Lots of time ....

But not saying much. I usually minimize what I mention about family, especially specific family members as many people just plain don't like being out on the web, definitely not their names and pictures. This blog is viewed by very few and would probably be a safe place to mention people but it really doesn't hurt not to.

After leaving the Carlisle Army Barracks we headed for an RV Park in Gettysburg which is near one of my sister's home. We stayed there two nights and enjoyed an entire day with my sister and her husband.

From there we decided to take the turnpike west towards Ohio and some of Geoffrey's family. Ant at this point I really need to step aside and mention the roads! West Virginia had a few bad places and once we hit Pennsylvania the roads really got rough. The toll road was a bit better but in spite of the small fortune we spent on tolls, the roads were often rough.

Now I do realize that compared to the south, the roads up here in the more northern part of the country are subject to frost heaves and compared to the west, most of the roads are older but as we bump down the road, I don't care. The roads here are bad. And, to be honest, they did only got a little better in Ohio and went back to terrible when we got to Indiana.

Even when your RV is in perfect shape one can worry about what might shake loose. In our case, we had managed to pull our tailpipe loose and it was awfully close to the rear driver's side tire and getting lower it seemed all the time.The dashboard was also coming apart at the passenger end where it appears the screw holding it together had simply torn itself out. You can now imagine how we felt about the rough roads!

Okay, off the rant about road conditions, for now anyway! We got to Geoff's sister's on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio and stayed there for a couple of days. We especially like this stop because not only do we get to visit with family but we also can catch up on laundry, one of the fun chores on the road. While there we also got to see his brother and his family and got to go out to dinner with one of Geoffrey's school chums.

From here we head to southwestern Ohio and Geoff's nephew and his family including two children, a sweetheart of a girl and a baby too young to say much about yet. Geoff and his nephew spent the day at the National Museum of the US Air Force which Geoffrey had gone to on our visit to Ohio a couple of years ago but found it so big he needed to go back. They got back mid afternoon and we all went to his nephew's house to have take out Chinese and a great visit.

Seems like we just zipped through here but this blog actually covers about a week over the three family visits. Since we were already near Dayton, it did not take long to get to Indiana which seemed to have even worse roads! Thus on the 10th we pulled up, in the rain, at a Camping World just north of Richmond, Indiana, the main impetus being that the toilet had backed up the day before and even Indiana's rough roads didn't shake it loose. Being a Sunday none of the service types were around but we set up an appointment for first thing the next morning and decided that under the circumstances a hotel would be a good choice.

We stayed just one exit south of the Camping World at the Holiday Inn in one of their rooms for the handicapped. The bed was hard as a rock and the shower liked to run across the bathroom floor but the toilet was nice!

At the Camping World we laid out money to get Wolf's toilet running again ... we have gathered that this is one of the most common RV problems. We also checked with them about the roof leak, exhaust pipe and dashboard coming undone. The roof wasn't currently leaking and would have meant staying there for a few days, the exhaust pipe wasn't something they could fix and the dash would also have meant days, they said just watch it. This was the same advice the muffler shop they referred us to said about the exhaust pipe, keep an eye on it.

On our way north we stopped to fuel up and as usual, Wolf was thirsty. I like this shot through the side view mirror of Geoff half leaning on Wolf waiting on the fill.

The GPS took us to the wrong office for the state park we were headed to but it must happen frequently as there was a sign on the office door about it! We finally got to the Prophetstown State Park campground where we had reservations, and found our slot, a nice pull through with hookups and nicely spaced away from other campers.