On The Road Again in 2013: Last Full Week in Elkhart

Quilt Garden at Linton's Nursery in Elkart,
pattern is Butterflies and Bees

I was going to say in this blog that it was a 'quiet week' but that can change in a heartbeat can't it? We had some rain, in fact, quite a bit last night but fortunately no storms connected with the rain. Cheryl and Craig, our friends here are going to have a bumper crop of blackberries this year due to all the rain. I think they have been picking berries every other day the last couple of weeks so she'll have plenty to make some of her famous blackberry jam.....Dick's favorite!!

Our 4th of July was quiet. Dick was sick with the 24 hour bug so we didn't leave the RV. I watched a few fireworks from the windows of the RV but he was sound asleep by 8 p.m. so the plans to have dinner with Cheryl and Craig and go to the weekly 'cruise night' at the Essenhaus Restaurant in Middlebury were put on hold until next time.

Murphy went to day camp twice this week so he's had a good week of exercising, pool swimming, and making new doggie friends.

Cheryl and Craig did bring their 5th wheel over to the campground on Monday and got it all set up for a month's stay. They will go back and forth to the house though for various reasons, one of them being the need to pick the blackberries. Their granddaughter will visit this month from VA so they plan on bringing her here to enjoy 'Wally' (the RV's nickname) with them.

Our youngest granddaughter, Cassie, turned 19 this week......wow, where did the time go? We're very proud of her as she'll start her sophomore year at N. Arizona University in Flagstaff this fall.

While Dick spent Wednesday polishing the chrome on the rig, I went to Shipshewana to the 'largest flea market in the midwest' as they like to advertise. It is large but there is a lot of repeat stuff and an awful lot of imported items so although fun to walk around, I only bought fresh produce -- green beans, corn on the cob and tomatoes. Yum!!! In fact, those items were our dinner that night along with some freshly made cheese from the Guggisberg cheese factory in Middlebury.

After that 'healthy' meal on Wednesday night, sometime during the night is when Dick got sick and the next 24 hours were not any fun for him. Enough on that topic.

On Friday evening we got a call from our oldest granddaughter, Amber, who also lives in Flagstaff that their dad, Dick's son, had been at Slide Rock State Park in Sedona, AZ with a group of their friends. This is a very well known beautiful state park with a natural water slide that families of all ages enjoy. It has everything from wading pools to cliffs where you jump off into the 'freezing' water below. Well, the water where he jumped was shallow and he broke one heel and shattered the other one. I can't even imagine the pain!! We are still getting all of the details but we know that he was down in this water and he couldn't walk to climb out of there so his buddies had to carry him out.......took a long time!! 911 couldn't get there for over an hour so they chose to carry him out and got him to the hospital in Flagstaff where he's going to have surgery on Tuesday for the shattered ankle. I know from a friend who fell off a ladder while painting and shattered just one ankle a few years ago this will take a long time to heal, and to this day she has a slight limp, so with two broken/shattered heels, I'm afraid he's in for a long road to recovery.

I mentioned going to Shipshewana and the flea market there. Other than the flea market, there are several other things in this area that worth seeing if you are in the area. There are several Amish furniture stores (beautiful woodworkers), a Hudson museum owned by a local couple who first learned to drive in a Hudson and this is their personal collection, several quilt stores with locally made BEAUTIFUL quilted items, a couple of the quilt gardens I mentioned last week, and a theatre called the Blue Gate which has another Amish family style restaurant, dinner theatre and some shops. There are other attractions but these are just a few here in Shipshewana, a community comprised mainly of German and Dutch descendants , where you can experience a simpler time especially when you travel on the backroads. If you happen to be in this area on a Tuesday or Wednesday when the flea market is going on (it's also an auction for animals, hay, and antiques), you will see an abundance of buggies coming to town to shop and take care of business.

About seven miles from Shipshewana is Middlebury, another nostalgic town reminiscent of years gone by. There are many Bed & Breakfasts in this area, a wonderful bakery called Rise N Roll with the best cinnamon-carmel donut I've ever had (and I'm not a carmel person) and always free coffee. Down the road from Rise N Roll is Guggisberg cheese factory where you can watch cheese being made and needless to say it is very good, a Dutch Country Market where there is a quilt garden, and a hive of honeybees at work that will be made into pure honey, soap, lip balms and more and wonderful homemade noodles too.

We always enjoy our stay here and find new things to see and do every time we visit. I never even mentioned South Bend, home of the famous Notre Dame Fighting Irish about 25 miles from Elkhart. There is a famous Studebaker museum there that we enjoyed a few years ago and of course, the Notre Dame campus is beautiful.

Our month is up here and the plan is to leave on Tuesday headed to an RV park in Winchester, VA near Dick's niece in Toms Brook, VA. This is an area rich in US history but our main purpose is to visit Laurie and her family so we'll play our 'touristy' plans by ear.

Conference Center in Shipshewana's Quilt Garden
in the Goose Tracks pattern

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday and here's to a good week ahead. Please keep Mike in your prayers on Tuesday that this surgery is a success. We are still assessing the situation and what we can do to help.