At Fort Wayne, I parked at the Johnny Appleseed Memorial Park, near his actual grave.
My neighbor at the park was camping there on a long term in a canvas sided fold-out camper. Unfortunately, he liked to play loud music all night long while he somehow slept to it. The first night, I finally got up at midnight, dressed and walked over to knock on his door to ask him to turn down his music. He was very apologetic and turned it down immediately. The next night, however, I waited until 10:05 PM (after quiet hours) to repeat my trip to his trailer, but this time he was quite argumentative. I just bade him a good night and went back home, turned up my white noise generator by my bed, and endured. The next morning, I spoke with the campground host, who simply said, “We’ll talk to him.” Later that day, with considerable banging and slamming, my neighbor packed some belongings into his car and disappeared for the remainder of my time there, about 4 more days. His camper, however, remained on site. But I was able to sleep peacefully at night.
Leaving Fort Wayne, I drove about 60 miles north to Elkhart, IN, home of the Mor-Ryde axle factory, where I requested an inspection of my axles. While there, they provided me with free camping, with free electricity plus free lunches on work days, and in turn, I bought one new axle and an alignment job.
Then I went just north across the Michigan state line to White Pigeon, home of the BigFoot factory. BigFoot is the name of the automatic leveling system installed on my trailer. They replaced the limit sensors within about 1/2 hour and I was on my way again.
I had discovered some strange problems with my slideout, such as a grinding and groaning noise plus some severe shaking when moving the slide out. So I headed back west to the factory at Junction City, KS for emergency repairs. En route, I stopped at a rest area in Illinois and was startled to find a mass exodus, from underground, of the 13-year cicadas. They were everywhere. Shells all over the ground and up on the tree truncks, newly newly emerged flying cicadas resting on the trees, some taking clumsy maiden flights and learning the controls. What a sight! I even caught a picture of one still emerging from it’s shell, one wing not yet pumped up to its final form.
I arrived Junction City on the weekend, and encountered the first hot weather I had seen since last summer, and lo’, my air conditioner had failed. So Monday, the factory put in an order for an A/C, and I moved about 7 miles out of town to the Milford Lake Corps of Engineers campground, where I could camp, with water and electricity, for about $9 a day. Plus it was cooler under the maples and near the water than it would have been in town on asphalt. But while I was there, I just happened to notice a massive crack in the king pin assembly on the trailer.
After some real sweating, I realized that it wasn’t in the main load-bearing area, and that I should be able to tow it back to the factory with no problem.
A few days later, I was notified that the A/C had arrived, so I took my rig back to the factory, and the next day they installed it. It works beautifully! And the following day, they took my rig in to work on the slide and to do some welding on the hitch. I left the next day, Saturday, June 11th, skipping across the Mid-West, staying at PassportAmerica camps, where I could stay for 1/2 price - not a bad deal! I headed for Sugarcreek, Ohio, which is near Kidron, Ohio, home of the Lehman’s Amish Hardware Store, which I’d read about for decades, ever since the Mother Earth News first started back in the early ’70’s. I set up the trailer at Sugarcreek, then immediately drove off to Kidron to see the wares. Everything was quite interesting, but I didn’t purchase anything. The next day, I hooked up and drove away, heading for Austin, PA - forgetting until I was an hour out of town that I had told my mail forwarding service to send my mail package to Sugarcreek. I was really bothered by this, but then thought, well, I can just stop at the next Post Office and submit a change of address form, and ask Sugarcreek to forward the package on to Malone, NY where I’ll be in a couple weeks. No problem!
The campground at Austin was remote, wooded, surrounded by mountains, and had absolutely no Verizon cell or air card (internet) signal. I had thought about staying there for a couple days, but with no Verizon, I opted to keep moving, east toward Schenectady, NY.
Once I got off the Interstate near Schenectady is when my GPS started to throw fits. Twice it tried to take me down roads with low underpasses - 11’ 6”! And my Garmin GPS is a truckers model into which I had put my rig’s length, weight, and height - 13’ 0”! Yes, I was disturbed. Fortunately, the first time I saw a warning sign as soon as I had turned onto the road, and there was a parking lot on the right behind me as I stopped, so I was able to back up sufficiently to turn around. The second time, I had been pre-warned so didn’t take that turn.
Then, the following day, I drove over to New Hampshire, and I kept seeing more and more motorcycles, of which I’m not the biggest fan. First by pairs, then by the tens, then by the score. More and more. Finally I realized - there’s not just hundreds of motorcycles here, there are thousands! And driving through Laconia, NH, near my destination, I saw a biker on the sidewalk, facing me - and I suddenly realized - Hey! I know him! That’s “Motorcycle George”, from The Slabs, out in California, where I frequently boondock in the winter. No one else looks like old George! But traffic was too heavy to try to stop and talk, and I was too shocked to think of honking and waving, but I now have a note in my calendar, posted in November, to mention to that I saw him in Laconia, NH on June 16!
Once I got to my campground, I set up my trailer then went looking for the Peter Limmer Boot Company in Intervale, NH. I put the address into my trusty GPS, and set off. Said GPS took me off east into Maine, up some country roads, and dropped me onto a dead end dirt road. Perturbed again! So I did it the old-fashioned way. I dug out my map, plotted my course, and got there in about 1/2 hour. But by then, it was past quitting time. After getting lost in Maine, I figured I’d be late, but at least I’d know where the store was, and at least, how correctly to get there the next morning.
Long story short, I stayed at the campground 4 nights, got to Peter Limmer Boot Company, got a new pair of boots and dropped my old ones off for resoling and they’ll mail them back to me when done. I’ll pick them up in Sioux Falls this fall. And the motorcycles in camp were loud in the late mornings and at night, but the people were nice and I endured.
Leaving Albany, NH on Sunday, June 19th, I drove about 3 to 3 1/2 hours to Montpelier, VT where I camped at the ELKs, boondocking. No required fee, but it was such a beautiful setting that I felt obligated to give them a donation when I departed. The ELKs lodge is outside town, completely off by itself, surrounded by woods/forests except for their ELKs golf course set on one side. It was extremely peaceful, the temperatures were in the low 70’s, and the skies were cloudless. Great solar!
While there, I drove one day to visit the King Arthur Flour HQs store in Hanover, NH, and a cider shop in one town and a maple sugarhouse in another. Too many sweets.
Leaving Montpelier, I drove just a few minutes to Burlington, VT to stay once again at the ELKs. Beautiful weather, so I took my bike down off the trailer, found my way to the local bike trail which runs along the edge of Lake Champlain, and toured about 9 miles. Also saw some nice (what???) on a rooftop.
We had nice weather that first day, but then 4 or 5 days of relatively constant rains and thunderstorms set in. I was here to visit a dear friend whom I’d first met back about 1972, and not seen since 1979 out in Minnesota. So Thursday the 23rd I drove over to their house, met Jerry and his really neat wife, Jackie, had dinner and much talk with them, and stayed the night - only the second time since I’ve been on the road that I haven’t slept in my own bed. It was wonderful meeting Jackie, and equally wonderful to see Jerry again.
I plan to leave here Sunday for Malone, NY where I'll boondock at another ELKs lodge, then pick up my mail package on Monday, and Tuesday, I'll drive west to the Wellesley Island (NY) State Park where I'll meet up with Mike and Judy to officially start out summer-long journey into the Canadian Maritimes.
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