On the Road Again (Wed.)

After a busy morning of finishing up our packing chores, we headed out about 11:00 a.m. to Evansville, where we planned to make our first stops.  We hit the Flying J to dump our tank and fuel ($3.699 today), then headed over to the White Castle hamburger place.  Yes, Joe finally got his White Castles.  The Flying J there at US 41 and I-64 (west side) is a great find for us RVers -- it has 3 dump stations, propane, easy to get in and out of.  We will have to make a note of that one.

After we ate our hamburgers, we started heading East toward Newburgh on the Ohio River Scenic Bypass.   This road followed the path of the Ohio River and sometimes was RIGHT beside the river.  We had great views most of the day, if not of the river, then of our drive through part of the Hoosier National Forest, after we left the river trail.

Our first glimpse of the scenic beauty of this road was in Newburgh, where Joe made a wrong turn that took us back toward Evansville and we had to find a place to turn around.  Which turned out to be right on the river, and along the Newburgh locks.  We hoped a boat or barge would pass through them while we were there but no such luck, although there was a barge moving down the river.  The houses along this road were really beautiful too -- some high dollar real estate in Newburgh, Indiana.

We came upon a larger set of locks at Cannelton, so we pulled over here too.  A barge was sitting just outside the locks but it didn't seem to be moving, even after I motioned it to come on through!  Neither of us thinks we have ever seen a boat or barge go through locks so that would be a cool sight.

There is also what looks to be a nuclear power plant right along here at Cannelton, although there was a huge pile of coal there too so Joe couldn't figure out exactly what kind of power plant it is.

Joe picked out our route today (Hwy 66) but he kept grumbling about the "crooked road" that I picked out.  But it was very pretty, although not overly wide in some places.  When this highway turned north, we took Hwy 62 instead of I-64, but we only went a few miles until we ran into detour signs and we ended up on I-64 anyway.  But before we first turned onto 62, I had Joe look at the map to get his bearings and make sure he still wanted to stay with the scenic roads, which he did.  As soon as we turned to it, though, he said, "it's sure uphill, it didn't look uphill on the map."  Guess we need a topo map in the future.

So here we are, Joe by his driving machine, and me with the Ohio River in the background, traveling the backroads we so enjoy.  We have never driven through this part of Indiana before and it was well worth the extra time and miles it took.  We managed to make this 150-mile trip into a 5-hour drive, and 200 miles.

We camped in Clarksville, Indiana, just across the river from Louisville (campgrounds are not too plentiful around here).  We got off the road about 5:00 and this Add-More Campground turned out to be a nice place.  We warmed up some Bobe's pizza for dinner, then took a walk around the park, but Joe wore his flipflops and is still suffering from that mistake -- his heel is really hurting him, but he did manage to walk over to the showers and get cleaned up.  So, he's watching some old western on TV, and all of a sudden he says, "Look at that, that guy just flew off his horse and he didn't even break a rib."  Never a dull moment in the old Winnebago!

BTW, we got word that the furnace at Lucille got repaired today, so that's one loose end that is done.

Tomorrow we are going to see what Louisville has to offer.  I have a list of 6 things to see, so we'll see how many of them we actually get to.  We may have to stay an extra day here.

Getting Ready to Leave (Tues.)

Today is the day we start working toward leaving Vincennes.  Joe still has some unfinished "Lucille" projects -- 2 kitchen chairs in the shop; furnace still waiting on parts; replaster under living room window.  Unfortunately, he was unable to move any of these things along.  The chairs still aren't done -- maybe tomorrow.  The furnace guy isn't sure they have the right part but Joe did make contact with someone else who thinks he has the part and that might get taken care of tomorrow.  And Joe didn't hear from the replaster guy.  Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I moved forward with my projects.  We got the car washed and stopped by the cemetery in Oaktown where my sister is buried.  I got the laundry caught up, and the bathroom cleaned.  And most of the stuff stored under the bed.  And we made a grocery run and picked up just a few things.  Still need to vacuum and finish putting some loose stuff away.

On our trip to Oaktown we tracked down some field-fresh strawberries at McKinley Orchard/Prairie Acres.  These had come in from the field but they told us the strawberries they had earlier came from some "tunnels" they had plants in.  Well, of course, Joe had to go see if he could find these tunnels.  But he did know what they were talking about -- open-ended hothouses.  And we did find some right up Old 41.

We could see strawberry plants and what looked like tomato plants.  Couldn't tell what else was in there.

We headed back out to the house and Joe messed with the furnace for a while but was only able to confirm what he had diagnosed last week.  Lucille was going to the funeral home this evening in honor of a niece, Loretta Holscher.  Fred came out for a while to keep Joe company (which got Joe out of some of his "honey do" jobs for me), then we headed into town for dinner and groceries.

At dinner, one of our former classmates, Faye Hacker Hess, stopped by our table so we got to visit with her.  She was unable to attend our class get-together last week because she had company from out of town, so it was a stroke of luck that we were able to hook up.

We have a short to-do list in the morning and hope to head out before noon.  Weather forecast is for partly cloudy with wind but the storms aren't due until Thursday and Friday so hopefully we will be further down the road by then.  Our first stop is probably going to be at the White Castle in Evansville, so Joe will finally get to have his White Castle hamburgers!!!

Memorial Day (Mon.)

We had done so much celebrating the last two days we were happy not to have any big plans for today.  Dixie and Jim were leaving today and I was surprised to see Dixie at the kitchen window (washing it, of all things) before 9:00 a.m.  I have a birds' eye view of the kitchen window from our dinette in the RV.  Dixie had lots of bug bites from these nasty buffalo gnats around here and that had kept her awake so she had just gotten up.  She had laundry underway and was gathering up things so Jim could load the car.  To everyone's surprise, they pulled out before noon.

So Joe and Joe decided we should go to town for something to eat (breakfast/lunch?  It's noon by now), and since they hadn't been able to find a decent breakfast in Vincennes, they thought we should try Princeton.  Lucille was agreeable to this, so off we went.  The first 2 restaurants to had in mind were closed (one permanently, the second one just for the day we think).  We finally landed at Applebees, and then Cathy persuaded Joe to stop at my Finders Keepers store which was basically across the street.  We put Lucille in a wheel chair and walked the 4 aisles, but she was really thinking we were taking her to a "dry goods" store where she mind find a new blouse, so she complained a bit.  No one bought anything but we did check out the rocking horse again.  It seemed to be missing the post that goes through the head to hang on to, and it was plastic (I think Cathy had one like it when she was little but it was made out of wood), so no rocking horse for Shooter.

We "headed" home but made a couple stops and side trips still searching for fresh strawberries.  Our 20-mile ride to "breakfast" took 4 hours.  Joe was still willing to head up to Oaktown where rumor has it that fresh strawberries are maybe available, but since Cathy and Joe still had to drive to Bloomington today, Joe finally took us home. 

As Joe and Cathy were getting in their car to leave, Mike, Rachelle and the kids stopped by, back from their weekend camping trip.  We visited with them for a little while and after they left, Lucille headed to her chair for a nap, and Joe and I went to town for our last Bobe's Pizza of this trip (Lucille was pizzaed'out).  A thunderstorm blew through just as we got home, with some pretty heavy rain and lots of strong wind.  That lasted maybe 45 minutes, but it blew on out before we went to bed and didn't damage anything that we've seen.  I think the worst of it was further north.

We had originally planned to leave tomorrow, but I suggested to Joe that we wait until Wednesday so I would have Tuesday to get my stuff done after today's exodus by the others -- laundry, groceries, vacuuming the RV, etc.  So tomorrow will be my work/errand day, and Wednesday we intend to hit the road.  We've finally decided what day we are leaving, but haven't finalized our route yet. 

Rendevous (Sunday)

I heard my picture of Kaylee's 6th graduation did not post, so I'll try that again. I don't know how to enlarge it since it was sent from a smart phone, but I think it should show up this time.

 

Saturday night was a short night but we had plans today too, so we had to get on the move.  Joe M., Cathy, Joe and I skipped church and headed into town for breakfast and then off to the Spirit of Vincennes Rendevousb (37th Annual). As usual, we encountered more farm equipment taking up more than their half of the road.

The Rendevous is a weekend celebrating Vincennes' historical part in the Revolutionary War on the banks of the Wabash River, right next to the George Rogers Clark Memorial (the romantic site of Joe's and my engagement).
 

The Rendevous is quite an event for historic Vincennes, Indiana's oldest city.  We also have Grouseland here, the home of President William Henry Harrison, the first Indiana Territory Governor and 9th President of the United States.     Vincennes has not done a very good job of "exploiting" or advertising its place in history, but the Rendevous is pretty well done.  According to the literature:

       "At 10 a.m., Thurs., Feb. 25, 1779, British Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton surrendered his garrison of 80 soldiers after a siege which lasted less than two days. The victor, Lt. Col. Clark, had led an army of 170 Americans and French-Canadians across the flooded area of present-day southern Illinois in a march to Vincennes.
The Spirit of Vincennes Rendezvous is designed to bring back to life the sights, sounds, and smells of late 18^th century and early 19^th century Vincennes"

We had never been to this, and we really enjoyed it.  We walked through the encampment where many of the participants camp for the weekend, then we made our way over to where they were shooting off a cannon, and watched the first of the Battles.

In addition to the participants of the battles, lots of people were dressed in period costumes, including kids, and we saw a few "Indians" in full paint.

We encountered some soldiers on the way to the first battle of the day, and we had been hearing the cannon shots already.

 We passed a lady cooking flapjacks over the fire, and a couple guys making breakfast frajitas (I asked how they were different from breakfast burritos, and they said they couldn't spell burritos).

We passed this green/red flag and thought maybe it was French or something, but we were told it was George Rogers Clark's flag.

We walked over to check out the cannon.  There were oxen over here, and we later saw kids riding in oxen-drawn carts.  

It had started to sprinkle as we prepared to watch the first battle.  Joe M. is taking a picture of me in my neon green raincoat (they dubbed me "Colonial Wilma" but he hasn't sent me the picture yet").  I called them "We of the Umbrella" (as in We the People).

And then the battle began.  There was a lot of smoke from the muzzle loaders and rifles, and casualties on both sides, but our side won.

Next we wandered through the aisles and checked out some of the booths.  All items for sale were "period items," but they were interesting.  I bought some scissors, and a coffee mug for my collection.

Another friend from my school days, Anne Robinson Saxe, hooked up with me for a while.  She and her husband were coming back from graduation activities in Georgia, on their way to their home in Madison, Indiana.  We had not seen each other probably since high school, so we enjoyed our time together.  This year's trip to Vincennes has really been a walk down memory lane for me because I have gotten to see so many people from my childhood.

We enjoyed some of the wide variety of food served (ham & beans, corn on the cob, pie from St. Peters Lutheran Church, strawberry shortcake, pork sandwich), then went back over for the second and final battle.  They had a cannon demonstration before the battle started.

The outcome of the second battle was the same as the first, although we were told that we (the Congressional Army) is not always the victor.  Again, there were lots of smoke, the enemies' cannon would not fire and they tried to negotiate a surrender, but that didn't work out.

There was a real cutie right down the bleachers from us -- we thought he would be a fine "Little Shooter."

We finally headed out but we had spent the bulk of the day here.  We had to stop at the grocery on the way home so Joe M. could get the ingredients for a rhubarb/strawberry pie he wanted to make, and Cathy picked up the makings of lunch meat sandwiches for dinner.  Fred and Judy came out and we did get in 3 hands of cards, but we were all pretty tired.  We are just having too much fun -- we need a day of rest.