Sunday, July 26, 2015

1615, Sun, 072615 Elkhart Illinois.

We left Des Moines area and finished traveling across Iowa. We crossed the mighty Mississippi, arriving in Illinois the roads were pretty rough and the speed limit went down to 55 at times. It is really hard to slow to that speed after traveling at 75 everywhere else but oh well. All the locals were whizzing past. Good thing Illinois is a narrow state.
We made it into Indiana and to Jim and Sue's place. We enjoyed a great greeting from Jim and Sue and a nice tour of their house and the park-like backyard. Everything is so green! Of course we stayed up late chatting but enjoyed every minute.
After a great night's sleep in the guest room ( on a real bed) and a leisurely morning we headed over to Jenny's for a gathering, the excuse, her dog's B'day. Trixie turned two, a great big loveable golden retriever. Trixie had a full size Mastiff over for the party as well as a house full of family and friends. Great gathering.

The travels didn't go without a few mishaps. We pulled into a gas stop to get fuel and found they only sold diesel. No problem, but usually only to trucks. They weren't set up for credit cards so Sue ran into the office to get the pump going. Finally she popped out with thumbs up. Again, set up for trucks, the nozzle was at least twice as big around as usual and flowed like a fire hose. It kept kicking off so I held the nozzle and tried to squirt it out at a snails pace. Finally it clicked off so I figured it was full only to find out once back on the road that it wasn't. Oh well, one more stop down the road to top it off. We were trying to fill up before getting to Indiana because our guide book said the price was higher. Don't believe everything you read. Prices were the same, less than $2.50 a gallon. What a bargain.
As for the equipment in the van, all is great. One of the screws in the shelf that came with the van popped out so I replaced it this morning. The battery got a bit low with cloud cover yesterday but we put it on the charger and brought it back up to the green. We are ready to head out once again....more later..