Wednesday, April 21, 2004

The 2004 Adventure, April 18 to 21, 2004, Illinois & Indiana, Homeward Bound

Before we left Independence we took the opportunity to take the tour of the President Truman home. You can only visit the first floor, the second floor is reserved for the use of their daughter, Margaret, who is near 80 years old and lives out east. The yard is kept planted with the same plants as the Truman’s had in the last years of their lives, some of the plants were put in to provide some privacy. The house is kept the same as the day Bessie died. Even the dishrag was left hanging on the kitchen faucet. (Got to tell you, it looks a bit icky. LOL) His coat and hat hang by the backdoor, you can imagine him putting them on and sneaking out the back door for a walk around town (he did not like the Secret Service protection that started after President Kennedy died). The home is owned by the People of the United States, and is a National Park Service facility.

April 18, 2004.

A travel day, we leave Independence and head east, going around St. Louis and heading into Illinois. Pretty uneventful day, which is always a good thing when we are traveling. We stop for lunch in a place with a nice big parking lot, which we will find out later, left us with more than lunch.

April 19, 2004

Nice day, but Al discovers a flat tire on the Montana. Every once in a while ya get one, we suspect we got ours yesterday at the lunch stop, we were happy it was not a blow out, just a slow leaker, so we got to the campground and did not discover the tire was flat till this morning. We call Good Sam, we wait 2 hours, the fellow that comes out is nice, but his tools are lacking some and he ends up using some of ours. Al has to watch him like a hawk as he starts to jack the trailer up via the axle. We find a nail in the tire. If you are gonna have a flat tire, this is the way to do it, we are not on the road, or the side of the road with trucks and cars whizzing by. We are not freezing, it is not raining, it is not blistering hot. We are sitting in a very pretty little campground with new owners that are as nice as could be. We are safe and reasonably comfortable. The tire did not shred into many pieces at 60 MPH and damage the trailer. (We will see such damage just 2 days later, what a mess this guy had.)

When we have the spare on, we take off and head for Indianapolis, we have a short drive day, so we still arrive in camp by 5ish, plenty of time to set up and relax. Oh, we find out this campground is open all year, which is good to know, campgrounds open all year round this far north are far and few between. We will remember this one!

April 20, 2004

Spend the day visiting with Al’s cousin Martha. Thank you Martha and Dick for a great day, it was great to see you and that special new room.

April 21, 2004

We are up and out of the campground very early today, on the road before 8 A.M. We usually don’t get rolling till 9 or 9:30. We have been asked to bring the Montana to Goshen for inspection of some warranty issues we have. Since Keystone wants to see us, we want to go there! We drive the Indiana road 15 north to 13 north. Except for unmarked detours, in is a rather pleasant drive though farmland and true mid-western America. We arrive on time, have our inspection, make some arrangements to have the warranty work done, and after a very long day rest our tired bones at the Elkhart County Fair Grounds.

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