It's As Good As It Gets

Looking over at the rush of water tumbling over Niagara Falls with the sun shining and a soft breeze brushing against my cheek I thought to myself "I think this is the best time in our lives." We are free to go and do whatever we want. If we still had a house, and were doing all these things as vacation trips, we would be dragged down by knowing we had to go back and by thinking about the work that waited for us. If we were younger and had kids along, as the mom it would be up to me to keep things together. Keep everyone happy. But now, we are healthy. Or at least we are still able. Yes, it's as good as it gets.

Thursday at the Falls was long and fun. We did the tourist things. 
In the early afternoon, we parked the Jeep in the all-day lot at the base of the Skylon Tower because we had dinner reservations there.  I didn't want to have a long walk to the car afterwards. Instead, we walked down the hill to the Falls Park. 

First on our agenda was one of the Maid of the Mist boats. We given red plastic ponchos to wear. Small people and kids got green. I had to laugh because Craig got tangled up in his and I had to help him. So much for not having to do the "mom jobs". 

From the deck of the boat we got a different view of the American Falls. Since my camera is not waterproof, I kept it in a plastic bag for most of the tour and just enjoyed the rain-like mist in the air. We also came (what felt like) really close to the Horseshoe Falls.

I really expected the spray to be cold, but it was not. Wearing a big plastic bag was hot, so getting a wet face felt good.

After the boat trip we walked along the Falls for a couple of blocks to the next venue, "The Journey Behind the Falls".

Here we were given green ponchos, went down an elevator, through a tunnel and out onto an observation platform. Once again it was best to keep the camera under cover! We also walked thru a tunnel behind the falls and looked out through a couple of portals behind the falling sheet of water. It was quite impressive.

It was still quite early by the time we were finished.  Walking back toward the Tower, we decided to hike on over to the Niagara Falls Historical Museum.  I know, "hiking" is for natural trails, and "walking" is for city streets, but since I was getting a bit tired, it was a hike!

The Historic Museum was not big, but the exhibits were excellent.

We enjoyed watching the 1953 Marilyn Monroe movie "Niagara".

It was a bit corny, but fun to see the Falls as a honeymoon location of the past.

It was also great to be able to sit down and rest for an hour and a half.

In addition to an exhibit about the War of 1812, there was a collection of historic items. This clock is of the same type and vintage as one of the very few items I kept from our house. 

This one commemorated Niagara Falls, while ours has a glass front picturing the Statue of Liberty. My daughter is keeping it safe and wound on her mantel in San Diego.

Their special exhibit was about Niagara motels from the 50's. 

The pictures of them then and now were fun. As we walked back to the Skylon Tower we passed several that had been depicted in the exhibit. Some had been kept up, but at least one was being demolished.

The walk back did not seem as long as the walk there. I guess it was because it was more downhill and because it was getting a bit cooler, and the rest watching the movie restored my energy.

Our reservation was for 9:00 because we wanted to see the Falls lit up at night from the tower. I had a plan. That morning I had packed a cooler bag with an ice block, bottle opener, and wine glasses. My plan was to add a bottle of Chardonnay from the box in one of the Alfa's bays, before leaving for the day. I planned on sitting in the park and relaxing with a glass or two of wine before going up for dinner.

A good plan except for one thing.  When we got back to the Jeep, after changing into fresh clothes in the washrooms, I discovered a bottle-less cooler bag. We both laughed, ROTFL almost.

However, dinner in the Skylon includes a free ride to the observation deck. We went in and asked if we could go up to the observation deck before dinner. The answer was no. I guess they don't want people to make dinner reservations just to get the free ride and then fink out.  

We were all dressed up and no where to go! Until Craig asked if there was a bar. Yes, there was, and we were able to go up and wait there.

By the time we were seated it was getting dark and they had turned on the colored lights on the Falls. They may have been wonderful from ground level, but from the tower they were pretty lame. Simple white lights would have been better, IMO.

The night-time view of the city was beautiful, and we enjoyed an excellent meal. 

At the end of the evening we were quite happy to be able to go back to our home and back to our own bed instead of off to a motel or hotel.

One of the joys of RVing.

Five Days in Canada

Writing a blog post should not feel like doing overdue homework, but that's a bit like how I'm feeling right now. When we had driven just a few miles into Canada on Sunday, we got a message on the phone that since we did not have an international plan, any calls, either in or out, would be very costly, as would our data rate. We decided to turn the phone off. Since it is our "hot spot", this effectively also disconnected our internet. We were able to use the very slow WiFi at the offices of both of the campgrounds we were at over the five days, but it was not conducive to blogging.

On Friday we returned to the US, and once again have access, but I am way behind!

I had planned a nice post about the Ford Museum and Village, but now all I'm up to writing is that it was a very interesting, worth the price of admission, and a very long and exhausting day.

One of hundreds of interesting things in the Ford Museum.

Niagara Falls has been on my bucket list for many years. The best way to get from the Detroit area to Niagara Falls is to drive east through Ontario, Canada. Many of my RV blogging friends know that Al and Kelly, also known as  The Bayfield Bunch, live on the west coast of Lake Huron in Ontario.  After exchanging a few quick e-mails to see if they would be home and interested in a meet-up date, I found a Passport America park in their neck of the woods and booked a couple of days stay.

They invited us for lunch on Tuesday and we were delighted to have a nice long day visit. Lunch was yummy, seeing their new rig was fun, and gabbing for hours about life, RVing, and blogging was priceless. All too soon it was time to call it a day, and be on our way home to the Alfa to prepare for Wednesday's drive. 

We are both very glad that Kelly is feeling so much better this year, and hope we can cross paths down in Arizona sometime.

I am constantly learning things from our blogging friends. Because I have a "delicate" back, I had been having difficulty getting into the driver's seat of our new Jeep. I could manage the passenger side, but seemed to get tangled up in myself on the drivers side. Watching how Al got into the Jeep was an "A-ha" moment. When we got back to the park I tried it his way and can now slide in with more or less ease on both sides! Makes me like our Jeep even more.

On Wednesday we drove across Ontario, and were settled into our new campsite by mid-afternoon. Although there was an all-day shuttle bus service available to us, we decided to drive into town and take our chances with finding a place to park. We found one next to the information center, and the $15 for three hours was only $1 more than the bus would have cost. We didn't have much more than three hours left in the day at that point anyway.

Just across from our parking we were able to walk quite a way along a path overlooking the falls. These are a few of the many picture we took of this amazing place.

Below is the American Falls as seen from Canada.

There is quite a bit of talus (the rock debris from the eroding edge) at the foot of the falls. Removal of these rocks was studied and rejected at one time.

Further along is the Horseshoe Falls. This is an accurate image of the water's color. It is turquoise. The water spray goes far up into the air, and it feels like rain when you are standing along the overlooking rail. The red object is one of the Hornblower tour boats.

Although there were hundreds of people from all over the world enjoying the wonder of the falls, I did not feel crowded or annoyed.  At any given spot along the rail, if I wanted to take a picture or just get to the rail, I only needed to stop and wait a few moments for the person at the rail to move on. No one was pushy or in a hurry. There was time and room for all.

[From Craig] I'm fascinated by the color of the water just as it starts to go over the falls.  May be the first time that a color ever made me really happy.  It looked like a precious stone color.

I was surprised at how close to the edge of the falls the path rail was, and how clear the water appeared to be. We could almost see the rock on the bottom.  

This post doesn't have an ending because it is not finished. In my next post, I plan on writing about our boat tour,  our walk under the falls, and the view from the Skylon Tower at night. 

Stay tuned...

Ford Rouge Factory Tour

I'm sitting outside the park office, enjoying the morning and using their WiFi.  I am behind in my posts, but that's OK because time is flexible when you are full-timing. 

I'm starting this post with a few answers to a couple of comments:

Kim asked: What's the insect situation up there (Upper Michigan)? What about the humidity? 
We have been in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan from mid July to mid August. The weather has been fantastic. Not too hot or humid. We have had a few rainy nights, and just two days where we preferred to stay in, but it has mostly been in the 70's to mid 80's. By bugs, I assume you mean mosquitos. We have seen very few. Of course we are not inclined to sit outside in the evenings. Every year is different, but I think we really got lucky!

That is until we got to Ontario! Daytime is not a problem. We took a lovely walk along Lake Huron on Monday, but as soon as late afternoon rolls around, the mosquitos seem to swarm over any warm body that is outdoors. We tried to take a walk on our first evening here, but were driven back in. We had not sprayed ourselves with OFF or any other repellents  We noticed that the people who where sitting outside had cans of it close at hand! 

Jodee asked: Which Dyson heater do you have? 
I bought the Dyson heater for an unheated room in the house. It looked so much nicer than the cheap old space heater I had used.  More like a piece of sculpture.  But it really did a great job of heating, and I loved its 8" diameter footprint. It stows nicely behind the passenger seat in the RV. We have only used it a few times, but it seems to work well at warming up the living area of the Alfa in the morning when it is a bit chilly.

 I bought the combination heater and fan model AM05. We have not used it as a fan yet, but we've heard that it can be great to supplement your AC in the rig when it is very hot.

Now on to what we have been doing!

We try to keep our ears open to suggestions of things to see and do. Several people told us that if we were in the Dearborn area, the Ford Museum, Village, and Rouge Factory tour was a must.

We enjoy factory tours and museums!

On Friday we went on the Ford Rouge Factory Tour in Dearborn Michigan. No photos were allowed on the tour, so I nabbed a few from the internet:

What a place! 

After seeing a couple of film presentations about the history of Ford and the plant, we went on a self-directed tour along the elevated walkway that allows you to look down on the line floor and watch as the trucks go through their final assembly. They turn out about 60 trucks an hour! They are not all black.

Since we had gotten a late start in the morning, we decided to return on Saturday for the Museum and Village.

One day for both of these was not enough for me!  I will try to get a post together about that in a few days! 

We're mostly without internet access in Canada.  Will post sometime soon.

Swedish Pancakes and a Fort

We do have some specific destinations in mind, but our day to day travel plans are often very loose.  Before making reservations I always ask Craig if there is any particular place he wants to go.

Our next major destination is Niagara Falls, but we have no set time to get there yet. But we decided we would go north across Upper Michigan, and south to the Detroit area. 

Craig had read that Swedish Pantry in Escanaba had the best Pancake Breakfast, and noted it was on our route. 

Because we wanted to be there for breakfast, I located a Casino RV park that was just shy of Escanaba for us to stop at.




The pancakes were pretty good, but the Swedish meatballs were even better.

After breakfast, our drive was not long, and we were over the Mackinac Bridge in no time. I hadn't been sure if we wanted to go over to Mackinac Island or not, so I reserved two nights at a park there. I had been over to the Island many years ago, and was a bit unsure of the weather for the next few days. When we arrived it was just starting to rain, and Craig hurried to get us set up and the Jeep unhooked. Just as he finished the sky really opened up, but we were snuggly tucked into our site. It was a bit chilly, and I used my little Dyson heater to warm up the Alfa a bit. 

Wednesday morning dawned with clear skies, but instead of going to the island, we went to see Fort Michilimackinac, which is in Mackinaw City, not on the island.  Since I had been to the Island, I did not feel a draw to go back again.

The fort was built, abandoned, rebuilt, and finally abandoned and burned down over the course of history. 

The stockade and buildings that are there now are re-creations based on the archeological finds and records.  They have been built since the last time I was there.  It is a State Historical Site and Park.

For a modest admission we were able to roam the grounds. There were many areas that provided information and displays of artifacts from the site.

In addition to staged dioramas there were volunteers dressed in period costume doing the same tasks as their counterparts must have done. The pretty gal above was shaping bread to bake, while telling us about how much bread was consumed in the 19th century and how it was made.

These two fine fellows had just demonstrated cannon fire and musket shooting.

[From Craig] Homeowners, aren't you glad you don't have to take care of this roof?

We were able to walk along the top of the wall and look out the watch towers like sentries. On this side Lake Michigan was in sight.

From the tower on the land side we were able to see fenced in areas that might have been for keeping livestock in peaceful times.

As the day drew to a close the wind got stronger and dark clouds began to roll in. I was glad we were not on the lake. As we drove back to the Alfa I saw an eagle fly over the tree tops.  Cool!

Thursday promises to be a long day. We will be driving a little over 300 miles to Dearborn Michigan which is near Detroit. We have tickets for the Ford Rouge Factory Tour on Friday, and we want to visit the Ford Museum on Saturday. 

Being full time tourists is hard work, but I love it.

Good Friends that you have never met before

Quick catch up first: we took the Kohler factory tour while in the Sheboygan area. For my New Zealand friends, Kohler is one of the top producers of bathroom fixtures in the country. The tour was three hours long and we walked over three miles. It was quite interesting, and an excellent reminder of what working in a real factory is like. We toured the pottery/ceramics plant, the iron plant and the brass plant. Although the work does not look extremely hard, the work floors were loud, hot, and dusty. I don't think I would have been a very happy worker doing one of these jobs over and over for years on end. Conditions in the Kohler plants were as good as they can be, but I wondered what conditions in overseas plant must be like. Kids today can learn about production of the the things around them from programs like "How It Is Made" on the Discovery or Learning channels, but these shows do not teach them what it really feels like to be a factory worker. 

We also were able to buy and enjoy some real Sheboygan bratwurst from Miesfeld's. 

We have six pounds of them stashed in the freezer. After eating them for two dinners, I have decided the big difference between the "real" Sheboygan brats and the mass marketed grocery store brats, (Johnsonville brand) is in the seasoning. The real brats have more salt, more pepper, and more of whatever other spices they put into them. The flavor is great, and very satisfying.

We left the Sheboygan area on Thursday afternoon and drove just about 65 miles to our next stop, a 19-acre county park located on Lake Winnebago called Columbia Park. On Thursday and Friday it was not very full, but on Saturday and Sunday almost every site was occupied by weekenders. We really don't mind lots of people around. We enjoyed visiting with our neighbor and watching the kids ride bikes. 

The park has a nice boat dock and launching areas. Since we don't really need water and sewer hook ups for short stays, $23 per night for a 50Amp level spot is OK. 

Once again the weather was mild, the humidity low, and almost no mosquitoes!

Thursday night we drove over to Chilton to meet fellow bloggers Karen and Steve at a local park band concert.
Karen is also known as Karen In The woods. 

Last year Karen bought this sweatshirt jacket online from a company that contributed a bit from each sale for food for rescue animals. I like it so much I bought one too. We agreed to both wear them so we could find each other. No prior mention was made about the blue shirts we wore underneath. "Sisters" in the love of RVing and fiber arts. Creative minds think alike.


Unlike the huge crowd at the Madison concert, there were only a few hundred people in attendance. Almost everyone seemed to know each other. If you mentally dressed the crowd in period garb, you could imagine the same gathering on a pleasant Thursday night in small town America, fifty or a hundred years ago.

One fun element was the drawing for door prizes provided by local business. Before the concert everyone put their name on a slip of paper and it was put into a hopper for the draw. The draw was free, but there was also a 50/50 raffle for which the tickets were $1 each. We bought 5.

After every few songs the band played names were drawn for door prizes. Craig won one. It was a $5.00 certificate redeemable at the local bank for cash. So we came out even!

Friday we went over to our friend's home and got to see their Safari, motorhome, and all the neat stuff they found to furnish the house they bought last year. 

Steve is not yet retired, and after they sold their larger home in Northern Wisconsin, they bought a smaller place near the park that will eventually be just their summer home. 

Karen is a weaver and sock maker. Her work is pretty and practical and can be found on her ETSY shop. 

Small town/rural America loves to have "feeds" and "frys" as fund raisers. 

We have seen many signs promoting this or that "festival" on our travels. This week was the Quinney Fishing Club Annual Perch Fish Fry. The club sure did a great job, and we enjoyed yet another Wisconsin tradition: community eating to raise money.

The dinner cost $12 each, with $1.00 beer and $1.00 deserts. It was hard to decide which of the homemade cakes to choose.

Steve works for the state of Wisconsin at High Cliff Park. On Saturday they were having a 50 year anniversary celebration, and Steve became Smokey the Bear. 

Karen was his "Friend" and helped him get his head together. 

We had some cake and ice cream and enjoyed watching the kids, big and small, hugging Smokey.

At the end of the afternoon a very hot bear was escorted back to the woods.

On Sunday Karen and Steve came down to our park for a BBQ. Most of the weekend campers left early in the day and we pretty much had the park to ourselves. We had a campfire and the camp host came by to say hello because we had the only fire going.

When it was time to say goodnight it felt like we were leaving family. Part of our RV family. There is something very special about meeting old friends that you have never seen in person. We are sure we will meet up with Karen and Steve again someday. They have promised to lead us on a boondocking adventure one day.

Who have you met lately?

It's the Little Adventures that Add Up

Tuesday was a day of small scale adventures.

Craig had spent most of the morning trying to get a few basic prescriptions called into a Walmart in Sheboygan. He had sent in an email request on Sunday evening, and we had expected them to be at the pharmacy by Tuesday. They were not. It seems his doctor is on vacation, and the doctor who is covering for him was "working his/her way through the messages". For what it's worth we have had delays every time we have requested renewals. I thought we had set things up with our doctors, but their offices do not seem to be able to comprehend the fact that we need things called into different pharmacies each time.

Neither of us has any serious health problems. I take a thyroid medication and something for arthritis  and Craig takes a blood pressure medication.  Nothing fancy, but necessary.

Anyway, by the time he worked things out, most of the day was gone, so we decided to just take a short walk along a trail marked in the open prairie grass area of the park. It was very interesting because there were informative signs for the many different flowers, shrubs, and grasses growing there. Birds too, but the sign about four kinds of birds was the only one covered with bird droppings! The signs gave information about what Native Americans had used the plants for. 

Once again I was taken back to childhood memories by the many native wildflowers. I fondly remember them all: goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace, cornflowers, milkweed and many more. 

Our second small adventure came in the evening.

Late in the afternoon there had been an unexpected knock on the door of the Alfa. It was the camp host. He had two messages for us. The first was a "Hello" from his wife, who although not a blogger herself, knew my blog and noted that we were at Harrington Beach. She is not here this week because she is still working in Florida, but likes to read the blogs because they want to full time too, when she retires.

The second message was that an amateur astronomy club member would be opening their observatory, which is in the park, and allowing visitors to look thru their large telescope that evening. The host was going around to all the campers to tell them about it.

So at about 8PM we walked over and joined a fairly large group of other campers at the observatory, to see what we could see.

It was not yet fully dark, but the moon was very bright and the club member had the telescope trained on it.

This picture is from the web, but it is just about as detailed as what we saw thru the telescope.

As the sky darkened the club member talked about telescopes and what you could see with them.  

When it got dark enough to start seeing some of the brightest stars he zeroed in on the planet Saturn. 

Again, this is an image from the web, but it is just about the same as what we were able to see.

I have never seen Saturn thru a telescope before this. It was amazing!

So, what started as a low key day, yielded a couple of good experiences.

RV life is good!