Fall camping . . . or is it summer?

When we arrived here at Levi Jackson state Park last Friday, it still felt like fall, and there was plenty of evidence of fall . . .

between the leaves on the ground, and the Halloween decorations all around, and the cool, crisp temperatures!  We actually thought they might be having their “Halloween Weekend” last weekend, but it turned out that this was just the week leading up to the big celebration . . . when everybody starts coming in and getting sites decorated and haunted houses set up!

There sure are lots of decorations getting set up!

Tom wasted no time at all in meeting our neighbors,

Ben, Carmen, Sarah, and Sarah’s friend, Madison, and soon the kids were playing cornhole together,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Ben was introducing us to dutch oven cooking on the fire.  We sampled “Mountainman Breakfast” – a sausage, egg, hashbrown, cheese casserole, and “Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake”.  Both were really good, but I’m not sure I’ll be trading my convection microwave in for a cast iron dutch oven just yet!

Bryce and the girls (who are both also homeschooled, by the way) got along really well,

and they spent all day Saturday hanging out with Nick and a bunch of other kids in the campground – playing basketball, miniature golf, and looking for Sasquatch in the woods!!  (So tell Grandma she doesn’t need to worry about Bryce not finding kids to hang out with!)

There were even more teenagers around later, when a bunch of Carmen’s family joined them for the evening campfire.  After dinner and s’mores, the kids all took off to explore the cemetery trail after dark, while the adults enjoyed the toasty fire! 

They never found the cemetery, or Sasquatch, but they did find the 2 who got lost (not mine – don’t worry, Grandma!!), and the resident “lion-dog”!!

It turned out that his name was “Duke” and he lives in a house not far from the campground and likes to make daily rounds.  He sure looked ominous, but he was really a gentle dog who liked everybody.

He really did look like a ion, and that’s apparently his normal haircut – not a Halloween costume!

The weekend went really quick, and on Sunday our new friends left for home.

We went to church in London, and then did a little shopping before coming back to the campground.  Tom finally found a store that had the little Craftsman compressor that he’s been looking for, and he picked up a small shop vac, too.

This one works a lot better on Nick’s carpet than our little Dirt Devil hand vac did, and since the central vac hose doesn’t reach the garage, he needed something!

While I worked on the boys’ schedules for this week, Tom and Nick cleaned out and reorganized the storage compartment (and sold Tom’s old big compressor on the side of the road!), and Bryce found a new friend to hang out with.  Luke is 13, home-schooled also, and likes basketball as much as Bryce does.  He’s got an older sister and brother, as well as several younger brothers, so Nick has had somebody to hang out with, as well.  In fact, after we had our dinner of pizza pies on the fire last night, they all went down to the basketball court quite a while.

Today we’re not doing too much . . . school and work took awhile, so we decided to wait until tomorrow to go visit Cumberland Falls.  Tom & Nick are taking care of some errands – post office, diesel for the truck, filling a propane tank, and getting me quarters for the laundry – and Bryce is down at the basketball court.  The weather has taken a turn for the wonderful . . . plenty of sunshine and temps in the upper 70s . . . and it’s supposed to stay like this for several more days!  We can definitely live like this!!

Rising Sun and the Markland Dam

Wednesday was a beautiful day in southern Indiana, with temps in the 70s and lots of sunshine!  Once everybody was finished with work and school, we decided to take a drive and see what we could find.

Casey had a swim in the river earlier, so Nick decided to give her a good brushing before we left.

The campground is on the Ohio River, in the little town of Rising Sun, IN.  They have some cute restaurants and shops, and a nice riverside park with a very interesting fountain.

The riverbank is built like an amphitheater, overlooking the water . . . our guess is that they must have ski shows in the summer. 

Apparently, this was the site of a famous ski show in the 50s – Hoosier Boy.

We admired the view from the river for awhile, and then headed back to the car to continue south.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We heard there was a dam south of here a little ways, so we wanted to go check it out.

Markland Dam provides a place to cross the Ohio River between Indiana and Kentucky.

We crossed over to the Kentucky side to view the locks from the observation tower.   The dam and locks are administered by the Army Corps of Engineers, and it felt like we were entering a prison when we walked to the observation tower!

The locks provide a place for barges carrying coal to get past the dam.  We just happened to arrive as a coal-filled barge was entering the larger lock.

We watched from the viewing platform as the barge was pushed into place in the lock.  (This isn’t on the same scale as the Soo Locks, but still interesting!)

Finally the barge was all the way in, and it was time for the big hydraulic wheels to close the doors behind it!

This barge was travelling from the higher side of the lock to the lower side, so we started out being able to see the entire barge.

As the water was pumped out of the lock into the river, the barge gradually dropped until we could no longer see it.

The boys patiently waited for the barge to exit the lock at the other end.

Finally, it was all the way through, and continuing down the river!

Back at the campground, we started a fire and had brats and hot dogs (and marshmallows!) for dinner.  It was a beautiful evening!

Shipshewana, and the RV is a home now . . .

From Nappanee, we followed the buggies east to Shipshewana . . .

and settled in at the Shipshewana South Campground.  We were here for several reasons . . . 1) to stock up at some of our favorite shops,

It’s not just tourists who like to stock up at E & S Bulk Foods!

2) to pick up some recliners from Lambright Comfort Chairs, and 3) for Marci to go on a 2-day bus trip with her Mom and sisters (see the Quilting Dreams blog for that recap!).

Our first stop on Thursday was Lambright Comfort Chairs, where we found that their business has picked up considerably since we were last there!  They had always in the past said that it took just 3 days to get a pair of chairs, but now it’s more like 6 weeks!  We weren’t planning on staying in Shipshewana for 6 weeks, so we needed to figure something else out!  We decided that Tom wanted a wall-hugger recliner, but I wanted a rocker-recliner.  They had 2 rocker-recliners on the floor, but neither of them in fabric that we wanted.  There was a wall-hugger recliner in a nice neutral leather, but only one!  After much deliberation and discussion, it was determined that they could build a rocker-recliner to match the beige leather floor model recliner, and have it ready for us by Tuesday morning.  Yeah!!  We left a deposit, and left to continue our shopping . . .

While I was on my bus trip the next day, Tom continued to look at chairs at several other furniture stores in Shipshewana . . . and even found a pair of matching Lambright chairs – in a very similar leather color, but neither of them were rockers, either!  We went back to Lambright to see if they might be able to retrofit one of those with the rocker mechanism, and when we walked in there were 2 new matching leather chairs on the floor!!  These 2 were in a color that we liked slightly better than what we had originally selected, and we could get one of each – a rocker and a recliner!

So, this is what we finally have in our living room!

They are very comfortable, and look really nice, too!  It really makes our camper look like a home now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicolas’ room is looking pretty good now, too . . . we re-arranged some things to give them more room when watching TV or playing Xbox.

Our last 2 days in Shipshewana were spent doing laundry and some sewing (all that Quilt Shop Hopping made me anxious to sew!), as well as work and school.

Our last task was to pick up the recliners this morning, and then we packed up and moved south!  We took State Rt. 5 south to Ligonier, where we picked up US-33 to Ft. Wayne.  In Ft. Wayne, we got on the interstate (I-69), and stayed on that to Muncie, and then it was back to state roads south to Little Farm on the River RV Park in Rising Sun, IN . . . just over the Ohio River from Cincinnati, OH/Coventry, KY.

We arrived here by dinnertime, and the warm temperatures were great for grilling and a campfire!

After the fire died down and the chilly air moved in, we headed inside to watch the Presidential Debate.  Tom wasted no time at all before getting comfortable in his new recliner!

Yep, I think he’s going to like his new chair!!

We’ll be here until Friday, and then we’ll have to move on because the campground is completely booked for their Halloween Weekend festivities!  We’re not sure where we’ll go next, but we’ll  keep moving south!