In between our May Michigan SOWER project and our Colorado SOWER project we took time off to spend some time with our Ohio family and friends as well as do a little sightseeing in Kentucky.
My sister, Cindy, and her husband, Steve, have a lake house about an hour from our Michigan project so we got to enjoy our weekends and our last week in Michigan with them. We played games, ate some delicious meals, watched the swans and geese on the lake as well as a nice pontoon boat cruise.
Michindoh was our Michigan project. I wrote about it in the last post called where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing. Our projects are monthly projects with a three week volunteer commitment. The fourth week, we can stay in our same RV spot to tour the area or just relax. For us, we spent the last week with my sister and brother-in-law.
From Michigan, we headed to Ohio. Because it was a holiday weekend, Memorial Day, we couldn’t stay in the state park closest to family and friends like we usually do so we spent a week at a KOA campground nearby before moving to Lake Loramie State Park in Shelby County Ohio https://www.stateparks.com/lake_loramie_state_park_in_ohio.html . The first week we were at Lake Loramie, we were able to have several reunions with friends and family.
Until he met me, Dave lived all his life in Ohio, so he had many friends he grew up with and now continue to be life long friends for him and for a good part of my life for me. We all seemed to get married around the same time, have kids around the same time; shared life together for many years. We were able to have a few meals togther while we were there; get updates on everyone and talk about old times.
Dave has four brothers and four sisters. We got to see them all! His brother Lee, and his wife, Dawn,took Dave and I, Dave’s brothers, Jim and Gary and their wives Betty and Chris, for an evening out on their pontoon boat touring Lake Loramie. Dave got to reminisce about all the spots he and his dad and brothers went fishing. Jim and Betty invited us to their house for a fish dinner and a game of cards, which is something we hadn’t done with them for a long time.
Gary and Chris and Dave and I went out to dinner at a restaurant called DoGood in Osgood, Ohio https://www.dogoodrm.com/. Be sure to check out their link. Besides being a very nice delicious restaurant, they have a very unique mission. Rumor has it there may even be a movie made about them. Their profits and all the tips each month go to a family in need. We saw them give a substantial amount of money to a family we know to help with all the bills during a terminal cancer battle.
All the brothers and sisters got together for the oldest sibling’s #th birthday party. It was fun visiting with Carol and all the family.
Dave’s sister, Susan, came in the farthest by driving in from Maryland. Next farthest was probably a tie between two more sisters and their spouses. Dan and Nancy came from southern Ohio and Linda and John came from the Lake Erie area. The rest of us, Scott (brother) and Tessa, Jim (brother) and Betty, Lee (brother) and Dawn, Gary (brother) and Chris, and Dave and I all drove about 50 miles. Carol’s daughter, Jenny, did a wonderful job putting this party together.
The following morning, Scott and Tessa hosted a brunch at their home with all the brothers and sisters bringing breakfast foods they remembered Mom making when they grew up at home. It was fun watching all the “remembering”.
When our son, Adam, was a baby, we bought our very first camper, similar to this, from Tim and Donna when Dave and Tim were working together.
This is the motorhome we have now.
An added benefit to our stay at Lake Loramie was that Tim and Donna decided to camp there too. Dave and Tim got to talk and laugh about times and people they worked with through their many years there. His brother, Jim also retired from there and was able to join in the conversation when he came over to the campground to visit. A couple more people he worked with came to visit as well.
Dave’s brother Lee and his wife Dawn both work at the factory in Jackson Center Ohio where Airstream campers are built. https://www.airstream.com/ Dawn told us about the new museum that was opening while we were there. Airstreams are not our RV of choice, but the museum was very interesting. It went back to the very first ones that were made, the inspiration, the history and all the changes. And, we were able to go on the first factory tour of the new part of the factory. If you’re ever in the Jackson Center, Ohio and the New Bremen, Ohio area the Airstream Museum Tour is one thing you should check out. Another is the Bicycle Museum in New Bremen
Ohio State Parks only allow you to stay for 14 days before you have to move out for at least one day before you can move back in. Lake Loramie stays pretty full, so our time was up and we needed to go. But, it wasn’t quite time for us to head to our next project in Colorado Springs. We try to travel only about 300 miles per day. So, we found General Butler State Park Resort in Northern Kentucky and bought the Bouncer Pass to visit The Ark and Creation Museum. https://parks.ky.gov/carrollton/parks/historic /general-butler-state-resort-park The Ark was about a 45 minute drive from this park. The Creation Museum is a little farther.
If you buy the Bouncer Pass and the parking pass you’ll have 3 days in a 7 day period to spend at either The Ark or the Creation Museum and the parking pass covers parking at both places. This is the best way to go because you can’t see either one of them in a day.
We chose to spend at day at The Ark first. The next day we went to the Creation Museum. The third day we went back to The Ark, but a little later in the day. The schedule in the large auditorium that day included a “Music Fest” which was really good. Had we not started our second day there a little later in the day we may not have stayed long enough to enjoy the Music Fest. If we lived local, we probably would buy a season pass since they have special things going on all the time. Since there’s so much at both of these locations and I can’t remember,nor write about everything we saw, I’ve inserted these links. https://arkencounter.com/ https://creationmuseum.org/
We left General Butler State Resort Park on Monday, June 20 so we could arrive in Colorado Springs on Friday, June 20. This trip entailed a one night stay at a campground in Illinois; one night at a campground in Missouri and one night at two different campgrounds in Kansas before our arrival in Colorado. Along Interstate 70 in Kansas, we saw lots of green and tan colored fields and farms and through about half the state we saw some trees. Contrary to popular belief Kansas is not totally flat. It’s kind of rolling, but you can see a long way. And it’s VERY windy.
Here’s a bit of a review of the campgrounds we stayed at along the way to the Colorado Springs SOWER project. You may this info helpful if you’ll be traveling this way. These campgrounds were chosen based on their descriptions and their proximity to the roads we needed to be on.
The General Butler State Park Resort in Kentucky is the one we chose so we could go to The Ark and the Creation Museum. It’s a very big park, with many campsites, some cabins and a lodge with a bar and restaurant. We didn’t see any pull through RV sites there and not all of the sites are full hook up sites. The cell phone service, wifi and TV antenna service is really bad. The pool had been drained because it had a leak. The camp host didn’t expect it to be repaired this year.
Our first stop after leaving there was at a KOA in Casey, Illinois. https://koa.com/campgrounds/casey/ I’m beginning to understand the differences in the three types of KOA campgrounds. There’s the Journey which is very basic. A Holiday KOA is just above basic and then there’s the Resort KOA which has more amenities. The Casey KOA was a Journey KOA and okay because we were only staying one night. We did have a full hook up pull-through site, but it’s a very old “tattered” R V Park. The pool was clean. The pool chairs were old, stained plastic chairs. The cable TV they said they had was so grainy it couldn’t be watched. They do have DVDs and books that can be borrowed. The game room was mostly non-existant. Nothing worked. The roads in the park are very narrow.
The next campground was at Finger Lakes State Park in Missouri https://mostateparks.com/park/finger-lakes-state-park. This was a very basic state park. We were sure we had requested a pull-through site since we didn’t want to unhook the car for just one night. They said there were none available. We also didn’t a full hook up site. It was a site with electric only. Good thing we have large holding tanks for fresh water and waste water.
After Finger Lakes State Park, we stayed at Milford Kansas State Park https://ksoutdoors.com/State-Parks/Locations/Milford We made and paid for our reservation online, but when we got there, they charged us an extra $5 for a parking pass. It was not for the car we were pulling, but for the motorhome. We were told it’s Kansas law that any vehicle in the park has to pay $5 for a parking pass, even if you use a vehicle to pull or drive your RV into the park. Kind of strange. We did have a pull-through site there with water and electric but no sewer. The pull-through site was so short, curved and to get out of it you have to practically make a right hand turn. So, again, we had to unhook the car, back the motorhome into the pull-through site next to us and pull into as straight as possible to get to the electric box. The advertised WIFI wasn’t working but we could get three TV antenna channels.
For our last stop before Colorado, we were headed to Goodland Kansas for a stay at another Journey KOA https://koa.com/campgrounds/goodland/ The trip started out interesting. Remember, we had to unhook the car in the Milford Kansas campground. When it was time to leave there, it was raining so hard. We waited about two hours before deciding to take off in the motorhome and I would follow in the car to hook up at a rest area down the road. I had to stop to get gas in the car, so I left a few minutes before Dave did with the motorhome. Problem was I went at least half an hour in the wrong direction. Dave had to wait at the rest area for over an hour for me to get there to hook up the car. That campgound did have a full hook up pull-through site. No problems there.
We arrived at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs around noon (mountain time) on Friday. The next post will be about our SOWER project here. https://gleneyrie.org/
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Until then…
Here and There With Dave and Robyn 