Birthday, Storm, Mistake, & Ford Museum (IN & MI)

At 4:00 p.m. Kevin was ready to go to Four Winds Field to watch minor league South Bend Cubs play baseball. This was Kevin’s birthday present from me. I suggested we wait a bit and he said, okay, 5:00 p.m. Game starts at 7:05 p.m. The field is less than 3 miles from the Airbnb we were at for 2 weeks. We got there and were able to get front and closest parking lot. We walked over to get our tickets. The lady said their internet was slow and tried several times to run our card. Finally she said she is going to give us the tickets for free. That was so nice.

Happy birthday, Kevin! The gates didn’t open until 6:00 p.m. so we just walked around some of the block. Our seats were really nice- right along the dugout on the 3rd base side. The game was really fun to watch. We miss replay on TV, though. HA They lost to a team from around Cincinnati, OH, 7-2. The weather was absolutely perfect. We were in the shade the whole game. I had long sleeves as it was around 73° that evening. Kevin said it was a great birthday present.

When we dropped HOWE (footnote 1) off at Alliance (see last post if you missed it) we were told that pick up time was 6:20 a.m. on 06/20. Kevin emailed them yesterday and found out it would be ready “honestly, around noon.” We texted the owner of the Airbnb and let her know we had left and got to Alliance, in Elkhart, at 11:30 a.m. I stayed in the truck so Kevin didn’t have to deal with interpreting for me since I am deaf. Soon Kevin came out…was he smiling? YES! It turns out Alliance did so many things. Besides fixing the problem and crack on the outside wall, they did some pre-broken stuff. Some of the RVs are having welds come apart or something, anyway, they fixed it before it broke. They also checked a concern Kevin had about something underneath with the axles (I think) – thankfully it is just fine. Big “whew”! We are so impressed. 

I “might” have given HOWE a big hug by the open door when I first saw it. 😇 We drove a few miles away to Elkhart Campground. As we pulled up to the site we noticed a power cord going from the trailer in the next site to ours. I got out and looked and thankfully the people were there. They talked with Kevin and said something about their solar not working and a fuse blowing, I didn’t understand it all. But they were nice and unplugged from our pedestal. I did the regular cleaning that I do after we move HOWE. It wasn’t as dirty as I thought it would be from the work Alliance did. The fridge was nice and cold so we went to the grocery store. Had to restock the fridge completely. 

We slept amazing! I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be “home.” Our home is HOWE and we… can’t think of any words to describe. It was like “coming home.” We started off this day by heading to Costco, which is north of South Bend about 1/2 hour away…by way of Dunkin Donuts. 🙂 When we got back, I cooked up hamburger and divided it up with the Food Saver for the freezer. I also used it for the chicken, rotisserie chicken, raw hamburger, and pork chops. It took hours but it is so worth it. I was happy to have the freezer and fridge fully stocked up again.

OH, I made a big mistake! This is the first mistake of its kind since all our travels!!! When I had had to change our reservation dates at our next campground in Michigan, due to the unexpected time that HOWE needed to be in the shop, I changed our dates from 3 weeks to 2 weeks – with specific dates, I had us going there to Michigan today. I even had it correct on our calendar. But not knowing for sure HOWE would be done and just all the logistics, I missed that we were supposed to leave today. How did I know this? With no email received, although they said they sent it, the campground actually called Kevin when we were at dinner. Glad they did.  She was good about it and would write down we were coming tomorrow. Oops!!!

Travel Day to St Clair, Michigan. A lot of the roads were country roads and we sure enjoyed it. Lots of evergreen and bushy trees. Every once in a while we would see a farm. We learned from Autio (footnote 2) that Michigan was much easier to farm than the New England states. The day is in the extreme heat and humidity and boy is it uncomfortable! Even Apple Maps offered other routes that “avoid extreme heat.” You know it is bad when that happens! At the check in, I apologized for my mistake of us not being here yesterday. He said it happens all the time and I said, “In four years of full-time traveling, this is the first time I made this mistake.” He was nonchalant and said it wasn’t a problem.

The people in the site behind us said they were very impressed with my backing Kevin into our site and making it in one try. HA So sweet. Later we got a knock at the door. It was the lady behind us. She said they were grilled chicken and corn on the cob and would we like the join them. That was so very kind! We said we had already eaten. She said if we wanted, to go over in about 1/2 hour. I didn’t want to go (had ear nerve pain and headache) but Kevin went. He said it was fun visiting and watching them play corn hole. Cute.

One day around 4:00 p.m. we started getting some storm clouds. We ended up getting 1.1 inches of rain in a short time. And then, the lightning started. Whoa-e. Crazy thunderstorm with lots of thunder that I could feel. And then the power went off for about 10 minutes. Next we heard/felt the “pop!” That was lightning hitting so close that the flash and sound was at the same time. I had heard that “pop” years ago (when I was a youngster) when lightning took out our well pump right behind the house. It made us jump because of loud for him and feeling for me. We both looked around for a tree fallen or on fire. We didn’t see anything like that. About 5:30 p.m. Kevin heard chain saws working. Turns out the lightning did hit a tree and threw it to pieces everywhere. We saw the tree that was split apart from the lightning – large pieces of tree fanning out from the base. A powerful explosion. It is along the entryway of this campground and Kevin says it is about 50 yards from HOWE. 

Dearborn, Michigan, is about an 1 hour drive. We soon found we were in Ford area with lots of buildings for R&D, safety, etc. We went to Henry Ford Museum. This place has 3 different parts: the museum $36.00 per person, Greenfield Village $39.00, and Ford Rouge Factory Tour $24.00. “Rouge” made us wonder about a rouge factory but I saw as we went there that the river next to it is called Rouge River. No factory tours are happening this week because workers are off this week for 4th of July. Greenfield Village we chose not to do. The museum, however, was really fantastic and we were there 7 hours! The museum is 12 acres of indoor museum stuff! We saw the actual car that President Reagan was at/in when he got shot. Also, the actual car that President Kennedy was in when he was shot. This car was rebuilt to better protect future presidents. Then we saw a long line of vehicles with great information spanning time. Ford’s first car, actual one there, was made with a “gasoline-burning-internal-combustion engine” whatever that means. HA It was 1896 Ford Quadricycle. Learned about the problems and benefits of steam, gas, and electric engines. 

The funniest display was a letter, in 1934, to Henry Ford from bank robber Clyde Barrow “(or someone claiming to be Barrow).” It says, ‘Dear Sir- While I still have got breath in my lungs, I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it does’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8- Yours truly,  Clyde Champion Barrow.” HAHA This is the “Bonnie and Clyde” bank robber guy. Read this whole article regarding if the letter is truly from Clyde or not. 🙂 

Horace and John Dodge owned a major machine shop in Detroit. Ford contracted with them to manufacture the engine, transmission and chassis for the Model A. Wheels, body, and trim were added by Ford Motor Company. In 1914, the Dodges starting making their own car. We saw train cars. There are huge, actual steam, coal, or gas machines that would make electricity to run the factories. 

One of the many displays was one of the machines that the Ford plant used. They ended up making 9 of these. We saw how Ford used the assembly line to put vehicles together faster and cheaper. The part moved, not the people. Huge display of farm equipment and even a round bubble house. Very enjoyable. 

*The blog posts are taken from my daily travel journal. Would you believe – it takes me a 1/2 day every week to whittle down a week’s worth of journal so it won’t be too long for the post each week. HAHA Thank you for reading!

1. “HOWE” is what we named our Alliance Avenue 36-ft 5th wheel. See: Home On WhEels and we pronounce it Howie. We live and travel in it full-time around the country.

2. Autio is an iPhone app that tells all sorts of history and stories about places all over the country. It is narrated and with my iPhone on accessibility, it shows captions of the words being said. So thankful!