Arriving Ft. Wayne

8-16-2021 - Monday -- RIP Elvis 

We are leaving here this morning, so we had a few chores to take care of.  After filling up with water (we didn’t have water at the site but Joe only had to back up a few yards to a water faucet) and dumping, we got on the road about 10:35.  We have a passenger with us on this trip — Cathy decided to ride up to Ft. Wayne with us and surprise her parents so Joe M brought her out to meet us at the campground -- and we were on our way.

I told her there were lots of responsibilities in the co-pilot seat.  Mapping (she is better at this than I am), keeping the GPS facing Joe so he can read it, watching the road when he isn't, saying "whoa whoa whoa" when he is about to run a stoplight, etc.  She performed admirably, she's hired. We crossed another of the Columbus architectural bridges as we made our way over to highway 9.  

I also told them both that if they saw things of interest, give me a heads-up since I'm not in the co-pilot seat, but all Joe kept pointing out was Circle K stores.  Obviously, he had his daily Diet Coke on his mind.

It took about all day to get to Ft. Wayne. Joe F and Cathy had looked at the map and figured out a route to bypass Indianapolis since there is so much road construction in that area. So we went to Columbus, then on over to hwy 9. Well, not only is there more road construction over there, it came with detours, so we were on and off hwy 9 several times. Finally around Pendleton, we cut over to I 69 and made better time. We arrived at our campground just before 5:00.  We drove 232 miles and it took us 6 1/2 hours.  We did have a fairly long lunch break at Cracker Barrel, but it was a slow trip.  However, since Joe had a new co-pilot, I got to take a short nap on the couch on the I-69 stretch.

We have stayed at this campground (Bixler Lake campground) once before and knew

it was nice.  The only campground in Ft. Wayne, Johnny Appleseed, did not have anything available, so we are about 30 miles north of Ft. Wayne, the best we could do.  We fueled in Shelbyville for $3.189, the price of gas just keeps going up.

 It was cloudy all day, which made for pleasant driving.  We are here until Sunday, so we should get in some quality visiting time with Jim, Dixie, and Paul, not to mention more time with Cathy.  Good times ahead.