Indiana, Anderson - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

I tried to publish this post last night, but was having trouble getting on the campground Wi-Fi and our hotspot.

On Saturday we celebrated July birthdays, granddaughter Mackenzie and great niece Avery.  Avery is the little blonde head – I was never quick enough to get a picture of anything but the back of her head.

 

 Although the weather was a little cool the grandkids seemed to have a good time in the pool at their great grandparent’s house.  Then it was time to come inside and warm up.

 

This morning we headed to Indianapolis for the last meeting we will have until next year with our friends from Indiana Rolling Thunder Chapter One.  It’s encouraging to see that the membership of this chapter is growing.  We’ll miss these guys, they do a lot to promote awareness of POW/MIA issues.  We are proud to be a part of this organization.  If you would like more information on what they do, check out www.indianarollingthunder.com.

This afternoon we went to the Madison County Fairgrounds in Alexandria to see the results of the judging of grandkids Mackenzie and Kyle’s 4-H projects.  Pretty proud of both of them.  Kyle got blue ribbons and honor mention on his cookies and Lego project.  Mackenzie got a blue ribbon and honor mention on her bread.  Her child development project got a championship ribbon and is going to the state fair.

 

 

 

We stopped by the Farm Bureau milk shake booth before we left.  Our friend Mike was working there – he said he was “quality control”.  He must have been doing a good job, the shakes were great.

Indiana, Anderson - Friday, July 18, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

We were looking forward to a bike ride to Danville for a visit with my mom, brother and sister-in-law today.  It was a beautiful day for a ride, but it wasn’t meant to be.  We got all ready to go and the bike wouldn’t start, battery was dead.  When we came home yesterday one of the neighbors came up and was talking to us as soon as we pulled in and Greg hit the kill switch but forgot to turn off the ignition.  Earlier in the week we decided that we wouldn’t keep the battery charger with us any longer so we put it in storage.  We hadn’t needed it and thought we could get by with the trickle charger in the future.  We managed to borrow a battery charger from the campground and got the bike running later in the afternoon, but it was too late to head to Danville which is a couple of hours away.  We’ll get there this next week.

Since we ended up staying home, I was able to finish cleaning up the ceramic candleholders and made a couple of salads to take to the July birthday celebration tomorrow.  Granddaughter Mackenzie is our July birthday girl.  Hard to believe she will be in high school this year.

I think we have decided where we will be spending the winter and workamping – Mesa, Arizona.  We have received an e-mail confirming they are sending us a contract to review.  The resort is the Village at Val Vista, just over 800 sites, lots of amenities.  We would be working in food service for 24 hours a week as a couple or 12 hours for each of us.  We would get our site and utilities in exchange for our work.  This resort is part of the Cal-Am group.  If you are interested in seeing more about this resort, you can go to www.cal-am.com.

Indiana, Anderson - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

This week we went through the totes we brought home from the storage unit, decided what to keep and what was going to goodwill.  On Wednesday we took all of the empty totes to daughter Desira, she has so many projects going on she is always needing totes so it worked out well for all of us.  Next year we’ll tackle a few more.

One of the things I found in the totes was a project I started 18 years ago – two Christmas candle holders.  I know it was 18 years ago because the receipts were still in the box.  The paint I bought for them is still good!  I need to get these ceramic pieces cleaned so they can be fired.  It may be this time next year when I’m able to pick them up and paint them, but after 18 years what’s a few months more.  I worked on one of them this afternoon and after I took the picture I noticed a few more areas I still need to clean up.

Last night we met Greg’s sisters, Susan and Linda and their husbands David and Rex, for supper at Sahm’s in Pendleton.  We had a great time catching up with them, their kids and grandkids.  Our time here is flying by and we haven’t worked in as much visitation time with family and friends as we would like, but we have enjoyed tremendously what time we have been able to spend with them.

I was at the doctor bright and early this morning for my checkup – all my numbers came out good.  The only thing I have left is getting my osteoporosis medication administered.  Greg is finished with everything but the dentist appointments.  He has another one on Monday.  All in all we are in pretty good shape, we just need to lose some weight L, we are getting ready to work on that.

This afternoon we said goodbye to a wonderful family friend, Rex Etchison.  While we were at the showing Greg and daughter Amanda met up with many old friends from when they lived in Frankton.  It’s always nice to see that they are remembered fondly by so many people.

When Amanda dropped us off at home we loaded up our two folding RV bicycles so she could take them to her house.  We’ll pick them back up again next week but we have an appointment next Wednesday to have the engine checked out on the coach and we can’t put them on the back of the coach where we had them because the engine wouldn’t be accessible.  We have the bicycles for sale, I’m not going to try riding again – I just beat myself up too bad trying to relearn to ride while we were in Florida.  You really can forget how to ride a bicycle.  I can’t believe my osteoporosis is too bad or I think I would have broken something when I was falling all over that bike J.

Indiana, Anderson - Sunday, July 13 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

We headed to Camping World in Greenwood this morning.  When Greg was checking out the roof the other day he noticed a small crack on the side of the roof just above the gutter.  We do remember cracking a limb when we were navigating under some trees a few months ago so that crack may have been there a while L  We had to get something to patch the crack and a small piece for the ladder at Camping World.  We found the patch material but no parts for the ladder – they wanted to sell us a whole new ladder.  We are going to check into an RV salvage place in Montpelier tomorrow.

After Camping World we stopped at Jonathan Byrd’s Cafeteria which is just around the corner.  For some reason or another they have downsized to using the small café for serving their buffet and seating is greatly reduced.  The old buffet and dining room area is blocked off.  There was no indication that things were “under construction” so this might be permanent.  Although they indicated on their signs that this would be a more “intimate” dining experience, I didn’t find it the pleasant dining experience we have had there in the past, probably won’t go back.

This evening we were planning to help son-in-law Dan with a bachelor party at the gun club – I know I didn’t think it sounded like a good idea either until he explained that there was a “no drinking” policy at the gun club and it would be early enough in the evening that they would probably be sober.  As it turned out, the party cancelled so we stopped at daughter Amanda and son-in-law Mike’s house to check out the used go cart they bought for the kids.  Papaw Greg was a hero this evening, he got the go cart running.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me so some really good Kodak moments were lost as Papaw took it for a test run before letting the grandkids have it.  Kyle was so excited he made more noise yelling than the go cart did.  Looks like they will have something to keep them busy until school starts again in three weeks.

Indiana, Anderson - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

On Thursday we joined 76 other bikes to escort the remains of USAF Airman 3/C Howard Martin from Indianapolis Airport to Elwood, IN as I mentioned in my last post. 

 

Before we left the airport we lined up for a flag presentation for the hearse to enter into the staging area.

 

The procession included several police and family cars in addition to the bikes, reports said it was about a mile long – pretty impressive.  It would have been nice to document the morning with more pictures, but it didn’t seem really appropriate.  The people of Elwood lined the streets waving flags to welcome Airman Martin home after 60 years.  He was preceded in death by his parents, but his six siblings were all at the service.  He will be laid to rest in a plot next to his parents, they had purchased the plot many years ago with the hope that he would someday return home.

Today I joined three great friends, Linda, Dinah and Beth for breakfast.  We always have an enjoyable time when we get together.  We went to high school together so we have quite a history.

This afternoon we went to the Indiana State Trap Shoot to see daughter Desira, son-in-law Dan, grandson Tyler and his girlfriend Rachel shoot.

Dan and Tyler talking strategy before the shooting.

Rachel and Desira being silly before the shooting.

Headed out to get serious.

None of them shot as good as they would have liked, but Dan and Desira ended up being the second place husband and wife team.  I really thought they all did well. 

Indiana, Anderson - Wednesday, July 9, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

The last couple of days I’ve been going through the contents of a few totes we brought back from the storage unit.  I’ve sorted through cookbooks, tax records and old sewing patterns among other things.  A lot of the patterns were embroidery patterns that have to be from the late 60’s or early 70’s.  A couple were even older than that.  They were ones my mom had given me, they were in their original envelopes.  There was no date, but the postage was only one cent.  I think I’ll take them back to her, now that she has a little free time she may want to do some embroidery.  I’ll have to ask daughter Desira if she remembers one in particular of Holly Hobby.  When she was about 3 or 4 she was crazy about Holly Hobby so I made her a long white skirt with a picture of Holly Hobby embroidered on the front. 

The shredder is going to be busy now getting rid of some really old tax records.  The cookbooks I don’t want to keep are going to daughter Desira to see if she wants any of them before they head out to a new home.  I haven’t decided what to do with the old patterns yet, I imagine someone collects them, but I don’t know who.

Today we made another trip to Columbus for Greg’s dental appointment – almost done.  After that we stopped by the Indiana State Trap Shoot just outside of Fortville to visit with daughter Desira for a while.  The weather was beautiful today for a motorcycle ride.

Tomorrow we have the honor of being part of an escort that will bring the remains of a Korean War soldier from the Indianapolis Airport to Elwood.  The Rolling Thunder Indiana group that we belong to has done this before but our travels haven’t allowed us to be a part of the escorts in the past.

USAF Airman 3/C Howard Eugene Martin died on November 22, 1952 near Anchorage, Alaska, following a tragic military airplane crash that killed a total of 52 servicemen.  There were no survivors and recovery was never possible.  His remains were recovered from Colony Glacier during the summers of 2012 and 2013 – 60 years after the accident following the melting of the glacier at the crash site.  He was officially positively identified on his 83^rd birthday, April 18, 2014.  His remains will be flown tomorrow from U.S. Military facilities in Hawaii to Indianapolis.

Indiana, Anderson - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

Well our plan to watch fireworks from the campground didn’t work out.  We could hear them all around, but couldn’t see a darn thing.  We spent the 4^th of July last year sitting on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. – hard to beat that.  We’ve heard of a prime watching spot for next year.

Yesterday we helped daughter Desira get ready to go to the Indiana State Trap Shoot.  She will have a booth there in addition to being the on-site EMT.  We folded 198 T-shirts for her.  We’ll be going up Saturday to see her and Dan shoot and then join them for the shooter’s dinner that night.  Hope the weather holds out for them.

I’ve been going through a couple of totes of cookbooks we brought back from the storage unit.  I’ve picked out a few to take with me on the road this year for a closer look, the rest are headed out to a new home.  I think I still have two more totes full of them in the storage unit to go through next year.

This afternoon we had a good visit with our great grandson, Braxton.  Here’s a picture of the little “living room wrecker”.  He’s too busy with his toys to have too much to do with us, but he did give me a kiss and a hug when we got ready to leave, made my day.

 

 

Thought I would pass along this tip for anyone having trouble with dry skin.  Don’t know if it is old age or the fact that I am outside more, but my usual body lotion just wasn’t helping my arms and legs anymore.  I had bought this conditioner for my hair and didn’t really like it so it was just sitting in the cabinet.  I thought the other day about all of the fancy oils it was supposed to have in it and decided I would give it a try on my skin.  It works great, it isn’t sticky or greasy.  Now in addition to the oils it has several things I can’t pronounce so if anyone knows of why I shouldn’t be doing this, let me know – otherwise I’ll be buying some more.

Indiana, Anderson - Friday, July 4, 2014 - Stream Cliff Herb Farm

Happy 4^th of July to Everyone!!

Happy Belated Birthday to granddaughter Mackenzie!

Grandma was too tired to write the blog yesterday so I missed wishing her a happy birthday on her special day, sorry Mackenzie.  She wanted to spend her birthday at the gun club shooting range, hope she had a good time.

On Wednesday I offered to help daughter Desira weed her flower beds.  She has such beautiful gardens but she is so busy it is hard to keep on top of them.  Since I don’t have any dirt to play in myself, I was more than glad to help.  Before we started fulltiming I always had flowers and vegetable gardens that kept me busy when the weather was warm.  I found out I am now an out of shape gardener, need to do this more often. 

 

 

 

On Thursday my friends Dinah and Linda and Dinah’s daughter Jenny had a “girl’s day out” at Stream Cliff Herb Farm in Commisky, IN.

 

 

Not only do they have beautiful herbs and flowers, there is a lot of history associated with this farm.  In 1863, during the Civil War, Morgan’s Raiders came to this site.

 

 

When we were there a plant sale was going on.  They still have lots to choose from although we took three wagonloads to the car before we left.

We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the tearoom.  We felt kind of sorry for the lone young man sitting back in the corner.  We saw him later toting out lots of flowers and plants for what appeared to be mom, sisters and grandmother.  They were lucky to have him with them.  Dinah and I have enjoyed a meal here with our husbands later in the day and there were other men here then.  It just happened that this young man was on his own today.

 

Our final stop was the Stream Cliff Farm Winery which is located in a former blacksmith shop on the farm.  We did a little taste testing and purchased a few to enjoy at home.  I chose their “Fancy Filly” sweet white wine.  It’s in the wine cooler now.

Greg and I spent this morning going through our storage unit.  We still have a 5x8 unit to house those “memories” you want to keep but don’t want to drag around with you all the time.  I did sort out a large box of cookbooks to get rid of.  Seems like I do most of my recipe searching online now and I’ve scanned most of my favorites from the past into files on my computer.  I do still like to have a few of my favorite books on the shelf to pick up and look through every once in a while.  We managed to whittle down some of what we have stored, it will probably take a couple more years before we are through sorting things out on our trips back to Indiana.

Not sure if we will venture out to see fireworks tonight or not.  We are grilling steaks to have with baked potatoes.  We may just kick back and watch TV after that.  We missed a couple of good fireworks shows last night in Anderson and Chesterfield, we’ll have to keep in mind next year that we need to search for displays happening on July 3.  We could hear them from the campground and they sounded like they were spectacular.

Indiana, Anderson - Sunday, June 29, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Park

On Thursday we had to leave the Caboose Lake Campground in Remington to head north to Shipshewana.  Once again we were having some issues with the refrigerator!  The freezer was working just fine but the control panel for the lower part was showing some codes that indicated there was a problem.  Greg spoke to Leon at National RV Refrigeration who walked him through some diagnosing of the problem.  We finally decided that since we were already in northern Indiana we would feel better if Leon looked at the fridge in person.  Since he was already booked up for the next couple of weeks we took a chance on going up and sitting in his parking lot to see if he could work us in.  I don’t think we will ever let anyone else look at this fridge again, Leon is so knowledgeable and his prices are extremely reasonable.

 

As it turns out we got lucky, he was able to get to us on Friday afternoon and found that one of the defrost fans wasn’t working properly.  This caused water to go into someplace it wasn’t supposed to go and that affected something else – reminded me of that “knee bone’s connected to the….”song.  Something very minor just snowballed into a bigger issue.  Leon was able to fix the problem and we were on our way back home on Saturday morning.

While we were in Shipshewana the weather was mild in the evening so we slept with the windows open.  There was no traffic noise except an occasional horse and carriage.  Since we didn’t have electricity there in the parking lot and we didn’t want to run the generator all night, there was absolutely nothing running in the coach, no little red, green or blue lights indicating electrical appliances are plugged in.  Outside there were no street lights or porch lights.  It was so quiet and dark, I had trouble falling asleep.  You don’t realize how much background noise is in your life until it all goes away – scary.

This was the view across the road.

 

 

We got back to Timberline Valley RV Resort Saturday afternoon.  Today we helped daughter Desira at the gun club most of the day.  The weather stayed nice until after the trap shooters got done so it was a good day.

Indiana, Anderson - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

The “salad in a jar” experiment worked out well.  I prepared these last Friday and we had them for lunch today.  You can pack enough salad in a half pint jar to fix a nice size chef salad, just add some chicken and cheese.  I think using cherry tomatoes might be even better than using the Roma tomato slices.

 

 

It was very tempting to just sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather today.

We both spent some time getting ready for our move tomorrow.  I packed up the loose things inside while Greg packed up the grill and the rest of the outside things.  We’ll be moving tomorrow to the Caboose Campground just outside of Remington in northern Indiana.  We’ll spend a couple of weeks there visiting son A.J. and his family.

Indiana, Anderson - Monday, June 9, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

Greg is working on a project to provide more stability for the motorcycle while we are moving down the road.  He wanted to know if I wanted to go to the hardware store with him – I opted to stay home and cook instead.

I started out thinking about what to do with 3 overripe bananas and some chocolate I had left over from my strawberry dipping experiment a week or so ago.  I progressed to thinking about other things I could make from what I had on hand and I ended up cooking all day.

The first things finished were these cakes.  I split a recipe for a 9x13 pan between my two smaller pans.  The one on the left is just plain yellow cake with the leftover chocolate and walnuts on top.  The one on the right is loaded with a can of sour cherries (not pie filling).  The one on the right is going in the freezer for later.

 

 

A pizza for lunch came next – pepperoni, olives, mushrooms and cheese. 

 

 

I cut up vegetables for stir fry this evening and for this pasta salad.  I added pepperoni (a package of this stuff just seems to multiply), cheese and lots of veggies.  I didn’t have any bottled Italian dressing but I did have a couple of packages of the kind you have to mix with oil and vinegar so that worked.

 

 

I had to thaw chicken for the stir fry so I thawed some extra and made filling for chicken enchiladas later on in the week.

I still had those three bananas that started all of this so I decided to try the banana bread recipe I saw on the back of the flour bag.  The recipe said it made one 9” loaf or two 8” loaves.  I didn’t know what size my pans were so I guessed 8” and made two loaves.  You can see they are kind of short so obviously my pan is a 9” pan and I should have made just one loaf.  I turned out ok, I’ll just freeze one for later.

I do the stir fry outside because I don’t want to get spatters in the kitchen.

 

 

It turned out really good.  It feels good to sit down for a while.

When it comes to cleaning up after one of these marathon sessions, I think a dishwasher might have been nice.  But, the rest of the time I’m glad I have the extra storage instead.

While I was cooking, Greg was making great progress on his bike stabilizer.  He saw a couple of similar stabilizers on some bikes from Canada when we were at an RV rally in Syracuse, NY last year.  Those were purchased from somewhere but he was sure he could duplicate one.  Although we carry more tools than most RVers we don’t carry welding equipment and a couple of other tools that were needed for this project.  With some help from our friend Michael and Papaw Jack he was successful.

This bar will be bolted upright onto the lift for the motorcycle.

 

 

A connecting rod goes between the stabilizer bar and the handlebar of the motorcycle.

 

 

 

Indiana, Anderson - Sunday, June 8, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

Saturday evening we were invited to dinner with good friends Greg and Dinah.  We’ve known them since high school so we have lots of things to reminisce about.  They live out in the country where it is nice and quiet.  Their porch was a wonderful place to enjoy a great meal of salad, lasagna and garlic bread.

 

 

Sunday we spent at the gun club with daughter Desira and son-in-law Dan.  We thought the trap shoot was going to be a washout, it rained hard and the wind blew early in the morning.  We were glad we had Desira’s car rather than having to ride the motorcycle.  By mid-morning the sun came out and the shooters had a good day.  When we left the gun club we went to a 60^th anniversary party for friends Jim and Marilyn – wow, did they ever have a lot of well-wishers!

Indiana, Anderson - Friday, June 6, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

The Wi-Fi here at the campground and our hot spot have both been spotty so it has been really hard to post to the blog.  I really didn’t miss posting too much exciting J.

On Tuesday evening we worked at the gun club with daughter Desira and son-in-law Dan.  On Wednesday it poured down rain so we stayed inside and enjoyed some movies.

Thursday we headed for Columbus, IN for another dentist appointment for Greg – the weather was beautiful for a bike ride.  That night we went into Pendleton for the June Jamboree with daughter Amanda and grandkids Mackenzie and Kyle.  I think Kyle managed to ride all of the rides except the “little kid” rides.  We enjoyed a K-burger from the Kiwanis booth and an ice cream cone.  Funny how the June Jamboree seemed so much bigger when I was younger.  I forgot to take my camera so no pictures, sorry.

Today we were up bright and early because I had an appointment at 9:30 to get my hair highlighted.  I’ve been putting that off thinking that my hair would eventually turn to a nice shade of silver or white.  Looks like that isn’t going to happen, it’s just turned kind of a mousy blah color so it’s going to need some help.

This afternoon I tried a couple of simple new recipes that turned out pretty good.

The first one I don’t have a name for, but you put 1 T. butter in a skillet, add half a bag of frozen corn and cook for 5-7 minutes.  Add 1/8 tsp. garlic powder, ¼ tsp. pepper and ¼ tsp. paprika, stir until well coated.  Add 1/6 cup parmesan cheese and stir until a little melted.  I like this one, Greg was ok with it but he doesn’t really like frozen corn.

The next one was Cream Drop Scones.  I saw this one on Pinterest and decided to fix it because I happened to have some leftover heavy cream that I didn’t want to throw away.

Stir together:

1 ½ c. four
2 T. sugar
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt

Add 1 c. heavy cream and stir until dough just comes together

Drop by small ice cream scoops onto parchment paper.  Sprinkle with coarse sugar (what I used was called sugar sprinkles).  Bake at 400 degrees 15-20 minutes or until golden.  Serve warm

 

 

We put sliced strawberries and whipped cream over these and they were delicious.

I am experimenting with “salads in a jar”.  They are supposed to last a week in the fridge.  I will probably use them in a couple of days instead of waiting a week.  I put one together a couple of days ago to see if a decent sized salad would fit in a half-pint jar – it does.  The secret is to push the lettuce down really tight and put the lid on quick before it pops back up again.  I wouldn’t store these on the side, but it made it easier to take a picture of what it looks like.  These have carrots, celery, roma tomato slices, green pepper and romaine.  I’ll let you know how they turn out.  They look really pretty sitting in the fridge and I feel good knowing I have salads ready to go, so no excuses about not wanting to chop vegetables when dinner time rolls around.

 

Indiana, Anderson - Sunday, June 1, 2014 - Timberline Valley RV Resort

Greg had a quiet birthday today compared to the rambunctious celebration the grandkids had yesterday.  We went to Cracker Barrel for lunch and that was the extent of it.  He did have a full day of racing and baseball on TV so I think he was happy.

Although we have lived in our RV for three years now, we have only been able to travel since I retired this time last year.  We’ve had a lot of wonderful adventures since the last time I wished him a Happy Birthday – looking forward to many more.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured and held hostage in Afghanistan on 6-30-09.  Bergdahl was released this weekend – a happy occasion.  Greg can now take off the bracelet he has worn for a long time recognizing the plight of Sgt. Bergdahl.

 

 

Indiana, Anderson - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - Birthday Celebrations

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GRANDKIDS – KYLE, JACKSON AND BRAELYNN!!

Three of the grandkids had birthdays this month so everyone got together at great-grandpa and grandma’s house for a pitch in and an afternoon in the pool.

After lunch they were ready to open presents.

 

 

 This is what they were waiting on.

It got a little confusing before it was done.  I think everyone got something they wanted and then there were the clothes that were on the mom’s list.  I thought it was funny that six year old Jackson recognized our names on his birthday card.  We send them a lot of postcards when we travel so he was used to seeing our signatures.

We may have to remind mom and dad that they put this “real” tool set on his birthday list.  He can’t wait to take it with him to help his other grandpa farm.  Sorry Dave.

This ought to prove interesting also, the twins got fishing poles and a tackle box with real hooks.  I’m thinking a first aid kit might also go well with this.

After the gifts all of the swimmers headed for the pool.  I quit taking pictures at that point because it meant I would have to get out of the swing which was in the shade.

Later in the afternoon we headed inside for dessert.  We contributed a peanut butter pie.  It was my first time trying this recipe, it turned out really well.