June 7, 2014 - Elkhart, Indiana

We left Van Buren, Ohio at around 11:00 AM today mainly because we only had a short distance to travel, and check-in times are typically around 1:00 PM. Since we were fairly close by Interstate, we decided to take the scenic tour cross country via state and county roads which took us a little over 3 hours. We saw some interesting things. Numerous houses had ponds that had the pond banks paved with river rocks about 4 feet wide completely surrounding the water. The really odd thing was the color of the water in these ponds, as every one of them was a teal color like the water down in the Florida Keys. Now the streams and rivers were all muddy brown color, so that is why these ponds stuck out as being odd. It was almost as if they were lined with something in the teal color like with swimming pools. Another odd thing is every town no matter how big or small (cross roads size) had a dollar store, and many of them were in the middle of no where. I called ahead for reservations but I didn't need to secure them with a deposit which was odd unto itself. When we arrived at Elkhart Campground, it is a lovely campground and well maintained. The sites are mostly full hook-up pull thru style. The office staff is very pleasant and polite as well. Our travel buddies purchased a new motorhome during the March FMCA Rally in Perry, GA. It had to be built and to make a long story short, it needed some major repairs which the dealer decided to send it back to the manufacturer to be fixed. So they drove out in their tow car to pick up their motorhome from the manufacturer direct here in Indiana. They are currently staying at the manufacturer's plant with three other motorhome owners who are in the same predicament. They will be coming to our RV for dinner tomorrow night after we take them sightseeing. They left their dogs at home so they aren't tethered to their motorhome like we are. Abby our whackadoo cavapoo needs to be walked occassionally. Tonight's dinner wasn't very exciting, hot dogs and French fries cooked on the grill. At the FMCA rally in Perry, GA I bought a silicon matt thingy for grilling on and it worked perfectly for cooking the fries. Tonight and tomorrow, heavy rains are predicted but fortunately for us the severe weather is going South. Just for curiousity sake, I plugged Mt. Juliet, TN into my phone into Weatherbug to see what the weather predictions were. I should have prefixed this with, back in January of 2013 while traveling with George and his Mom, we were awakened at 1:00 AM by a TORNADO WARNING! And we had to seek shelter at the local Wal-Mart. It was scary, exciting but not fun! Tonight Mt. Juliet is again under a tornado watch and severe thunderstorm special statements. I'm hoping no tornadoes touch down tonight or tomorrow.