Another day of exploring and some RV maintenance

After our busy day at Put-in-Bay, we took it a little easy on Wednesday.  We took a drive to the nearby communities of Marblehead and Lakeside. 

Somebody had told Tom that we should check out the little vacation community of Lakeside.  One square mile in size, sitting right on the shore of Lake Erie, Lakeside is a Chautauqua – a private community founded by the Methodist Church in 1973.  Visitors aren’t really allowed, but we were given a 30-minute pass to drive in and look around.  Tom asked if any of the homes were for sale, and the gate guard’s response was “Do you have a million dollars?”  We drove around for about 20 minutes, and really didn’t see anything that inspire us to drop a million bucks.  The cottages are tiny and close together, and the roads are super narrow!

None of us had ever heard of a Chautauqua, and it felt a little cult-like to us, so we cut our visit short and continued on to Marblehead.

Our first stop was the Rocky Point Winery.

We were in luck – it was “Wine Wednesday” and bottles were $3.00 off!

They have a beautiful patio and outdoor seating area, so after tasting several of their wines, we bought a bottle of Concord and a cheese & meat tray, and enjoyed them out on the lawn.

From the winery, we stopped the Marblehead Lighthouse to take a look around.    

It was a beautiful day, and the water was so calm.

Our next stop was the Fireland’s Winery (have you noticed a theme!?!), where they had live music during happy hour.

We enjoyed the music of Justo Saborit,

while we sampled flatbread pizzas and pulled pork sliders, along with a couple more bottles of wine! 

It was a lovely early dinner, but we needed a couple hours of naptime to recover from all the wine!

Since it was Darren & Tyler’s last evening with us, there was one more Sandusky institution we needed to introduce them to . . . Toft’s Dairy!

Nobody can turn down ice cream!

It was so much fun having friends stop by for a few days, and we were happy we could show them some of the highlights of this area of Ohio.  Thanks guys!  See you in Florida!

A few days later, Tom was wishing they were still around . . .

We had a little bit of a storm one evening, and there were lots of branches and even sections of trees down around the campground

Luckily no campers (or tents!) were damaged by the flying branches!

Tom got on our roof the next day to make sure there were no branches up there, and discovered that one of the slide toppers had started to separate from the side of the RV, because the seam had opened up.  He wished Darren was there to help him tackle that repair!

He did some research on taking the slide toppers off and putting them back on, and we bought some heavy-duty outdoor upholstery thread at Joann Fabrics.  Armed with knowledge and supplies, the next morning before Bryce had to go to work, he and Tom were able to remove the slide topper.

Tom thought we’d be able to stitch it back up and put it right back up before Bryce had to leave, but that wasn’t going to happen . . . it was REALLY dirty!

Bryce left for work, and we got busy with the scrubbing bubbles.

It took a while, but it looked a lot better when he was done!

After it dried, I re-sewed the seam that had come loose, as well as both side seams that were beginning to come out, too.  That was the easy part!

Bryce wasn’t going to be home until late, so we attempted to re-install the topper ourselves.

It went on pretty easily, and once Tom got up on the roof, he was able to pull it the rest of the way on and get it lined up properly.

Last step – rolling the excess material back on the roller.

After it was re-installed, we put the slide in and back out a couple of times to make sure the fabric rolled in and out without gapping or binding . . . All good!

It probably would have been easier with a 2nd person who could get up high on the ladder (or who was tall enough not to have to get up really high on the ladder!), but we managed to get it done. 

Now I have a feeling Tom is going to want to take the other three down and clean them and reinforce the hems . . . hopefully those can wait until we have some helpers around!