bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday-  Last night Roxie was making a really weird noise. She finally stopped. We started to go to bed, and she vomited all over the bed. Poor baby. We had to strip the bed and remake it with the clean sheets.

So this morning, Bob took the sheets, blanket, and quilt over to the laundry. Since he was going, he took the towels also so that we did not have to do them tomorrow. I worked on articles. Once everything was done, we left.

We drove downtown to the City Market. We easily found a parking space at a meter. There was the market and catacombs underneath, so we purchased 2 hours on the meter.

We went into the market to find that it was all food vendors, most of which were not open on Saturday! The farmers market is on Wednesday. We wandered through. Bob purchased Tamales and I had a really good crepe. Both of us had leftovers.

After lunch, we went in search of the catacombs, but could not find the tour. Outside they had this neat book dispenser.

We walked across the street to Whole Foods. Bob looked at the beers, but was not impressed.  So we walked over to the Tap Room, which has 50 beers on tap. While Bob was deciding which beers he wanted in a flight, I asked for a sample of the Olive Cherry Moscoto. Olive is the name of the vineyard.

It was awesome, so I ordered a glass and Bob became the designated driver!(It’s rare that I find a wine that I really like!). I drank the wine and we decided we wanted something sweet. We found a bakery called Longs Bakery. It had 4.5 stars with 174 reviews on Yelp. We arrived to find a traffic jam and a long line. Well, that was a good sign!

We got in line and ordered. Bob’s doughnut was very good. Mine was just okay.

We returned to the rig. It had rained, off and on, most of the day. At this point it was cold and rainy! We decided we wanted soup, so we ordered some Chicken Noodle Soup and sandwich’s from an Italian sub place. The food was excellent.

Sunday- We had decided to go to President Benjamin Harrison’s house since it opened at 12. So we ate yesterday’s leftovers for lunch. We arrived to find that the house was not open, because they were having a special event. It was not listed on the website!

So we went to Big Red liquors to purchase the Oliver Cherry Moscoto for me. I bought two bottles of the Moscoto and one bottle of their Cherry Cobbler wine, as it was on sale for $3.

We found a parking place and went back to the Tap Room for Bob to have his beer. He had a flight of 4, then the awesome bar tender gave him a couple of samples of some other beers. One was the Kentucky Bourbon Barrell Blackberry Beer. He fell in love with this seasonal beer! So we will go in search of it.

We walked down Mass Ave, the main foody place in town.

We saw Subzero  Nitrogen Ice Cream, so we stopped in. This was our first time having this type of ice cream, but it will not be the last! Wow, was it good!

First you choose your size. We both chose small. Then you choose your cream, regular cream, lot fat, yogurt, sugar free etc. Then you choose your flavors. I chose Amaretto and Brownie Batter. Bob chose Chocolate and Cherry. Next you choose your mix-ins. Each was an extra 80 cents. I chose Brownie bits and Bob chose cherries.

They put it all in a large metal dish, then they fire it with the Nitrogen until it is frozen. Then they sort of mix it up and serve it in the dish. It was really good!

We returned home to take the dogs out to the dog park so that they could run again. Koda and Roxie chased the ball and each other. Karlie just wanders around sniffing.

Monday- I worked on another article. Bob did some tasks. We left at 9:40 and drove the 20 minutes to the President Benjamin Harrison Home. We arrived right at 10, when they opened.

The house is 10,000 sq. feet.

We paid in the stable, which is the gift shop. $11 each, senior rate. We met the docent at the front door. We lucked out and had another private tour!

The first room is the drawing room. We could not enter as the rug is original. The entire house had all the windows covered to keep the light from ruining the original furniture, pictures and rugs, etc, in the home.

The next room was the back drawing room, and this next picture is from that room into the front drawing room.

The pictures below are of President Harrison and his first wife, Caroline.

      

These are actually pencil drawings, even though they look like photo’s.

Below is the back drawing room and our docent, Patricia.

Patricia played this for us….below…

Below are the stairs. All the wood was beechwood and gorgeous.

 

The next room was the office which was behind the back drawing room.

This was a cane given to the President at his inauguration. He was inaugurated at 100 years of the country.  Each of the previous presidents are carved into the cane.

This statue is the ‘dime’ statue. The country almost went to war with Chili during Harrison’s Presidency. Children mailed dimes to the president for the war, and the silver was melted down to create this statue.

Below is a bookcase which was hand carved and very big. The books were all Harrison’s.

The picture below of Abraham Lincoln, hung over Lincoln’s casket on the train, when it came through Indianapolis on the way for burial.

Caroline Harrison, who died before the election for Harrison’s second term, (he lost) was a painter. She painted water colors and china.

We went upstairs to the second floor. Below is a dress that Mary, his daughter wore. She was obviously very small, as she had a 13 inch waist, after having two children! Wasn’t Scarlett O’Hara’s 15 inches??

This was Mary’s bed, with a really nice scrap quilt.

Below was Harrison’s gym.

We hiked up the next staircase to the ballroom on the top floor.  The interesting desk was there.

    

On the left was the open part. On the right was with the desk open. The part on the left closes onto the other area. First time we have seen one of these.

Harrison was given this chair. It was not to sit on, but was a real conversation piece!

Harrison had the first telephone in town and his house had electricity and a flush toilet. The water had to be pumped up from below to the roof, then drained down to flush.

The majority of the items in the home belonged to the family. H daughter realized that this was all going to be important for history, so she kept everything intact.

We left and went to Crown Liquor for Bob to get the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Blackberry Beer. Then we went to the Tamale Place for lunch. They now have 3 restaurants, and one was closer to us than the first restaurant. We had stopped at the first one the last time we came through Indianapolis. When we arrived, Bob realized that the tamales he had at the City Market were Tamale Place tamales.  This is a “Triple D” restaurant, and they had Guy Fiery’s tape of his visit running on a TV.  The original location was super busy; this one was not, but we think it was brand new. I ordered the chicken with red sauce. Bob ordered the pork with green  sauce. We split an apple/pecan tamale.

We returned home, which was only about 2 miles away. We took a nice nap, then took the dogs to the dog park. They were not as energetic today.

We ate dinner at home and watched some TV.

Tuesday-  This morning, Karlie took her turn vomiting on the bed. I just stripped the bed and we will wash the items when we arrive in Elkhart.

The weather cooperated today, with breezes, but not super windy. It was cloudy all day. We traveled north on Hwy. 31 thru Indiana. We turned east on Hwy. 20 and drove to Elkhart. We had to drive through the city to Elkhart RV Park.

We have stayed at this park a number of times. The cost of all the parks has risen significantly. The site was $46 for FHU 50 amp. We received an Escapees discount of 15%, bringing the cost down to $39.10 per night plus the $8.21 total tax which made the total $41.83 per night. What a difference in pricing from when we were here the 1st time in 2010! I think we paid $20 total per night then…and we thought that was expensive!

It started to rain as we were setting up. Bob ran the sheets and quilt over to the laundry. It rained off and on for the afternoon. Later, it rained very hard. The rig is on gravel, so we did not sink. We went to dinner with Connie and Lavern at EWE brewery. The beer was good but the menu was strange. It took awhile to figure out the menu. It poured rain the entire time we were there. When they dropped us off, the rig was on an island of gravel, surrounded by a lot of standing water. It continued to rain, hard, all night.

Wednesday- Today was Koda’s turn to vomit on the bed. So I stripped it again! We will do the laundry later. She was upset because she had vomited on Bob and the sheets. We both comforted her.

We had a 9 AM grooming appointment for the dogs. I bought the car around to the front of the rig and we carried the dogs to the car. We traveled east on the toll road to South Bend and dropped the dogs off.

We ran errands in town, going to Target and Costco. We ate lunch at Metro Diner, which was pretty good. Just as we finished, the groomer called to let us know that they were ready. Perfect timing!

We ran over to pick them up. Bob always grabs the dogs and takes them out to go potty while I talk with the groomer and pay. Gina said that they did well, but Roxie had too much hair in her ears. Evidently, the groomer in Sun City did not do them, and they were impacted. Hmmm. We will need to talk to her about that!

Koda did not like having her feet done. Since day 2, I have worked with Koda’s feet, getting her used to us getting stuff out of between the pads. She was resistant at first but now lets us do it. Gina said that it is trust. She kept stopping and going back to Koda and she finally let Gina clean them out.

We drove back to the rig. When we arrived and entered the rig, Koda went bonkers. We think that she thought she had done something awful( the vomiting) and that we were going to dump her. She was so happy to get home! She was all over the place, she was so excited, so we let her celebrate! We think she finally realizes that this is her “forever home”. We are glad she is happy about it! LOL

Bob took the sheets and quilt over to the laundry. Once it was all dry, we went to dinner at Das Essenhaus. We both had the Amish broaster chicken dinners.

Thursday- No vomiting dogs this morning! We left and went back to South Bend to the Farmers Market. There were not many of the vendors open. This is our favorite farmers market, but it is only great on Saturday. The salsa guy was open, so we purchased some of our favorite cherry salsa. The meat vendor had very few items, but we did purchase some ham salad.

The sausage guy did not have any brats today, so Bob was not able to purchase any brats. Darn! Oh well…

We left and went to Bakers Dozen. They did not have their stand open at the farmers market, although the sign said they were there on Thursdays. We got the last 2 Bismarck’s! We had been so looking forward to them. They melt in your mouth…

I wanted to stop at a chiropractor, but there was no “The Joint” in South Bend. Oh well… it will have to wait until I get to Cadillac.

We returned to Elkhart, stopping at the Elkhart Walmart. Bob quickly walked the dogs, and then it started to rain, again! At 4:30 Bob left and went to Lavern’s house to have beer and to try some of Lavern’s smoked items. While he was gone, I ate dinner and walked the dogs to the dog park, as there was a break in the rain.

Friday- We took our time leaving, at a little before 11. We drove north on Hwy 40 to Holland Michigan. We stopped at a Pilot for diesel.

While Bob was pumping the diesel, I called Holland State Park. Check in at the park was 3 PM, so I was asking if we could arrive early. No, it was opening day and the gates would not open until 3. So we parked the rig, and took the dogs to the Quincy Street dog park.

This was a very nice park, with a huge large dog area and a smaller, small dog area. There were two men, with their dogs in the park. Bob ran the dogs and I ended up talking to the guys. The older man had his dog and his daughters little yappy mutt. They did not stay long.

The younger guy had two of his three dogs there. He had a beagle mix who was shy and a pure white husky puppy who he had picked up yesterday. We talked for awhile, while the dogs played. He said that he was working 14 hours a day at his family restaurant and he had to get to work. The restaurant was called Don Peroni’s.

We left and returned to the rig. I kept the dogs in the car with me,  and followed Bob in the motor home. There was a detour, so Google Maps took us through downtown! UGH! But we finally arrived at the state park. Bob did not see the turn off for the registration, so I turned off  and registered us, picking up books about Holland.

Bob texted me asking the site # and they let him in to the park. I followed with the car and rig tag and the state park pass, which I had to purchase. We can go free now to any Michigan state park.

We are parked on asphalt, with FHU 50 amp, $45 per night. The park is basically a parking lot next to the beach. No dogs allowed on the beach or the boardwalk…

We can see the Red Lighthouse from the rig!

We went to dinner at Don Peroni’s. It had a limited menu, but the food was good and cheap. I had the lasagna ( $7.99) and Bob had the Stromboli. We brought a lot home with us.

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