Elkhart, IN

We left Mt. Pleasant last Sunday the 10th and had an uneventful drive to Joliet, IL, we camped at the Hollywood Casino RV park, more on that in a minute.

We had a great time in Mt. Pleasant, we were with Dave and Shari Frantz, the camp hosts. We have known them for over 35 years. It was fun being with them. I am not much of a dog or cat lover but Sarah got this picture of me and Moe, Dave & Shari’s dog.

I thought I better put a couple of pictures of Dave in also.

Larry & Kathy came out to see us and Dave grilled some steaks we had. He did a great job as usual. Larry loaned us his truck to use while we were in Mt Pleasant, it did help on the cost of driving around, especially after my previous fuel disaster. (The truck ran great coming over to IN.)

Thursday night Dave, Shari, Sarah and I went to Bryn Mawr to celebrate Sarah’s birthday and a belated celebration for Dave’s birthday. This is an excellent restaurant, http://www.brynmawrsteakhouse.com/contact-bryn-mawr-steakhouse-iowa-city-ia.htm, if you are in the area stop and have a great meal. Be aware if you like onion rings order the small if you are the only one to eat them, the medium order fed four of us nicely and the large would most likely feed a battalion.

Friday we made the tour of cemeteries in Burlington. We also visited with my aunts Mildred and Marcella, they have a great apartment. It was a very enjoyable visit and one we would repeat on the 5th because they had a bunch of pictures of grandma Ertz’s family and I wanted to scan them, which we did do.

Saturday we went to the cemetery Sarah’s parents are buried. We had planned on taking some beads we brought back from this year’s Mardi Gras but we forgot them. We did get a couple of small geodes to take to Daniel, he wants them for his garden.

Then is was off to Bette and Bob Coffman’s fiftieth anniversary party. Bette is Sarah’s cousin, it was fun Sarah got to see folks she hasn’t seen for a few years and I was able to renew some acquaintances also. We had a bit of trouble finding the restaurant. I input the address into the GPS and it took us to a place where there was no address so because I am a man I drove around trying to find it instead of stopping and asking someone for directions. Low and behold after a few minutes we did see the restaurant not far from where the GPS took us but we didn’t see it right away. It was a good time visiting with everyone.

As I mentioned in my last post I took on the position of an independent dealer for DWG International and their Dri Wash product. I spent three days using their products, Oxygone and the Dri Wash, getting the bugs off the front of the camper and tree sap off the back of it. Also, I did the same thing to the truck, I still have the chrome and the aluminum bed to clean up. The product worked as advertised and I am enthusiastic about it. Again if you are interested in it or want more information go to www.dwginternational.com and you can read all about it or call me and I will tell you about it.

After two weeks at Mt. Pleasant it was time to leave. We were on the road by 8:30 Sunday morning on our way to Joliet, IL. Our destination was the camp ground at the Hollywood Casino. I was surprised by the cost $24-34 for just water and electric. I had reserved a back in site but changed to a drive thru because after looking at things the back in sites were not that big, although I believe a couple of them would have been fine. So we kept the truck hooked up to the trailer and hooked up the electric and water. Then it was time to go to the casino and see how much we could loose. We both signed up for a casino card and later upon examining the cards we saw they were only good until the end of this month. I didn’t go back and ask about it because I don’t know when if ever we will be back.
I put a five dollar bill in a two cent slot machine and won a few cents, Sarah put two dollars in a machine and immediately won twelve dollars, so we stopped and went to eat. Neither of us are good at gambling so we never spend much money at a casino, but casino’s are usually good for camping. This casino campground is nice, over priced, and could be better if it had sewer hookups. We scheduled our stop here to see Tom & Cathy Gerdes, long time friends, but my timing wasn’t very good, they were in Las Vegas for their son’s wedding. We will see them another time.

Monday morning we were up by 7:30 with bright sunshine but by 8:30 we had cloudy dark skies and a huge storm heading our way. I watched the radar on TV and the computer, it seemed that the most damaging winds etc. would stay north of us and it did. We had a bit of wind, one brief moment we did get quite a gust of wind that rocked the camper for a minute or two. After that it rained hard for a brief time and then it was over.

Our trip to Elkhart was a rough one. I don’t remember I80 being that rough but I suppose that is why they are working on it. There is a lot of construction on 80 in the area from Joliet to the IN state line.

We arrived at the MOR/ryde facility about two in the afternoon, after visiting with Ben who gave us the low down on what was going to happen we parked in their camping area. They provide a free place to park and 30 amp electric service. I plugged in and noticed we were on the low side of good electric and after starting up the AC, TV, satellite and refrigerator the needle on my electric meter was just in the red so I put the fridge over to LP and this put the meter back in the green. It was a short night as they wanted the camper at seven in the morning.

Tuesday we were up early and had everything ready for Tony, he was going to do the work on our camper, he came out to the camper and explained what he was going to do. First he took a lot of measurements, then he backed the unit into the bay where he was going to do the work and they put the camper on scales and got the weight on each wheel. He said he would have to raise the back of the camper by about two inches. They want the unit as level as possible when hooked to the truck. Tony did a great job of backing the camper into his work bay, I would probably still be trying to get it in, you could tell he has done this numerous times.

He explained what he was going to do and answered my questions, we were told we could stay in the camper last night which saved on motel costs. The company provides a 30 amp electric and cable TV service so we plugged into both and enjoyed the evening in our camper.

More about our visit later.

Remember – Dreams Do Come True.