After a long day (6 hour drive) from Springfield, we set up our rig late on Sunday afternoon in a brand new KOA in Bluffton, Indiana, just a half hour south of Fort Wayne. The campground was quite large so we took a walk after supper and explored all the roads within the park.
When we passed one rig a few rows over from ours, a fellow invited us to come share his campfire with him and his wife. We sat down for a chat and it turns out the man, Monte Toon, is a professional watercolour artist from Oklahoma, out for a few months RV holiday with his wife Linda. What a coincidence! So of course we had a lot to talk about - painting styles, pigments we use, how we teach students, build our own web sites, etc. They invited us into their lovely 5th wheel Montana trailer (three slideouts!) and we saw some excellent paintings he was working on. Then we had them over to our trailer and showed them the paintings I had done on our trip. I gave them a Doors of Port Perry poster and Monte said he would mail me one of his prints when he gets home. What a great evening!
The next day was nice weather so we bicycled into Bluffton for an hour or so to see the town (not much to see actually but the exercise was good). Then we drove the truck into Fort Wayne to the visitor centre to see what was happening. Turns out Monday is the day most venues are closed so we could not see the botanical gardens or museums, but the hostess said there was a baseball game on in the evening. We had a huge alfresco lunch at one of the down town hotels and then found Parkview Field, which is a gorgeous ballpark right down town, newly built this spring (see below). We bought tickets, which were less than $30 for the both of us, drove back to the campsite to sleep off lunch and change clothes and headed back to the stadium.
We parked for just $4 in the lot across the street from Parkview Field and found our seats which were seven rows up and directly behind home plate. What a great view! We were sitting with some off-duty players who were measuring the pitching speed with radar guns. In the photo below you can see the ball in the air between the pitcher and the batter. We could call the strikes and balls almost as well as the umpire! The stadium looked to be almost full and we heard there were about 6,000 in attendance.
The previous night’s game had been rained out after five innings, so the first game we watched was the remaining four innings of that unfinished game. Then there was a half our break, the national anthem and seven innings of the second game (shortened due to the double header). The home team, the Tincaps (Class A farm team for the San Diego Padres) won both games against the River Bandits (farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals). Although these are minor league players, the play was very professional and we really enjoyed watching the action. Monday nights are Family Feast so for a buck you could get either a hot dog, popcorn, pop or a pizza slice. What a deal compared to major league games at the stadium in Toronto.
On Tuesday we drove our trailer from Bluffton to Emmett, Michigan (just west of Sarnia) and rested up for two nights there at a quiet KOA out in the middle of nowhere.
On Thursday we made it to London and visited our friend Jade Herder who just bought a new home there. He is doing some renovations to the interior and totally redoing all the landscaping so it will be lovely when he is done. The next day we took a three hour ride along the bicycle path that follows the Thames River in down town London, stopped for a yummy lunch at a pub (nicely avoiding a sudden rainshower in the process - thank you JFR Tours) and headed back to the campground for supper.
The next day we had an appointment at Campkins RV in London to see an Earthbound trailer we had read about on the internet. It was a really nice tow-behind trailer - lightweight and high tech looking - but not a layout we were keen on for our purposes. We asked the dealer to let us know when the model we are interested in is delivered from the factory so we can drive back to London for a viewing.
Having spent three months on the road with our Wildcat fifth wheel toy hauler, we found we used our bicycles as much or more than our motorcycles, so the dedicated garage space is a lot of weight to haul around and an additional eight feet in length to manoeuvre, compared to the actual use we got out of the motorcycles. The other feature we ideally would like is to have is two table workspaces, so that I can paint on one and John can use the computer on the other. We really like the kitchen, bathroom and underfloor storage in our Wildcat but I have seen better functioning layouts for the bedroom storage space and living room seating areas we require. So we are hoping to find a new trailer that is lighter weight and has the features we would prefer. That being said, the Wildcat is a very well engineered, high quality product with many handy features and I would recommend them to anyone. You just have to find the particular model that suits your activities and travel style.
We left Port Perry on May the 4th and after 16,000 km (10,000 miles) we arrived home on July 25 safe and sound. We didn’t want the trip to end but once we were home we were delighted to be there. Since there had been springlike conditions at home while we were travelling, the lawn and gardens looked lush and beautiful. Dad had done a great job looking after our house and lawn and picking up our mail while we were gone.
Gas was much less expensive for our trip this year than last. John figures the average price we paid was about $2.35/Gal (US) which is in the neighbourhood of 75 cents per litre (CDN).
Of the twelve weeks we were away, we spent seven weeks in the desert and we had just four or five rainy days during our entire trip to the American Southwest. We really gained a new perspective about water resources and saw how precarious the water supply is in the Southwest. Very soon there will not be enough water to support people and agriculture down there. We are so blessed to have abundant rainfall and thousands of lakes in Ontario and we must strive to appreciate and protect them. I will never complain about a rainy day again! (Unless my paintings get wet at a show - then I might whine a little.)
Our favourite region to visit without question was southern Utah, because of all the exciting canyons to explore and photograph, fewer crowds and the weather was cooler there than in Arizona due to the higher elevation. We would love to go back and hike more of Zion National Park another year - anyone want to come with us? BYOT (Bring Your Own Trailer)!
The blog is finished for this year. Thanks for listening and commenting from time to time. We really appreciated hearing from you about going’s on back home. Bye for now…