House on the Rock 6/30/2018

We woke this morning to the sound of robins singing and crickets chirping. Even though this is expected to be a scorcher day, the morning was cool, and the breeze brought the scent of mown grass. What a great way to travel!

Last evening we spoke with one of our two neighbors here at the top of the hill. It turns out that they are from St. Cloud, FL, the next town east of Poinciana, and the people in the other rig are from Mount Dora, FL, a town about an hour north of Poinciana. Small world, huh?

Today we visited House on the Rock a strange collection of artifacts in the beautiful setting of southwest Wisconsin. A writer in 1993 wrote an accurate description: "... it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the House on the Rock. The sheer abundance of objects is impressive, and the

warmth most of the objects exude, the way that the toys ask to be played with, for example, makes the displays inherently inviting. But almost from the beginning, it is too much. The house itself is dusty. Windowpanes are cracked. Books are water damaged. The collections seem disordered, not curated. In fact, there is no effort to explore the objects as cultural artifacts, or to use them to educate the passing hordes. If there were informative cards, it would be impossible to read them in the dark. Everything is simply massed together, and Alex Jordan comes to seem like the manifestation of pure American acquisitiveness, and acquisitiveness of a strangely boyish kind, as if he had finalized all his desires in childhood and never grown into any others."

This is a crazy collection of everything from music boxes to miniature circus figurines, from jewelry store diamond displays to musical organs. There is no rhyme or reason to how the objects in the house are displayed. For example, there are statues of Mary displayed near a collection of guns, and a doll house near an industrial wheel?! The house has had additions over the years to accommodate the owner's design wishes. The house has what is called the "Infinity room", that juts out 218 feet from the House

on the Rock, without supports underneath. The room has over 3,000 windows. After visiting, you wonder whether the builder, Alex Jordan, was crazy, genius, or both.

Going both to and from the House, we drove some fantastic back roads that took us by some wonderful Wisconsin scenery--rolling hills carpeted with crops and hay fields.  Absolutely beautiful. Pictures are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/aU24MLA69z3zBwvd9

To Wisconsin 6/28/2018

Last night we stayed at the Elkhart Campground, a clean, quiet place where the sites are nicely spaced. The price to camp was OK, but I thought it odd that they charged an extra $2 for cable. Really? Just include it in the nightly fee.  The interior roads are not good, with substantial potholes in the gravel surface. But overall, it was a decent place to stop for the night.

Today we moved further west, through western IN, and Chicago (!) to Wisconsin. Man, the smog in Chicago was bad. You could see the smog layer at least 50 miles away. As we expected, traffic through Chicago was horrendous--bumper to bumper from one side to the other: about 20 miles, with someone trying to cut us off  every few minutes.

Route from 90 to our campground

Finally into Wisconsin, we stopped for gas at a Pilot station. Our Good Sam membership gives us a $.05 per gallon discount on gas there. That coupled with their typically lower prices saves us substantially. But apparently, in Wisconsin, there is a law prohibiting gas merchants from selling gas at any discount. When you're buying 50-70 gallons of gas, that $.05 per gallon adds up.

Once into Wisconsin, we chose to take the back way in to our stop for the night in Spring Green. The route took us along Wisconsin County road J and Wisconsin 39 and 191, among wonderful rural landscapes. For all 79 miles, we drove the fantastic rolling hills of Wisconsin, and got views of farms and fields in 40 different shades of green. Just to see this brings peace to your soul.

Our campground is in a small town called Dodgeville, situated at the top of a hill. The views from our site are lovely.
Pictures of our route and site are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SQnuLhiZMaq3aBSm6

View from our site

RV Hall of Fame 6/27/2018

Off today towards Elkart, IN. The rain we left Milan, OH was bad enough, but Indiana upped the ante. As bad as other interstates are, at least so far, we think Indiana 80/90 wins the prize for worst road condition. Pits, bumps, and ridges cover the roadway. What the heck are they doing with their toll money?

We stopped at the RV Hall of Fame, an interesting look at how RVs have evolved over the last century.  From the 1916 fold in, slide in camper to the 1929 house car with the $35 optional driver's seat, there are a lot of interesting models to browse here. You can see how RVs have evolved from wooden houses on wheels to the versatile rolling apartments they are today.

Pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QGCWjKgHrQzpreYa6

Rock and Roll! 6/26/2018

We arrived at our campground site yesterday at about 6 pm. With a pull through site, we were able to keep the car connected to the RV overnight and save ourselves the effort of disconnecting and then reconnecting the tow apparatus in the morning. So when we arrived, we turned the car ignition from ACC (where it sits while towing), to off, removed the keys and locked it. What an unpleasant surprise in the morning, then, when we went to turn the brake controller back on, and discovered that the

car battery was dead. We had turned the car off, but not disconnected the controller which was left plugged in to the 12 volt outlet. Oh well, live and learn. We'll add that to our check list of things to do while both setting up and breaking down to move.

Today's stop is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. We were able to park the RV and car in a large lot a short walking distance away. I did think that the $30 fee to park was on the steep side , though.

The museum itself has 7 floors of films, exhibits and artifacts of all sorts from the early days of blues to the present day.  There were in-depth exhibits on Elvis, the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and a fantastic film of Dick Clark Bandstand highlights. The Beatles exhibit  was particularly well done, offering a lot of behind-the-scenes info and interviews. We got a kick out of some film footage of the Stones performing, and all but Jagger had cigarettes hanging from  their mouths. There is so much to see and hear, it's not possible to experience it all in a day.

Since we had no idea when we would be leaving, we did not have a reservation for this evening. When we finally got back to the RV, we called a campground located about an hour away in Milan, OH, which is where we are staying this evening.

More pictures are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2rvGm54MGqWSXBcdA

Waterfalls 6/26/2018

After a couple of wonderful days visiting with family, we are back on the road. It had been many years since our last visit to Niagara Falls, so we took the opportunity to stop here after our visit with Alex, Jenna and Grayson. The attraction itself is impressive and the state park facility around it make it an enjoyable visit. We were able to park the RV and car in an RV lot within walking distance (.7 mile) of the falls, and we took the elevator to the observation deck for the American falls. While they look large from a distance (like the observation deck), they look enormous when you walk to the stairways near the falls. Close up, you feel the thundering water and spray. Niagara Falls is actually comprised of 3 falls: the American, Bridal Veil, and Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls. Together they have the largest volume of any waterfalls other than Victoria Falls in Africa. The rapids above the falls are really impressive as well, moving at 25 mph.

On the way to our next nightly stop in Erie,  PA, we had the distinct displeasure of driving some of the worst interstate roads we've seen: I90 west of Niagara, NY. What a bone-rattling experience!

Photos of the day (and a little video) are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DQ94NRwqxDAAE52o7

Smithsonian 6/18 and Library 6/19/18

After coffee and a leisurely breakfast, we set off for Washington, more specifically, the Smithsonian Museums of American and Natural History, Our  campground, Cherry Hill Park, in College Park, MD, is probably the best we have stayed at in the environs of a city (and just about anywhere). It is impeccably clean, has great WiFi, cable TV, the RV sites are widely spaced and treed, and the staff is awesome. It's the only campground we've ever stayed at where the office is open from 7 am to 10 pm. On Monday, we had an issue with our cable connection, and no more than a half hour after we complained at the office (at about 8:30 pm), a young, personable tech guy named Trey arrived to diagnose the problem (our TV cable). We love this place.

Anyway, after breakfast, we drove the 3 or so miles to the closest Metro stop where we parked and purchased transit tickets. A short ride (maybe 15-20 minutes) later, we stepped off the subway a few blocks from the museums. The last time we were here, we explored one floor of the American History Museum, and we wanted to see the rest. There are exhibitions on the presidency and first ladies, art in industry, numismatics, and so much more. I took part in a presentation offered by two

staff performers at the spot in the museum where the Greensboro NC Woolworth counter is displayed. In 1960, 4 black college students sat at this counter and asked for service. When asked to leave, they refused. Their sit-in sparked the movement that led ultimately to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

The remnant of the actual flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner is displayed here as well. Almost 200 years old, this 30 x 34 foot flag is really inspiring. Originally, the flag was 30 x 42 feet, but through the years before it came to the Smithsonian, previous owners had chopped off pieces as mementos.

At the Museum of Natural History, we viewed a stunning exhibition of nature photography. The Smithsonian owns over 145,000,000 artifacts and specimens. They have a new exhibition that highlights some of the unusual items: the last known passenger pigeon (stuffed), chunks of whale earwax (apparently has scientific significance!), and one of the world's largest gem lapis lazuli.

On Tuesday, we set out for the Library of Congress--same route as the day before. It is worth the visit just to look at the building. It was cleaned, restored and updated in 1997, and what a magnificent work of art it is! Not only is it beautiful, but the library has permanent and temporary exhibitions. We saw one of the 3 surviving original Gutenberg bibles in good condition, and Thomas Jefferson's original book collection on which the library was built.

You could spend days exploring each of the museums. What a national treasure! Here are pictures of the Library: https://photos.app.goo.gl/GqrGTWh6uwhBLq339

Moving north to DC 6/17/2018

Our site at College Park, just outside of DC

As it was for an overnight stop only, we stayed in a KOA in Greensboro, SC, located right off I40. The good thing about the place is the location, RIGHT off I40. The bad thing is ...the location--RIGHT off I40. So traffic roared by within easy earshot of our RV. We could have walked 30 yards to the fence and waved at the trucks going by. To drown out most of the noise, though, we ran the AC and fan. That made the situation much better.

One thing we enjoyed as we traveled through SC and NC is that interstates here, in several places,

were planted on the medians and sides with large areas of wildflowers and day lilies. What a treat to see!

Traffic was moderate to heavy all the way, but several miles south of Fredericksburg, VA, traffic slowed to a crawl at a max of 30 mph. It sped up a few miles north of the city.

We sit high enough in the RV to get a panoramic view of the crazy drivers on the roads. It's the perfect place to watch the nutjobs weaving in and out of lanes of congestion, jockeying for a position

in a new lane that might be moving 2 mph faster than the one they're in.

Another note (what we've observed on other trips as well), is that our roads (interstates) are in abysmal condition. Driving around DC was a bone-jarring experience!

Lastly, we discovered when we arrived at our campground in College Park, MD, that our water pressure gauge had been left behind in Greensboro. That little piece of equipment makes sure that our water lines don't get blown out by high pressure from the fresh water spigot at the campground. A call to Greensboro confirmed that they had it. The plan is to have them mail it to Alex. We'll get it from him when we see him in a week.

Visiting 6/16/2018

On our way to visit Elizabeth and Andy in Charlotte, NC, we saw something we had never, in all our travels, seen before. Waze advised us that a car had stopped ahead on I-26. As we sped by, we saw that some people had just pulled their car over on the Interstate, and were fishing just on the other side of the guard rail.

Today we headed north to Charlotte to visit with Elizabeth (our niece) and Andy (her husband) in their brand new home. It's gorgeous! It has a fantastic (and huge) kitchen and great room that open onto a lovely screened porch. Elizabeth and Andy treated us to lunch, and we chatted with them and Andy's mom and brother who were also visiting.

Then we headed north to our stop for the evening in Greensboro, NC.

A start 6/15/2018

We arrived late to our first stop, Jolly Acres Campground in St. George, SC, a sweet little park run by a sweet little old lady, Becky Horne. Sites here are wide, and the campground itself is very clean. After setup, dinner was a beer and a glass of wine , and some salsa and chips. Wifi, as it is in most campgrounds is abysmal, but tethering works fine. We managed to escape Florida without any lovebug assaults!