Early to bed, early to rise, again.  We arose before 5 AM this morning to grab a quick shower, our last for 6 days, and meet our guides for the trip to Quetico.  After taking traveling clothes to the truck, i.e. clothes we would not take into the wilderness, we met our guides and good friends, Harry and Mary, at 5:30 AM for a continental breakfast.  Shortly afterward, the canoes and packs were loaded onto jon boats for the 20+ mile motorized portion of the trip.  For the first time since our first trip in 2002, I paddled from the bow position; Mary was in the stern seat.  The paddle was smooth, with calm conditions and flat water.

Harry and Mary setting up camp

We arrived at our destination, a small island adjacent to White Island in Basswood Lake, at 9:30 AM, unpacked the canoes, and fished while Harry and Mary set up camp.

Kay steered us from the front of the canoe, and I managed to catch a few fish on a gray and white Clouser.  We returned to camp, unpacked, took a swim in the lake, our first ever, and relaxed prior to a wonderful pan-fried steak dinner.  It’s going to be a good week. 

Early to bed, early to rise.  We awoke shortly after 6 AM, dressed, and was out the door at 6:40 AM.  Before hitting the interstate, we stopped for a gasoline fill-up, and some much needed coffee.  It was quite nice to open the vents with the AC off as the outside temperature was a pleasant 68 degrees.  After a half hour on the road, we stopped at the only Cracker Barrel in Minnesota for a good breakfast.  Typically , we will stop in Minneapolis to shop at REI, but we were much too early today, so we bypassed this twin city in favor of St. Paul.  There was hardly any traffic at all on this route.  The interstate north of St. Paul got progressively worse, and we were glad not to be traveling in the motorhome.  Alaska roads are absolutely no worse than many lower 48 roads.  We bounced all the way to Virginia, passing through Wyoming, both towns in Minnesota, arriving in Ely about 1:30 PM.  After walking around town for a bit, we drove to Canadian Borders Outfitters where we met Harry and Mary, and visited with them for a couple of hours.  Upon leaving they gave us a canoe pack for our week’s worth of belongings, and we spent the rest of the evening packing.  We’re excited and will leave civilization at 5:30 AM tomorrow.  Until then…

We departed home this morning for our 9th trip to Quetico Wilderness Provincial Park,  Our first trip to Quetico was in 2002, beginning a tradition of annual trips that continues today.  Canoeing, camping, and fishing in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, Quetico’s U.S. twin, had been Number 1 on my bucket list since graduation from college in the early 1970s, and we were fortunate to get to make the trip to Quetico for the first time with Harry and Mary, our guide team couple; they have spoiled us greatly.  Quetico is just across the boundary between the U.S. and Canada, just north of Ely, Minnesota.

As is the now typical beginning day of travel, we stopped for coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Ava, MO, then traveled to near Springfield, MO, for cheap gasoline.  Traffic through Kansas City was pretty quiet, even for the noon hour.  At Kansas City, we transitioned to I-35 for the rest of the day, arriving in Owatonna, MN, about 6 PM for our annual buying spree at the Columbia outlet store, then to Cabela’s for spending a few Cabela’s bucks, then to our motel for the night.  Our motel was nothing to write about, good or bad.  It was relatively clean and had few amenities, but the price was right, and neither of were bitten by bed bugs!  This has been a really pleasant driving trip, so far.

With our bodies and minds still on Eastern Daylight Savings Time, we awoke early, and departed the campground about 6 AM, traveling south on I-57 through southern Illinois.  The further south we drove, the less populated the area was, and quite scenic with rolling hills, and cropland interspersed with forested areas.  We opted to follow the route the Garmin GPS picked out for us, and after leaving the controlled access highway, the road became more hilly and more curvy, particularly through Mark Twain National Forest.  Time was obviously not on our side, but what the heck, we were able to drive some roads and see some country neither of us had experienced before.  Arriving home at 12:30 PM, things were just like we left them some 16 days, two rallies, four campgrounds, and 3 states ago.  The water heaters were turned on for long showers, the AC turned down, the washer filled with dirty clothes, all followed by unpacking the motorhome.  My hair was long enough for a decent pony tail, but it is so fine that even the slightest wind blew the few hairs on top all over the place.  An appointment at 3:30 PM quickly solved that problem with a semi-military haircut—oh, it feels so good to have short hair again.  It’s great to be home again, but we’re already planning travel a couple of years out.  Where will we go next…
PS:  Though this is posted as being written on Wednesday evening, a post script has been added for finality to the trip.  After a good night’s rest, we washed the motorhome, finished cleaning the inside, and backed her into her parking spot for a few days.  Now, everything is as we left it.

In order to make the 6:30 AM appointment with Jayco in Middlebury, IN, we arose early this morning, skipped coffee, and drove north about 15 minutes, passing several Amish buggies.  We were early, but after only a few minutes’ wait, the service center opened promptly on time, had coffee ready, and knew exactly who we were.  We left for a fruit plate at their version of Pancake House, returned, watched a bit of morning news, and the service manager advised us that nothing was wrong with the motorhome.  They did perform a thorough check, including pressure testing the water system, and did not charge us anything—another plus for Jayco.
We thanked him, connected the Saturn, and proceeded south towards home, arriving at Rend Lake about 4 PM where we had made advance reservations several days ago.  Rend Lake is a US Army Corps of Engineers impoundment in southern IL, and as typical of Corps campgrounds, was clean and neat.  We lucked out and had a site right on the water, with a cool breeze blowing to boot.  Life is good.

KAY’S TAKE:  We quickly set up camp by the lakeside and headed out to the nearest town.  I wanted some Bloody Marys.  We used to have either one of those or a screwdriver after travelling all day in our RV.  We gave them up after this severe dieting – alcohol calories are empty calories!  We made an exception, this time.  We also decided to eat at an Applebee’s.  They had a menu section called 550 calories or less.  There were some great selections, and we both chose the same thing – the peppercorn steak plate with fresh veggies.  It was wonderful – one of the best steaks I’ve had in a long time and just like I like it – medium rare.  The serving size looked like what ‘normal’ used to look like twenty years ago – not gargantuan like most servings are today.  What a treat!  Then we came back to the rig to chill out and sip our ‘marys’.  Life is good.  Just waiting for the water to heat up to cozy up to the shower.  Talked to several friends while traveling on the road today.  Good to hear from them.  

At 11 AM today, RVFEST 2010 was officially over.  Breakfast was comprised of decaf coffee (there was no regular coffee left), leftovers, yogurt, cereal from Jean’s personal supply, and juice, and it wasn’t too bad!  The morning was filled with hugs and best wishes, and many echoes of “See you next year” as RVers headed their separate direction—many to other campgrounds, and a few, like us, home.  Richard and Virginia accompanied us to tour the Jayco motorhome plant at 12 noon, and it was amazing.  It was much bigger than Newmar’s plant, by several orders of magnitude, yet the quality looked similar.  About 70 percent of their workers are Amish.  In addition to this small motorhome facility, they have 24 other buildings where they make towables, i.e. pull trailers and fifth wheels, and components for all their RVs.

After the tour, we ate a light lunch at Essenhaus, and returned to the campground to look at Les and Jean’s “new to them” Tiffin Allegro Bay FRED (front engine diesel).  It has 4 slides, lots of bells and whistles, and lots of room, plus the high quality is apparent.  Tiffins are made in Red Bay, AL.  After the “look see” we began final preparations for our trip home.  It’s really not a lot of work, as we have regular places for most everything, and take advantage of the Saturn trunk. 
For dinner, the remaining campers—some 17 strong—ate at a local Mexican restaurant keeping a tradition established by Les many years ago.
We unhooked everything but the electricity, including the water, and tried the pump so the Jayco repair facility could begin work on it immediately, and wouldn’t you know it, it worked great.  I did everything I knew to foul it up, to no avail.  After a short discussion, we decided to keep our 6:30 AM appointment anyway just to verify that everything was in working order, then it was off to bed.
P.S.  This postscript is just a short note about the Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds.  The fairgrounds are larger than the Arkansas State Fair fairgrounds in Little Rock and the Midsouth Fair fairgrounds in Memphis by a significant amount.  The grounds are well manicured with many gardens, two clock towers, a race track, a huge grandstand and stage, a community building, and several hundred full-hookup campsites.  The Elkhart County 4H Fair is among the largest attended in the country.  While we were there, there was a trotter race (trotting horses pulling a buggy), and a couple of American Quarter Horse Association horse shows.  The trotters were fun to watch and a number of Amish were participating as all of them have trotters pulling their family buggies.  Northern Indiana still has a rural culture and is very much family oriented.

KAY’S TAKE:  We really enjoyed touring the Jayco plant, but were very disappointed that they didn’t have any completed motorhome to tour.  We’re interested in their Seneca new design also.  When we got back to the rig, we read and rested for a short while before going out to dinner with the others.  We both had salads for lunch and supper but we oogle-eyed all the wonderful bakery items, cakes, pies, donuts, cookies, and such at the Dutchman Essenhaus.  We did try the Amish peanut butter on the table.  It was in a squeeze tube container (like a mustard container) and we squeezed some on our teaspoons.  Wow!  Was it ever good!  They mix peanut butter, karo syrup & mashmellow cream together to make it.  Yum-yum!  120 calories for one tablespoon. 

We were pleased to be able to participate in Sunday services following a deluxe continental breakfast.  Actually, breakfast included leftover biscuits and rolls and ham, cereal, and fresh donuts.
The interdenominational service included several keyboard pieces by Kathleen, another of our fellow Alaska and the Yukon 2009 travelers.  Kay sang “Trust His Heart”, I sang “Peace In The Valley”, another lady played the dulcimer and sang, and still another played a flute medley.  A rally member gave the message, Christ as Life’s GPS, quite appropriate for a bunch of RVers.  He was a former environmental engineer, changed career fields, and became a fulltime Baptist preacher late in life, and did a great job with the message.
After lunch, another violent thunderstorm struck and dumped lots of rain.  It seems to follow us around!  We ate Chinese food tonight for the first time in several months, and played Bingo to wrap up the evening.  Kay won $3!
So, today we covered the full gamut:  church to bingo.  We’re getting this senior citizen business down pat!  It’s not a bad life.
KAY’S TAKE:  Donald failed to mention that I took a 2 1/2 hour nap this afternoon also!  Senior citizens, move over!!  I can’t remember the last time I had played Bingo.  I was expecting a ‘boring’ game – up/down & across bingos.  Oh, no, we played postage stamp bingo, kite with a tail bingo, C bingo, picture frame bingo and more.  So I had to concentrate with 5 cards.  Donald helped me also.  We’re heading to Jayco for a tour of their motorhome plant tomorrow and then the RV crew that is left will eat Mexican food tonight at La Hacienda before everyone heads out Tuesday.  We’ve got a repair scheduled at Jayco Tues. morning – our water pump – and then we’ll be heading south. 

RVFEST 2010 is almost over.  Today marks the last day for many of the RVers; consequently, our farewell dinner is planned for this evening.  More about that later.

After breakfast, we opted to visit some shops in Shipshewana that we had not been to before.  The shops were busy with both locals and tourists as Saturday is shopping day for the Amish and Mennonites.  Horses and buggies were everywhere, and most shops have hitching rails, and some, including Walmart, have covered areas in which they can “park”.

Amish strongly dislike having their photos taken, particularly their faces, as they believe it violates the 10th Commandment.  We tried to honor this and were careful to keep our distance when taking photos.  There are many bakeries, general merchandise, and meat and cheese shops.  One of our favorites was E&S Bulk Foods; they had everything imaginable in bulk, and the store was crowded.  The photo above was taken outside in their parking lot.  Interestingly enough and quite surprisingly, the most popular shoe worn by the Amish is Crocs, followed by Flip Flops.  Most of the cooked food available in shops is heavy German or Swiss.  On a humorous note, we passed by a fried pie and ice cream stand run by an Amish family.  A young girl, probably about 10, was eating a fried pie—looked like strawberry and rhubarb—and it was all over her face.  She was thoroughly enjoying it, and providing good advertising.

Our farewell dinner this evening included ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans, and dinner rolls, and it was quite tasty.

Following dinner, we were “entertained” by the Country Cloggers, who were more like a tap dance group than a clogging group.    They were just OK, and about 30 minutes was plenty, though they performed for an hour.  After the cloggers, ice cream and cake were served, and looked good, but we didn’t partake.


KAY’S TAKE:  I had made a fresh blackberry cobbler for desert and they saved it for the ice cream social.  Our local berries in Mt. Home were coming in before we left, and we got 8 gallons of blueberries and two gallons of blackberries that we put up in our freezer.  We stopped at a bakery on the way back that had lots of samples.  One of the best was a bread loaf that had sausage, bacon, cheese & egg in it also.  They said you sliced it and toasted it or cooked it like french toast.  I think the Amish have been into organic for a long time; their products seem to have much less ‘processing’ than ours do.  They also seem to make many more things from scratch.

Except for breakfast, the morning and midday times were unscheduled for us, and we opted to take advantage of RV factory tours available in the area.  Newmar is considered an upper end RV, and their plant is at Nappanee, IN, just a short drive from Goshen.  Our tour began at 1 PM, but Kay wore open-toed sandals—a no no for manufacturing plants—and had to remain in the waiting room.  I was quite surprised to see that the structural components, walls, ceilings, floors, cabinets, slides, etc., are essentially the same whether it’s one of their starter motorhomes or one of their million dollar models; the differences seem to be in the size of TVs, Corian versus laminate, and grade of furniture.  Also, the plant was clean, and the workers were self-motivated.  Another interesting factoid is that all motorhomes are pre-sold before they begin production, either being bought by a dealer or a customer.
Much to our disappointment, we missed a roundtable discussion of “Favorites” led by Les, the rally master.  We were anxious to hear about other RVer’s favorite trips, campgrounds, rallies, etc.
A pot luck provided our dinner fare tonight, and it was quite good.  Kay made jalapeño chicken, and once again, we had to watch our intake of food; the basic rule is “if it tastes good, don’t eat it.”  We did eat some meat portions and vegetables, but limited our carbs, fat, and sugar.  Following dinner Sentimental Journeys, a local dance band, played hits from the 1920s through the 1960s.  They were so so, but we enjoyed them nevertheless.
KAY’S TAKE:  We signed up to help prepare the coffee, hot water, and decaf coffee for the large group and tonight was our turn to get things ready for the next morning.  We had a 100 cup pot of defcaf to make and set on a timer; two 55 cup pots of regular coffee and one 35 cup pot of regular coffee (only one on a timer), and a 35 cup pot of hot water on a timer.  It takes a lot of volunteers to help pull off a rally of this size.
I have enjoyed the early morning stretch class that John and Margaret have been leading all week.  It feels really good to get the ‘kinks’ out and stretch really good before I start the day.  We’ve been enjoying walking in the evenings when it’s not raining also.  It has gotten warm during the day but there’s usually been a breeze and in the evenings it’s cooled off considerably.  It’s still somewhat light tonight and it’s 9:30 in the evening.  

Today marks the middle of the rally, and it’s an “action” packed day.  We always start with coffee in the RV, then join the others in the community room for coffee and a deluxe continental breakfast.  Breakfast can consist of any combination of pastries, cereal, boiled eggs, biscuits and gravy, fruit, and juice.  It’s not a large breakfast by any means, but more than sufficient to get one to lunch.  At 11 AM, a Chinese auction was held to benefit KOA’s Camp for Kids with Cancer, and over $350 was raised.  Kay made a donation but didn’t accept the tickets as we have enough STUFF already.
PICASA AND BLOGGING SEMINAR  Beginning at 1 PM, yours truly gave two seminars:  the first was an introduction to Picasa, and the second was an introduction to blogging.  Attendance was relatively small (25), but those who attended seemed to learn a lot and the level of enthusiasm was quite high.

 
Following a nap (gee, these things are getting contagious), we were almost late for hot dogs, baked beans, chips, and desert.  Of course we have to severely limit our intake of calories, and it’s soooo hard!  A good blue grass/gospel band, Conley-Schmidt, played and sang as the evening’s entertainment.  Schmidt, leader of the group, is the son of an Amish minister, and had crafted his own guitar and violin.  He also played dobro.  They were an enjoyable group with an acerbic sense of humor.

KAY’S TAKE:  This couple above have been married 30 yrs.  They have 4 older children and then these two younger children came along.  It’s like two separate families.  They are also the grandparents of 8 grandkids.  She is much younger looking in person, I thought.  The banjo player on the back left was a very good musician and could sing really well also.  He was quite funny and I believe he’s Amish.  Hmmmm – I’m tired and sleepy tonight; my nap was cut too short!  hehehe.