Kermit leaves for work at 4:30am, so our farewells had been the night before. We were up early and took off by 7, and splurged on breakfast at a Cracker Barrel.
One of the true joys of RVing is the ability to find off-the-wall places around the country you may never have heard of. Today brought us one of those opportunities. Becky discovered in her research that the headquarters of Hormel Foods is in Austin, MN, right on our route on I90. More importantly, it is also the site of the SPAM museum, a fascinating little bit of Americana. It's actually a large museum, with everything you ever wanted to know about Spam and it's free!
As you enter the building, you are greeted by a very friendly receptionist who hands you a cleverly illustrated brochure/map of the Museum (Jim is holding it in the picture). She then asks the visitors to turn around and look up, and the photo on the left shows the metal façade made up of 40,000 Spam cans!
Visitors then follow the map and walk through the museum. The purpose is to tell the story of the origins of Hormel, Spam, and how widespread it still is around the world. One clever section, designed as a kitchen with a wall sized screen, lets you select a country where Spam is popular and then a movie follows with a "local" Julia Childs or Rachel Ray kind of person demonstrating a native "Spam" recipe from their country. We chose Korea. We now know how to make a native Korean dish made up of fresh vegetables (heavy on the shitake mushrooms and onions), Kim Chi, and Spam that is artfully arranged.
We found out that Spam is particularly popular in Hawaii, and they have an annual street fair there featuring Spam recipes. The Hormel company developed a special variety of the product called "Spammy", loaded with nutrients that is distributed to undernourished children in Guatemala. Finally, we found out that there is not only regular Spam, but 9 other varieties as well.
As one might expect, there is a very large souvenir store devoted to everything Spam, including of course a Spam mouse pad. Resisting temptation, we left with only our free brochure.
We drove on to our nighttime campground, the KOA Albert Lea/Austin and spent the afternoon doing laundry and cleaning up the RV.
Our plan was to leave early Wednesday morning and drive to the Winnebago factory in Forest River, Iowa-the largest RV plant in the world. We knew there was a factory tour at 1pm, and thought it would be fun to visit. After driving there, we found we wouldn't get done until about 3:30. This wouldn't work with our plans, so we decided to pass on it. Instead, we headed off to the south and east and our new plan is to visit the Herbert Hoover museum Thursday morning. As our RV is still under warranty, we took the opportunity to go to their service desk-we have some minor problems with our front window shades that require repair or replacement. The very helpful service person located our part numbers, but advised us we would not be able to get the new blinds installed until possibly Friday. Instead, It looks like we will plan on spending part of a day at Fort Worth dealership while visiting Jeff's family in Dallas.
The drive to our nighttime campground took another couple of hours, so we're in Newton Iowa tonight and tomorrow. Nice shaded campground with lots of trees, large lots, few customers and reasonable pricing.
Another hot and humid day in Baraboo! We were a little smarter with the air conditioning during the night, and only ran it till we went to bed and then put it on again about 4 in the morning. Fortunately, during the day we were able to leave the dogs in Kermit's house, which was reasonably cooler than the outside air.
Baraboo, the winter home of the Ringling Brothers Circus and Circus World, is located west of Madison and about 15 miles from the Wisconsin Dells. The Dells must have been a beautiful natural area at one time, but have been turned a family tourist mecca. Think Dollywood. Water parks, amusement rides, and glitzy attractions for families abound. Another thing they have in abundance is miniature golf, with lots to choose from. We decided to spend the morning strengthening our skills, so we set off for Pirates Cove and played 2 of their 5 18-hole courses.
We played on the two most difficult courses, and would you believe, we were all winners! Jim won the first game, Becky the second, and Kermit won for lowest overall score for the two rounds! Perhaps we should all buy trophies for our mantel pieces?
As we again had the propane/refrigerator problem, we decided we needed to find out what the problem really was before we headed out again. Camping World was the nearest authorized dealer, and their service department said they were too busy to look at it, but their manager would call us. He didn't, so we decided to drive the 45" there anyway as we still needed to get propane. They still couldn't help us, but as luck would have it the mobile repair guy they subcontract to happened to be at the store buying something and agreed to take a look at it. 1/2 hour later, we had a fully functioning refrigerator with a new 5-amp fuze installed! We then drove over to Portage, and made our final visit to Dorothy for the trip.
As noted earlier, Baraboo is the home of Ringling Brothers, and that makes for some interesting sights at times. As we were doing something in the house, we spotted a tractor pulling two carts by on the street. Jim ran out with his camera, and the driver stopped for a picture! We suspect this happens fairly often to them!
Jim cooked dinner at the house (it's not one of Kermit's strengths!) so he had a "home cooked" meal for a change. We then watched a DVD on the Korean War that he bought, until we were all too tired to stay awake.
Our 26' RV is set fairly low to the ground, and getting into Kermit's driveway presents quite a challenge. We had parked there two nights in a row, but scrapped every time going in and out and were actually scarring the blacktop on the road. We decided to park/sleep on the street the final night, and because of the steep crown of the road had to use all 20 of our wheel blocks on the two rear wheels to level the RV. It was a cooler night than it had been, so we slept without air with the windows open. Really strange parking on the street like that!
Were it not for the blistering heat, biking through central Illinois would seem to be pretty easy; the highest elevation we saw from Springfield to the Wisconsin border may have been 50 feet! Describing the scenery similarly presents no challenge. Corn. Corn. Soybeans. More corn.
Getting to Wisconsin, rolling hills started appearing that were dotted with trees. The corn was still there, but at least there was some variety to the landscape. Outside of a few rest stops, plus a stop at the Camping World near Madison for another propane fill-up, it was a pretty boring 314 mile drive for the day.
Around 4:30 we arrived at my brother Kermit's house in Baraboo, WI. For those who don't know him, he's a really nice guy who has managed some incredible challenges over the past 4 years. His wife Dorothy went into the hospital for a routine procedure, and while there had an aneurism that has put her in a coma ever since. Kermit has visited her virtually ever day since then at the wonderful long term care/nursing facility where she is ("Tivoli" in Portage Wisconsin). They had 2 teenagers still at home then, down to one now. It really is a tragic situation, particularly where she seems to respond to conversations and his attentiveness. No one really knows, however, if she is cognizant of what is happening around her. We accompanied him on his visits while we were there; he certainly is a hero to us for the loving care and compassion he demonstrates.
After the visit, Kermit took us out for a nice steak dinner, and we spent the rest of the evening sitting around talking until we retired to the RV and air conditioning! Yes, it was still hot and humid, and we felt sorry for the dogs. Right.
Oh, forgot to mention-while we were at the Lincoln Museum we saw a life-sized figure on the front porch of the White House that was a dead ringer (other than the amount of hair!) for Kermit. We think it's supposed to be Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Civil War fame, but we're not so sure!
On Sunday morning we woke early, found out that (again) our refrigerator wasn't working on propane and in fact we had just about run out from having the air conditioning on all night again. The decision was made that Becky would accompany Kermit to his church (which has been a wonderful support for him over the past 4 years) and Jim would try to find propane. That turned out to be a real challenge, but to make a long story short he located a campground in Portage and then met Becky and Kermit at Tivoli for the daily visit to Dorothy.
In the afternoon Kermit drove us into Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, for a tour. Madison is quite a beautiful city, being the state capital and home of the University of Wisconsin. It's a great place to drive around and visit, unless the annual Wisconsin Iron Man race is being held in the city. Which it happened to be Sunday! Traffic was horrific, with numerous streets blocked off, or down to one lane. We persevered, and a little after 3:00p went to visit Kermit's daughters Amber and Rachel. They live in the city in an apartment with Rachel's husband Adam. Didn't see him, as he was with friends enjoying opening day of NFL football.
If you've never heard of the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, it's definitely worth a visit. This is a photo of Becky, Amber, Kermit and Rachel at the entrance to the Bolz Conservatory, an indoor tropical conservatory and aviary that is at the entrance to the Gardens. Very well done, with only a nominal fee for the Bolz and no fee for the outdoor Gardens. 
The photo to the left is of Amber and Kermit observing in the Bolz Conservatory.
The outdoor gardens are magnificent, even at this time of year when most flowering plants have gone by. There are many different areas, one of which is a Thai meditation house that was given as a gift by the Univ of Wisconsin Alumni Club of Bankok. It was designed and built in Thailand, boxed and transported to the US, and then assembled by Thai Craftsmen who were flown into the US and were on one of the last planes that landed on that infamous 9/11 date.
Dinner was at a local pizza and Italian food restaurant, the "Glass Nickel House", and they have terrific pizza. Becky, Amber and Jim shared one with some great input from Amber. In addition to the "usual" ingredients, she suggested adding Ricotta cheese (we had never heard of that before) and it was a great addition!
We picked up the RV from Tivoli on the way home, and after chatting awhile retired to the RV for the night.
It was a sunny, but very hot day in Springfield because of the humidity and lack of cloud cover. Somehow 92 degrees can feel like the middle of summer in Dallas!
After a short drive in from the campground and parking, the first site one sees is Union Station across from the Museum proper. While it contains a visitor information center, we didn't go in as we were anxious to see the museum. Note the two concrete pillars in the lower left of the picture. They are iconic totems created by the sculpture Preston Jackson commemorating the infamous 48-hour race riots in 1908, when mob violence in Springfield led to the deaths of seven folks, 40 homes and 24 businesses destroyed. This event specifically led to the founding of the NAACP in 1909.
Probably one of the most popular photo ops in Springfield is located in the rotunda of the Museum when you first enter. Becky was the lucky individual to pose with the Lincoln family, and if you look closely you will see John Wilkes Booth watching from the background!
This Museum is phenomenal, and so well done. The visitor has several choices to make on where to go, and to us the most logical was to start in the walkway through his boyhood home cabin. You basically walk from one setting in his life to the next, each with well done mannequins, photos, dioramas, and explanations of events. One follows his life from his birth in Kentucky up to the time he enters the White House. You then follow through the historic events we're all familiar with, ending with a recreation of the hall in the old Illinois state capital building where his casket was displayed. One really neat experience is a small room set up as a TV newscast studio, where Tim Russet is shown as a TV anchorman explaining the Presidential race of 1860 that Lincoln won. There were 4 candidates, and he narrates and shows photos and reenactments of each as if they were real candidates today. Very entertaining, and very informative.
There are additionally two separate theatres leading off the main hall, both unique and both great experiences. The first was the a holographic theatre where the stage is set up as the Lincoln Presidential Library, and an actor, representing the ghost of a Union soldier that died, explains the events of the war. The other theatre is a 3-screen multi-media presentation of many of the events of Lincoln's life, with the narrator again explaining those events. It uniquely uses sound an light effects to create the feeling you're participating in the action.
We drove out to the Oak Ridge cemetery, the location of the Lincoln tomb and Memorial. Note the bust of Lincoln and the shiny nose from millions of tourists rubbing it for luck! We chose not to.
There are also a number of Memorials to different wars at the cemetery, but we didn't locate them.
The rest of the day we just relaxed out at the campground. It was really too hot to do much else.
In summary, it was a good place to visit, and one we would highly recommend!
We "slept in" until nearly 7am this morning before Dudley decided we should get up. Another beautiful day in the Dayton area! We took our time getting ready to go, and had a wonderful surprise-the refrigerator worked on propane! Becky had spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to unblock the air lock, and finally got it to work after turning on the gas function on the water heater! Great! Now we didn't have to stop in Indiana at a dealer and wait a day or two!
The Title of this post, Books on Tape, is really appropriate. Over the past four years of RVing, we have listened to a lot of really interesting books that help pass the time, particularly on long boring drives. Today was one of those days, as should be evident by the lack of photos. In 7 1/2 hours we covered 323 truly boring miles driving from Dayton to Springfield, Illinois. There was nothing of interest anywhere along the interstates, and we felt like we good have been driving through west Texas, eastern Colorado, or eastern Washington state.
The good news was that our chosen book on tape, "Last to Die" by Tess Gerritsen, was a good suspenseful murder mystery novel, and the last two hours were quite absorbing. Our next selection, which we are about an hour into, is "As Texas goes......How the Lone Star State got hijacked" by Gail Collins. Unlike most of our selections, this one is evidently a current "political" book. Having lived 11 years in Texas on two occasions, and both of us in full agreement on the ridiculous politics in the state, it should be a fun "read"-or more appropriately, "listen". It is pretty funny as we get into it, with some very acute and biting observations about the state. Should be a good way to pass the time, particularly where we are headed to Texas on this trip.
Tomorrow should be a great day, notwithstanding the heat that is predicted. The Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum visit has been eagerly anticipated, and there are quite a number of other sites that look most interesting.
After the long haul from Unadilla/Oneonta, we enjoyed a good deep sleep and awoke to an absolutely gorgeous day! Originally we had planned to go to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to see the Museum of the U.S. Air Force, but instead decided to take advantage of this excellent KOA facility with no other campers within 100 yards.
We did laundry, walked, read, worked on our respective computers, and loved the peace and solitude. Unfortunately, Becky's poison ivy continues to spread, so she called her doctor back in Maine who called in a prescription to a local pharmacy for Prednisone. It's a fairly long treatment, but promises relief in just a couple of days. We packed up the RV in the afternoon and made the 10-mile round trip to the nearest facility and did some necessary grocery shopping at the same time.
As the ragweed is running riot here in Ohio, we buttoned up for the night and put the air on. That made for a good night's sleep.
Wednesday morning Jim had the usual wake up call from the dogs at 6am, and he took them for a stroll around the area. The temperature was even better than yesterday, starting in the high 60's and moving into the mid-70's as the sun came up.
Taking our time to get moving, we disconnected from the ground power/water/cable, and after a 30" drive arrived at the Museum of the U.S. Air Force. We parked in some shade and went in. The Museum is enormous! Currently 3 hangers and a circular display building make up the main facility, and on another part of the airfield two more hangers hold aircraft including the entire collection of Air Force One's. That collection is what Becky wanted to see most, and of all things, the "Sequester" caused those two hangers to be closed to the public. BUMMER!!! Now it's become personal!!
Back to the Museum and what IS available. Each hanger contains a different era or theme, and they are exceptionally well laid out and contain practically all the important aircraft that the U.S. Army Air Force and it's successor, the U.S. Air Force, flew or fought against. Interestingly, after passing through security (translated-women's handbags are inspected!) one enters and exits through the gift shop.
The first hanger contains the World War I aircraft, and the aircraft and explanatory exhibits are terrific. Aircraft are both on the ground and suspended from the ceiling, and it's real easy to miss those that are overhead! Jim particularly liked the observation balloon with 2 guys in a basket looking at a German Fokker Tri-Motor rolling in upside down to shoot at them!
Walking into the World War II hanger, we were both astonished to come across an extensive exhibit dedicated to a Medal of Honor winner that we had heard of--Captain Jay Zeamer of Boothbay Harbor. Jay was a B-17 pilot, and his crew were known as the "Eager Beavers" because they continually volunteered for dangerous missions. Additionally, they outfitted their aircraft with extra 50 caliber machine guns, 19 in all. Their heroism and tenacity made the Eager Beavers the most highly decorated crew in Air Force history! A wall plaque tells the story of a reconnaissance mission they made unescorted over Bougainville in 1943, and how they were jumped by a flight of 20 Japanese Zero's. By the time they limped back to base, they had shot down several of the Zeros, taken over 200 bullet and cannon holes in their aircraft, and Zeamer safely landed the aircraft with his legs paralyzed from the 120 pieces of shrapnel he took in his body. He received the Medal of Honor, as did his co-pilot. The rest of the crew all received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and nearly all got purple hearts. Jay was a very active member of American Legion Post 36 in Boothbay Harbor, and it was really neat to see this tribute to him and read the story.
There were so many great exhibits in this section, and we could have spent hours there. The "30 seconds over Tokyo" display had one of the surviving B-25's from the raid and a great movie showing the story of what happened, narrated by Jimmy Doolittle. All the famous fighters and bombers were there--American, British, Japanese and German. One of the most impressive was the B-29 "Bocks Car", the aircraft that dropped the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki. Replicas of both bombs were displayed next to the aircraft.
Jim particularly enjoyed the Vietnam era hanger, as he had a great deal of familiarity with some of the aircraft and the events that went along with them. The display on Rolling Thunder, with a B-52 in war paint and an explanation of the Arc Light campaign (B-52 raids) was quite good. Particularly sobering was the C-123 aircraft and accompanying display regarding "Operation Ranch Hand"--the defoliation campaign utilizing Agent Orange. Their was an excellent description of what transpired, and the photo of 4 aircraft spraying the chemical reminded him of the photo he took of the same aircraft (apparently there were only five airplanes involved for awhile) at dusk along the DMZ.
Because of the heat and other considerations, plus the huge disappointment of not being able to see the Presidential Aircraft, we decided to cut the visit short and come back after the "Sequester" is over. As we were walking out, Becky heard us being paged ("would the owners of the RV with Maine plates........), and at the information booth we were told the Police wanted us to move our RV or we would be ticket for taking two spaces. Another Bummer! We had parked beyond the last vehicle in the lot and in the shade when we came in, and there are a 2000+ spaces there. We were apparently supposed to park at the end of the lot, about 1/4 of a mile away. OK, maybe 100 cars had arrived since we showed up and they were now parked out to where we were, but you'd think they had more important things to think of. In any event, we highly recommend a visit!
We got back to the campground around 1pm, and spent some time on the phone arranging to have our refrigerator problem looked at (it's not working on propane; some sort of blockage) tomorrow. We'll stop at a Camping World near Indianapolis.
The rest of the day was spent enjoying the quiet campground, relaxing, and enjoying the dogs. The best part of the evening was listening to the Red Sox whip up on the Detroit Tigers--it's 16-4 as Jim writes this blog!
Yesterday morning the dogs had Jim up at 6am, and they couldn't wait to get over to the pet area to see Sway. He was still in his night enclosure, so Dudley and Rosie did their business and we went back to the RV for breakfast. We had a leisurely time getting ready to go, and Jim took the two dogs out for their last visit to the pet area. Dudley, who normally lumbers along slowly, galloped the 100 yards to the enclosure! He and Sway sniffed each other through the fence (Rosie observed!), then Sway went back to eating hay and Dudley did his business and headed towards the RV. It was almost anticlimactic.
We departed at 9am and drove cross-country through the gorgeous Green mountains, weaving around the sparkling lakes and streams of Southern Vermont. Bennington was the biggest city we ran across, and is quaint, prosperous, and very much alive. They are one of the cities that has elected to have full size statues of animals made and then decorated/painted by local artists and merchants. In Bennington's case, it allowed statues of mountain lions and moose. Here are a representative pair of the mountain lion decorations--there must have been 30-40 total around the city.
Bennington also has a lively art community representing many different forms (ie, paintings, sculptures, statues). As we drove through the city, we passed the Bennington Art Center, which has a mini-"Stonehenge" in the front yard. Here are two photos Becky took showing the building, metal sculptures, and the Bennington Memorial statue in the distance. The other major event that we saw was the annual Bennington Garlic Festival, with hundreds of cars parked near the school.
There were many cute towns along the way, and we discovered that Vermont has quite a number of what the British call "B" roads; very rural, and very rough on automobile tires.
Continuing along the roads, we saw several billboard ads for the "Bull Moose" café and deli. Clearly a "local" touristy spot, it is rather heavily decorated by statues of cows and moose.
We didn't stop, as we still had to navigate the "B" roads of New York state. It's a clever idea, but we needed to push on so we didn't stop.
The last "sight" we saw in Bennington was the annual garlic festive, a very large event that must have attracted some 500 cars.
The last event we saw in Vermont was the Stillwater County Fair. There must have been 2000 cars parked on the school grounds. This seemed to be quite the weekend for county fairs in this area of New England and upstate New York.
It took a full 3 hours to drive the 100 miles to the home of Lisa Nargis in Galway, NY. Lisa was one of Becky's best friends growing up, and they rarely get a chance to see each other. Lisa taught school in Galway until her retirement, and was a friend of fellow Galway teacher Pat McKee of Boothbay Harbor.
The photo to the left was taken during lunch. Lisa has never been on Facebook, so Becky spent part of the time during the visit getting Lisa set up, and this may be a photo commemorating Becky telling Lisa to make sure she gets on line occasionally! We really had a delightful time during the short visit.
We then proceeded on to our campground at Unadilla, NY, and arrived there around 6:30 pm. The KOA at Unadilla seems to be primarily a camp for those who like to fish, as it is set up along a trout stream and many of the camping sites are laid out parallel to the stream. There were also a large number of trailers and 5th wheelers set up in semi-permanent sites, indicating long-term camping arrangements. It rained while we were there, and with lots of kids running around many dogs, and a combination of high heat and humidity, we spent the evening holed up with the dogs in our air-conditioned RV.
We made the decision today to drive straight through to Dayton Ohio, rather than break the journey in Western NY. Normally we like to limit our travel to between 200-300 miles in a day, and rarely go over 400. It was also our record in an RV--619 miles, with 3 brief rest stops and 2 diesel fueling stops. We left at 7am, and arrived at 7pm and all 4 of us were exhausted. The Dayton KOA is a huge, well-laid out facility that was virtually empty for tonight. The end of Labor Day Weekend and kids getting back to school combined to give us a campsite no closer than 100 yards to anyone else. Our kind of place!
Tomorrow are plans are to visit the Air Force museum and plane collection here in the Dayton area, and stay at least one more night.
One of the true joys of RVing is the ability to find off-the-wall places around the country you may never have heard of. Today brought us one of those opportunities. Becky discovered in her research that the headquarters of Hormel Foods is in Austin, MN, right on our route on I90. More importantly, it is also the site of the SPAM museum, a fascinating little bit of Americana. It's actually a large museum, with everything you ever wanted to know about Spam and it's free!
