning the camera. For some reason the microphone on the back up camera has broken and was making a lot of noise.  PJ had covered the opening for the microphone with tape, but the tape had come off. Bob had put silicone over it, but that was also not working. So he was just going to clip the wire. We use hand radios, and never use the microphone, so we don’t need or want that feature.  When Megan was grinding the stubborn tile, she created a lot of dust. They were able to clean a lot of the dust, but we had ‘shaken’ up more so we are going to be cleaning for awhile!

We did a lot of little tasks up until lunch. Then took a nice nap, catching up on some sleep. It is exhausting to not have a place to go especially in the rain, for three days, on Mon, Tues, and Wed, with the dogs!

We sat out enjoying the nice weather and reading our books. We grilled chicken, and ate outside on the picnic table.

Filed under: Uncategorized |