After leaving Lafayatte we moved a few hundred miles south to Clarksville Indiana. Clarksville is about 20 minutes from Louisville, KY. And...you can't visit Louisville without touring the Louisville Slugger Museum & factory. Weather predictions for that day were up to 70 mph winds, so we pulled in the slides of the coach, packed up some important things & papers, (jewelry, laptop, passports etc) and headed out. We figured we would be safer in the middle of a huge factory than in the coach. If your at all a baseball fan or played using a Louisville Slugger as a kid you would thoroughly enjoy this attraction.


Front of Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory


Ron swinging Mickey Mantles bat B220 that he used between 1961-1964. Bat is made from northern white ash, is 35 inches long and weighs 32 ounces.


Stan Musials signature die. One of thousands of dies on display. These where used to imprint the players name on their custom made bats.

In the afternoon we stopped by the Schimpffs Confectionery in Jeffersonville, IN. The Schimpff family has been making candy at this location since 1891. It is currently owned and operated by a decedent of the original founders. They have candy-making demonstrations and the day we were there, they were making 3 ft candy canes to be used to decorate one of the local mansions for the holiday.

Another reason we wanted to stay in this area, was to visit Churchill Downs. So on Thursday, we visited the museum and took a tour. Even if your not a follower it is impressive to see. Of course, after visiting here, we had to go see "Secretariat".


Entrance to Churchill Downs.


I took a lump of dirt from the track for a souvenir...not sure what I am going to do with it.


Us posing in the garden with a few sculptures of horses and jockeys.


At the museum you could don jockey silks, hats, goggles etc and get up on a horse in a chute to see how a jockey feels. I'm sure this is meant for the kids...oh well.

Had a nice, short visit here.

Hope all is well!

P.S. As usual the meteorologists were a little off and the winds were maybe 25 MPH.

BECOME A FOLLOWER OR LEAVE A COMMENT ON OUR BLOG

I have had several requests to post instructions on how to leave a comment and become a follower of our blog. Well...thanks to my sister-in law Terri, I now have the information to pass on to you.

To leave a comment: At the end of each of our posts, next to the time of the post is the word "comment". Click on this and a new box opens for you to type in your comments. Below your message it asks for you to select a profile. If you have one of the accounts listed click on it. If you don't have one of those accounts just click on anonymous. HOWEVER, if you sign in as anonymous you have to sign your message, otherwise we will not know who it came from.

The envelope next to the word "comment" is to send us an email instead of leaving a comment. Everyone can see your comment but not your email

To become a follower: On the right margin there is a white box that says "follow". Click on this box. If you have a google, twitter or yahoo account, click on the account and it will ask you to sign in. Follow instructions. If you don't have one of those accounts, you will have to create a new google account. Click on the link to create a new account and it will ask you some questions. It is free.


Hope we get a lot of comments and new followers!

Joan & Ron

Odds and Ends

Prophetstown State Park has a Halloween contest in progress. They have several scarecrows that line a section of the road as you drive through the park. Our favorites are the witch and the realtor...of course.


Trail of Scarecrows


Witch titled "Office Manager". I guess they don't think much of
their manager around here?


Rhonda the realtor.


Bob and Terri took us on a short jaunt around Purdue University. We ate lunch at the historic Triple XXX featured on Food Networks "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" with Guy Fieri. It is the first and oldest drive-in restaurant in Indiana, opening in 1929. An Indiana icon featuring 100 percent unfrozen sirloin, ground on site hamburgers and root beer. Their specialty is The Duane Purvis All-American - A quarter pound hamburger with all the trimmings including thick creamy peanut butter.

No we didn't try it....not sure of peanut butter on a hamburger-but apparently lots of people like it.

We were able to spend an evening with our nephew Steve at our coach. It was the first time we were able to visit with just Steve and catch up on whats going on in his life. We had a great time.

We also had dinner at our nephew Andy and Victoria's house in Indianapolis. They bought a house in one of the historic districts in need of updating and did a fantastic job of refinishing wood floors, molding, doors etc as well as totally renovating the kitchen and master bedroom/bath. We were thrilled to be invited to see their home.

On our way to do some site seeing.

Hope all is well.

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Well...we are back on the road again after our visit to St. Louis. We enjoyed our visits with family and friends...we got in all of our medical visits and tests and even did some tourist type site seeing like the Zoo, Arch Museum etc. We were even able to complete a geocache in Babler State Park that we attempted twice before we left on our adventure.


Our travels, after leaving St. Louis, took us to a small town in Illinois for a layover. Our Lafaytte site was booked for the weekend so we had to make an extra stop. Casey IL has barely 3000 residents. Attended Mass, had dinner at a fish fry at the local VFW and visited their infamous covered bridge.

We arrived in Lafayatte Indiana after 4pm on Sunday October 17th. Later than usual. We like getting in around 2-3PM, so we can be set up and relax before dinner.

We use several resources to get directions and all of them were different. Poor Ron...I had him driving in circles, on very, very narrow roads, sharp turns and one-way bridges. He did a great job!! That's why I will drive on the interstates, state & county roads, in/out of truck stops & rest areas, but leave the entering and exiting of campgrounds to Ron. I'm doing everything I can to turn his hair gray to match mine..but it's not working.

We are in Lafayette Indiana to visit Ron's brother Bob, sister-in-law Terri and his nephew & his wife- Andy & Victoria and nephew Steve and to meet Karen, his girlfriend.

We are staying at Prophetstown State Park. A beautiful site with full hook-ups (and after 16 days with no sewer or water..we were ready) The park was established in 2004 has over 2000 acres of natural preservation of the countless Native American villages and prairie grass. It is located where the Tippecanoe & Wabash rivers meet and was the first site where white frontiersmen began exploring this region. According to history the first frontiersmen were greeted by "a vast sea of tall grass stretching as far as your eyes could see". And that natural beauty still prevails to this day. A beautiful site for a park and campground.



Coach at Prophetstown State Park



Nice site with gravel pads, picnic table, firepit and bbq grill. Bordered by trees and bushes to add some privacy



Over 2000 acres of prairie grass.


Great, asphalted biking and hiking trails wind in and out of massive fields of prairie grass



We have a new rider with us-Yadi. While in St. Louis we visited Build-A-Bear at the Zoo and just had to get a little Yadier Molina stuffed bear to take with us on our travels. He rides on the bed and reminds us of home.




It's very chilly here...dropping into the low to mid 30's at night. Even have to bring our water hose in at night....looking forward to 80's in sunny Florida.

Hope all is well.

Finally back home!

After a brief stop in Central City, Colorado – the town with 6 casinos for every 20 residents, we made a few other short stops then arrived in Missouri. We spent a week in Platte City just outside of Kansas City. We know we are back in the Midwest when you get a free sauna every time you step outside. But it’s good to see trees & grass again.

Kansas is a pretty boring drive but we were glad to see flat lands again. We figured out how to reduce our normal 10 mph gas consumption to 4.5 mph – with the steep grade mountain driving in Colorado.

We played tourist in Kansas City, MO….visiting the Harley Davidson plant (Rons’ choice), Hallmark Center, Crown Center, Country Club Plaza, Union Station, Jazz Museum, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Federal Reserve Money Museum and the World War I Museum.

We also spent one day in Independence visiting Harry S. Truman home and library/museum, and another day in St. Joseph touring the Pony Express Museum. We’re museum’ed out!!

We are now in St. Louis and glad to be back to visit family & friends!

Hope all is well

Rifle Gap State Park

Well...we are working our way back to St. Louis. Looking forward to seeing family and friends....it seems like we have been gone longer than 10 months. After leaving Montrose, our first stop was about 160 miles where we
stayed 3 nights at Rifle Gap State Park in Rifle, Colorado. This was only our 2nd time staying at a park rather than a commercial campground. The park surrounds a 350 acre reservoir and spectacular mountain vistas. Somewhat isolated, we were without cell coverage, satellite, cable or Internet. We were able to find a Redbox for a few movies. The area is beautiful so we spent our time touring the many state and city parks in the area. Also were able to get in 9 holes of golf at the Rifle Creek Golf Course. This is the first time we have played since Ron's knee started bothering him. It was fun to get out again.


Our view from one side of the coach....so quiet and peaceful.


View from the other side of the coach.


Beautiful sunsets. Without all of the distractions of TV, internet etc we found we actually enjoyed the natural beauty around us even more.



I know St. Louis has some awesome sunsets too...but never had or took the time to enjoy them.






Hope all is well!

Joan & Ron

We really enjoyed our long stay in Montrose Colorado. We spent a day at the Blue Mesa Reservoir with our nephew and his family and also enjoyed the 4th together with a parade, BBQ and fireworks. One of our best days was a full day with just Lucy and Daniel. We ate breakfast at McDonalds (Daniels choice) and Denny's (Lucy's choice)...yes...we drove through McDonalds and took Daniels happy meal into Denny's. I'm sure that wasn't the first time they have seen that happen. We swam at the RV park pool, BBQ'd hotdogs for lunch, watched 2 movies & swam again. They are really fun to be with.

Telluride,Ouray, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Ute Museum, Box Canyon, Daniels birthday party, dinners at Joe & Shani's, dinners out, geocaching, watching Daniels' baseball practices and 3 games, wineries & visitng kept us pretty busy!!


Tram between Telluride & Mountain Village.



View from tram. Up there pretty high...
Ron's acrophobia didn't like this too much!


Blue Mesa Reservoir


Box Canyon. The walk takes you into the canyon..the rushing water is deafening.



Daniel enjoying his 7th birthday party.


Lucy at the pool.


Daniel playing 3rd base...waiting to make the big out.
Cool hat...wears the bill always facing the sun.


Lucy noodling in the sun.


Ron with his geocache find