21 May ‘09

Thursday

Grand Rapids, Michigan was the home of a young war hero from WWII.  Following his discharge from the Navy in 1946 he went back to Grand Rapids and the Ford Paint and Preservative Company.  Soon he found himself running for the office in the US House of Representatives.  Prior to running for office, he met and married a local girl Elizabeth (Betty) Bloomer Warren (her second marriage).  Born as Leslie Lynch King, Jr., Representative Gerald Ford was quickly making a name for himself in politics.   His name was so well known in the ranks of the Republican Party, that when Spiro Agnew was forced to resign his office as Vice President under the Presidency of Nixon, Ford was brought forward.  Then, President Nixon was soon to find himself caught up in a mess with Watergate and he was forced to resign…  Welcome Gerald Ford…the 38^th President of the United States of America.

  After 29 months as President, he had to retire to “Past President” after losing his re-election bid to Jimmy Carter. 

We drove into Grand Rapids this morning with full intentions of spending as much time as it took to take in the scope of “The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum”.  The physical look of the structure was just as I would expect, but it was the interior that really made it a “Presidential” library and museum. 

 We were also lucky enough to be here at the same time as the roving display of the “White House”. 

The White House in miniature was built to scale by John and Jan Zweifel and their 6 children.  The scale is one inch to one foot and features postage sized televisions which actually receive local television broadcasts, hand carved chairs and tables (of the same wood that the originals are made from), “lighted” chandeliers, and much more…  Even the carpet is hand made with 900 stitches per square inch which took over 4 years to complete.  As you walk around the model you can look into the many windows to see just what the White House and the adjoining buildings looked like during the times of the Presidencies from Truman through Clinton.  This was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be…I guess you’re never too old for surprises… 

Out of the 3 plus hours that we spent at the library/museum, most of it was spent touring through the many display rooms depicting the personal life of Gerald Ford from young child to the Presidency of the United States of America.  A day well spent…

20 May ‘09

Wednesday

Today was one heck of a busy day !!!

It started off with a visit to “The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park”…Over 135 acres of indoor and outdoor gardens throughout the wetlands, woodlands, and meadows that form all of the spectacular gardens designed by many world renowned landscape artists.  On top of the beautiful gardens, there is a 35 acre Sculpture Park that displays sculpture art from the size of a 2x2 foot piece to a horse that stands over 30 feet. 

We started out in the tropical garden “Glass House”.  Funny thing is, it was about 80 degrees outside and as we entered into the Glass House it even got hotter with a ton of humidity present.  The tropical plants and trees are always spectacular and these didn’t disappoint us one bit.  It wasn’t just the plants and trees, it was the total package with the waterfalls and rock/sand formations that put it all together. 

The first outside area we entered was the “Children’s Garden”.  It was like a visit to a Disney garden that included boardwalks over water, building structures that looked out over the swamp areas, the “Great Lakes” display were you could sail your sailboats from one of the Great Lakes to the other, and of course, enjoy the sculptures that kids of all ages could enjoy. 

The Gardens also offer a tram that would take us on a tour of the total grounds and give us a good description of the sculptures beautifully displayed

 in and around the landscape. The large collection of sculptures for the public to see in this kind of setting is amazing, and it seemed that each sculpture was placed for its best viewing. 

These pieces of art are from the nineteenth century to the present, with more than 180 permanent masterworks by artists like Rodin, Calder, Degas, Picasso, and more…

19 May ‘09

Tuesday

This morning as we were driving into Grand Rapids, we drove by a location that we had only seen in pictures many years ago…  In 1981, Louise and I started a small business that was supplied products from this location…Ada, Michigan.  We were Amway distributors and this was “The” Amway we’d only seen from afar.  “What the heck, they give tours and we’re tourists…let’s go.”  The first thing we found out was that tomorrow morning Amway was receiving the largest and finest of distributors from around the world, to help celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Amway.  We were then given a tour through “The Hall of Fame” showing the major distributors throughout the world and a brief history of the founders of Amway and its products.  Rich DeVos and Jay VanAndel together had a dream and in every way fulfilled it beyond their beliefs.  Today, Amway is run on a daily basis by their sons, and they seem to be carrying on the “dream” of Amway.  Another part of our tour took us out into the “manufacturing” areas to see just how and what was being made at that time in the day. 

I was surprised to learn that Amway also makes over 95 percent of the containers that carry their products.  One of the containers is made up of hundreds of 3 different beads that come together in a high vacuum and then melt down into a liquid plastic.  This plastic is then poured into a mold.  A little high pressure air applied into the center of the mold and then forms the container…in a few seconds you see anywhere from 50 to 100 moving out and ready to receive the liquid products that will soon be distributed to more than 80 countries around the world.  After our tour we were given a special 50^th Anniversary gift bag.  In the bag we found some samples of Amway products that we can definitely use…you know things like lip balm, LOC quick-wipes, and an energy bar.

18 May ‘09

Monday

After checking out of Hartford we took the back roads to Grand Rapids, MI.  Just as we were coming into the city limits of Grand Rapids, we noticed a Camping World just prior to our exit.  The last time we were at Camping World they mentioned to us that our “membership” was just about ready to run out, AND, they had a promotion that we would love…with a three year membership at a special price, they would throw in a $10 dollar gift certificate.  Well this would give us a chance to get the gift certificate out of my wallet.  Much to my surprise, when we pulled up to the entrance to Camping World we found a Cummins Service Center right across the street.  While we were “dry camping” on the lot that installed our ladder, I noticed a “spot of oil” on the ground under the generator.  We had the service done on the generator in Atlanta and this was the first time that we had run it so I hadn’t noticed the oil before.  Sooo, now that we’ve got another Cummins Service Center right in front of us, maybe they can find the leak.  I feel we’ve got a leak around the filter but it also could be the plug…who knows, let’s just get it fixed.  Isn’t it just the nuts…when you need to have a little work done it’s always needed on a Friday or just prior to a holiday.  They told us that “we’d like to get you in, but right now it is impossible until after Memorial Day”.  Well we’re not planning on using the generator anytime soon and we’re pretty sure we can find another Cummins SC before then, so we continued to our new campground.  We decided to stay at the fairgrounds in Lowell, Michigan, which is about 20 miles east of Grand Rapids.  We found this location on the web and thought it would fit our needs perfectly.  When we pulled in, we found the grounds to be very nice, and the price of $20 for 50amp electrical and water, we thought a bargain.  What surprises us is the fact that we're the only people here...our gain , their loss...

We decided to take a quick walk through town (Lowell) just to see what they had and to see if we could find something to eat.  Lowell is like a lot of the other small towns of the area and have some beautiful old buildings throughout the mainstreets.  The architecture is early 1800 Italian and runs beside the Flat River that really makes it a wonderful stop for us.  We not only enjoyed our walk, we found a great place to have lunch.  Sitting at an outdoor patio and beside the Flat River we enjoyed a 4 star lunch.  Permanetly tied to the boardwalk was a "river-boat" that was open to explore...all a beautiful setting. 

16 May ‘09

Saturday

From Elkhart we drove into Michigan taking a route around South Bend and then up I-31 to I-94 to Hartford, Michigan and our new campground about 4 miles south of town.  American Campgrounds Inc.

is associated with Western Horizons our home membership group so that is how we got here.  It is located so far from the railroad lines and the highways that we find it “almost” too quiet.  We’re right in the middle of the Michigan farm lands but the campsite is comfortably set in the middle of some great young shade trees…we like it here a lot, although it is a little far from a major grocery store. 

In the past 3 days we had a chance to journey off to Kalamazoo to see the sights and take in a movie (The Soloist, which is VERY GOOD).  We traveled up to Holland, Michigan to see the tulips in bloom

and see all the sights around there (Including going out to the Sand Tunnel

and walking out to Lake Michigan) and to say that we’ve been in Holland and HOLLAND, The Netherlands…  Yesterday we took a long loop drive that took us to Benton Harbor, St. Joseph and then around to Berrien Springs before turning home.  Benton Harbor was disappointing, but St. Joseph made up for it.  As we were walking the park area high above the waterway, we came upon “The Dahlgren”.  The Dahlgren is an 11 inch solid cast cannon that was cast in the 1800’s for the Civil War. 

 It could shoot a 200 pound solid steel ball over 2 miles, and that was with some pretty good accuracy.  St. Joseph and Holland are both very nice towns of about 30,000 or a little more and both have great personalities.  In Holland we had lunch at a great Brewery Lunch House… “The Holland Brewing Company”.  If you get a chance, you’ve got to try their quality brew, you won’t be disappointed.  In St. Joseph we just enjoyed the walk around town, looking out over the harbor, and enjoying a nice lunch of soup and sandwich in a small bakery/diner. 

Today we’ve found ourselves staying home in the motor home.  I’m doing a little catch-up on my journal and editing all the pictures I’ve been taking.  Besides, it was really wet this morning, now the sun is out and the wind is keeping the temperature very cool (50-ish). 

This morning we also made contact with Phil and Kathy.  We are getting close to setting up a time when we can get together in Canada. 

13 May ‘09

Wednesday

First I have to tell you that Saturday mornings are the nuts for finding something interesting on satellite TV.  Boring, Boring, Boring… 

OK, there are more important things to do on a Saturday morning, but it was raining heavily and is really wet outside so we’re sitting it out for the sun that is supposed to come out soon. 

Well it’s been a while since I last wrote in this blog, so I’ll try and catch up a little.  On the 1^st of May we pulled into Goshen, Indiana for a week with the HRRV 419 Club/Seminar/Rally.  The “419” is a well organized group of Holiday Rambler owners that started a “Special Interest Chapter” interested in the continued maintenance of the Holiday Rambler Diesel Pusher motor home.   Seeing as how we own one of those “diesel pushers”, we decided that we would most likely find this rally to be of high interest to us.  There were about 250 motor homes that showed up for this gathering and for most of those here, this wasn’t the first time attending.  This gathering of HRRV 419 takes place annually and is always here in Goshen.  It’s been Goshen because of the central area of the states, and because the Holiday Rambler factory was located just a few miles away.  In the good ole days, the factory was well attended at the rally and able to teach and handle a lot of the needs of those that had a warrantee problem or just need a helping hand.  On a daily basis, Louise and I had a medley of classes we could take from entry level to advanced convection cooking to lubricating and changing the oil on the motor home.  One of my favorite gatherings was the “round table” discussion.  Overall there were about 8 different round table discussions so we all chose the one that fit the age and type of HR motor home that we owned…it was really well done and I learned a lot about “our” coach.  As always when we attend gatherings like this, we have met some “new friends”.  In parking the motor homes, we were parked pretty close to each other

and that gave us plenty of time to get to know your neighbors…all good!!! 

On our way into Indiana we encountered some really rough roads and at one point we even had to pull off the roadway of I-65 and tighten all the screws that hold in our TV.  I even noticed that the rear camera was going off and on as we hit some of these craters. I also noticed that our heater/cooling fan was also going off and on at the same time.  After we pulled into our next campground I found that we also had a 3 more problems…our electric step wouldn’t extend, we couldn’t dump our air-bags, and we couldn’t extend our jacks.  I fired off a quick email to the President of the 419, whom I had not yet met, and wrote him about our problem.  The next day I had received 3 emails in regards to our problem and they gave me a quick idea as to what I should look at and most likely fix the problem.  I took their information and ran with it.  I found the area were the problem was coming from, got everything working, but didn’t find the culprit.  The electrical box held the key but it took one of the tech’s from the rally to help me find a large battery type of cable

that was creating the problem…problem solved!!!

We also had plenty of time to explore the surrounding areas of northern Indiana, and especially the Amish areas close to Goshen/Elkhart.  We’ve been traveling through some areas of the Amish since entering into Tennessee and now we’re in the heart of Amish country.  I really have to admire the strength and integrity of the Amish and the life they live.  As you drive the “red” roads (those that show on the map in red as most often the very narrow two lane country roads) you will find the farms of the Amish…

some small and some much larger.  You will always see the hand washed cloths hanging from the clothes line and blowing in the winds of the day, and the constant meeting of the horse and buggy traveling the roads.  The family owned businesses that supplement the farming are located in one of the out buildings, and you can find a hand painted sign at roadside telling you what’s available.  We saw the fields being tilled using the horses and sit/stand-on plows as we traveled though the farm lands…

not the same as a large tractor and plow we would see in Washington.  We also saw the “one room” school house, with the two out-door potties...  Most often, the kids are educated to the 8^th grade and then they go full time to the home and become a very important part of the family.  We did join a group for an “Amish Family” dinner at one of the larger farms in Nappanee, Indiana.  They served us family style and it featured soup and salad, fried chicken, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, noodles, beans, and fresh made pie for desert. 

Following the rally, we took a day to replace our rear ladder at one of the shops in Elkhart. 

About a year ago I backed into a medium sized tree and it “squashed” our ladder, so we took this time to have it replaced.