Almost Wordless Wednesday - 10/23/2013

Joey and Scout,
The Greyhounds Who Smell A Change In The Air

Prepared For Cold Weather

The campground here has a list of rules.  It has a list of rules for short-term campers and an even longer list for long-term campers.  The rules keep the campground looking nice, so I guess it is a good thing.  The one thing on the list that surprised us is that all sewer hoses have to be off the ground.  Dad said it is so that they can cut the grass without worrying about running not the sewer hoses.  However, one of the rules is that each camper must maintain their site and they have lawnmowers available for us to use. Mama was not happy when she read that rule.  Dad told her not to worry about it because the grass is not going to grow anymore and if it does, he will force them to tell us to cut our grass.

Dad always has to be different and he didn't want to buy the regular sewer hose lifters that they sell in the store.  He made his own. It is a plastic gutter.  It works quite well and it does look nice.  The water on the ground is not from the sewer hose.  We have a small leak that Dad couldn't fix on Sunday.  It is on the project list for this coming weekend, I think.

Dad also had to insulate our hose so that it doesn't freeze.  It is a requirement to keep our water turned on.  Mama was a little nervous last Friday because it was a cold, rainy day and we didn't have it insulated yet.  The windchill was 32, but it didn't actually freeze here.  We may need to plug in the "water heater thingy" this week though as the temps are supposed to dip slightly below freezing.  We are lucky we left Sycamore when we did because it is looks like it has gotten below freezing there and the water has probably been turned off in the section we were staying.  Mama didn't know they turned the water off there until right before we left. Can you imagine how miserable she would have been if they turned our water off?  Okay, so back to the title of the post, we are prepared for winter now that our hose is insulated and our hose if off the ground.  Last year, our sewer hose froze in Denver and it turned into a messy experience for day.  BOL!

Another one of the rules here is that we are not allowed to have a clothes line.  That is pretty common because it can look trashy when people leave their clothes out.  Dad made Mom a "clothes line"a few months ago. She started using it here on Sunday and so far, she has not gotten in trouble for it.

The clothes hanger hangs underneath the slide.  It is held up by suction cups.  It works quite well.

Mama hangs Dad's pants to dry off the ladder in the back of the RV.  If it is a windy day, she doesn't have to iron because the wrinkles fall out. 

We are backed to the woods, so no one sees the pants. She ties the hangers on with bungee cords.

We are settled into our new campground.  Scout and I are enjoying the dog park. We also enjoying the trails through the woods.  We have to climb a big hill to get to the top and then we can stay on the main trail or we can move down to another trail that is at a lower level.  There are so many squirrels here.  I could just stare at them all day long!

Bunny asked us which apple orchard the folks visited when we were in Sycamore.  They went to Kuipers Family Farm. The folks enjoyed it.  She also asked if the folks have been to the Abraham Lincoln Library/Museum.  Yes, they have. They really liked it.  It is not considered one of the "official" libraries though.  Mama can't remember why.  The official ones are:

• Herbert Hoover Library
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
• Harry S. Truman Library
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
• John F. Kennedy Library
• Lyndon B. Johnson Library
• Richard Nixon Library
• Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum
• Jimmy Carter Library
• Ronald Reagan Library
• George Bush Library
• William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum
• George W. Bush Library

I was also asked if I got my walk in yesterday.  Yes, I did!  I didn't even edit my post, so I hope it was okay.  All work and no play makes Joey a whiny boy.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Saw A Really Fat Squirrel Today

Harry S Truman Library/Museum

The folks enjoy visiting the Presidential libraries.  On Saturday, the folks visited the Harry S Truman Library which was number four for them.  There are 13 in total.

Harry S Truman Library/Museum

The museum was dedicated in 1957.  President Truman visited the library often and had an office there. He oversaw the building of it.  He along with his wife are buried in the courtyard.  His daughter and her husband are cremated and their remains are also there.

Mama said the museum was very interesting.  She really did not know much about President Truman before she visited.  He became President when President Roosevelt died.  Actually, the Democratic Party knew that President Roosevelt would not live long enough to complete his last term and they chose Harry S Truman to be his running mate because of that.  President Truman faced so much in his first few months in office.  He became President in April 1945 and in August 1945 he ordered the bomb to be dropped on Japan.  Then there was the Cold War. He was not a popular President when he left in 1952, however, public opinion has changed since then. Mama said that President George W. Bush has said many times that history will determine if he was a good President and it looks like that was true for Truman.

Statue of Harry S Truman

Famous photograph

Bess, Margaret and Harry campaigning by train.

Eternal flame in courtyard.

President Truman's grave - it was wet and that is why it looks strange.

Mrs. Truman

His daughter and son-in-law.

Did you know that his daughter, Margaret Truman, was a writer of mystery novels?  Mama didn't realize it was her.

A little bit better photo of the grave.

Presidential china.

Buggy owned by Harry's family when he was a child.

Harry bought these two cars when he became senator.

This is what the Oval office looked like when he occupied it. Mama is not a good photographer.  BOL!

Harry S Truman said "The Buck Stops Here".  He also said "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

The folks both really liked this museum.  Mama didn't take many photos because a lot of the museum was reading, watching videos or listening to audio. It was not boring at all, but she washed her hands a lot because she figured there were germs all over the audio phones and buttons. BOL!  

The price of the museum is $8 a person, but Mama found a coupon on the Internet that was buy one get one free.

What does the S in Harry S Truman stand for?  Well, he doesn't really have a middle name. He said that the "S" did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

Did you know that there was an assassination attempt on President Truman?  It happened in 1950. The President and his wife were upstairs in the Blair House when two men tried to bust through the door. A police officer was killed but not before he killed one of the assassins. The other one was sent to prison.

The folks are planning a return visit to Independence to visit his home.  He lived there from the time he married until his death, which was about 50 years.  They tried to visit on Saturday, but the tours were all full. The home is just a few blocks from the library.

Mama is a little sad that we are not staying in Independence.  She said the town is really nice and she would be able to ride Buddy all around. They looked at the campground on Saturday and it is really plain and small, but nice. The reason they chose to stay here is because it is so close to Dad's work.  The roads here are too dangerous for Buddy. We are on a two lane road with hills and curves.

The folks did a few other things while in Independence but we will save that for later.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Tired Of Writing And Wants To Go For A Walk NOW!

Where Are We?

I think we stumped everyone this time with our destination. 

This is entering Iowa.  It rained for a few hours as we made our way across Iowa.

Mama didn't realize that there is a Presidential library in Iowa.  It is Herbert Hoovers'.  She was sad and would have liked to have stopped but there wasn't enough time and it was closed due to the government shutdown.  She hopes to stop there sometime as she wants to visit all of them.

This was taken at the first rest area in Missouri after leaving Iowa.

Same rest area in Missouri.

We arrived at our new park at 4:45 p.m.

This is our site. We paid extra for a concrete pad. The gravel sites are not level.

The park has a lot of things for kids to do.  Here is one of the playgrounds.

The country store is really nice.  They sell a lot of groceries, camping items, wine, beer and they make pizzas and chicken wings.  They even deliver the pizza and wings to your site.

The park is decorated for Halloween.

The pool.

Cute sign.

Outdoor movie theatre.

What is that? Could it be a fenced dog area? No one told us about this!

It is a dog area!!!  Mama is more excited than us, but we like it too.

Scout likes it!

The outside is even decorated.

Yep, we like this place.

Okay, so have you guessed where we are?  We are in a small town near Kansas City, MO!  the Presidential Library that the folks want to visit is the Harry S. Truman Library/Museum.  They have stayed in this area before but were not interested in the Presidential libraries then.  Dad's work is just seven miles away.  He said he just takes back roads to get there.  It was really strange for Dad to go to work yesterday as he and Mama usually have a day to go exploring.  We spent the day exploring the campground with Mama.  This morning, Mama and I found a trail that went through the woods.  We had to stop a few times due to the hills. There are so many hills here.  We are used to walking on flat ground.  BOL!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Happy That There Are More Than Three Squirrels Here

Sycamore, IL - We Are Going To Miss You!

We spent the last two months in Sycamore, IL and it may have been our favorite location since we began our travels.  That may be surprising to people, but when you full-time RV, there is more to a location than just fun attractions.  We have stayed in places where the folks have had to search for places they felt safe shopping and eating. Mama knew from the moment we drove through Sycamore that it was going to be her type of town. She was able to walk to town and then when Buddy arrived, she rode all over without fear.

Our campground, Sycamore RV Resort, had so many places for us to walk. We walked at least two miles a day. We only had one encounter of someone who didn't have their dog on a leash and that was on our last night.  It was a small dog and his Mama thought it was fine because he plays with a Great Dane.  His Mama may be sorry one day when he approaches a dog that is not a friendly as we are.  One of our neighbors has a container vegetable garden and he brought over a big bag of lettuce for us Monday.  He has lived there for 17 years.  He doesn't like weekenders. We didn't think he liked us, but once he heard we were leaving, he came over a number of times to talk. BOL!

The folks visited an apple orchard/pumpkin patch/Christmas tree farm a few weeks ago.  They said it was a great place for kids, but no pets were allowed.  The place has a huge store and the folks bought apples, caramel apples, apple cider donuts and popcorn. The sign said the baby rice popcorn melts in your mouth and is hull-less.  Mama loves making popcorn on Survivor night, so she bought two bags of popcorn.

The popcorn is small and it is hull-less, but it does not melt in your mouth.   We haven't tried the other bag yet.

We left Sycamore yesterday morning.  We were ready at 6:15 a.m..  Our stabilizer jacks came up easily.  They can be a real problem. We thought we were ready to go, but the motor home wouldn't start.  The battery was low.  We feared the worse because we only had one day to get to our new location because Dad had to be at work today.  Finally, we were able to hit the road!

So, where are we?

Clue #1 - We drove through this state.

Clue #2 - We stopped at this rest area.  It has buffalo made out of metal.

We didn't have time to sniff them.

Buddy is on the back of the Jeep.  He got wet yesterday.

Clue #3 -Our new location is near a Presidential library that the folks hope to visit.  It is currently closed because of the government shutdown.  GRRR!!!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Tired After 10 Hours Of Traveling (Clue #4)

John Deere Historic Site

Since this is our last weekend here, Dad told Mama she needed to find something fun for them to do today.  She came up with a few things, but decided on visiting the John Deere Historic Site.   In all honesty, Mama didn't know if would be fun, but they did it anyway.

The John Deere Historic Site is located near Dixon which is where Ronald Reagan's boyhood home is located.  They visited there in August.  You can read about it here. 

The folks said that the John Deere Historic Site was fun and educational.  The tour includes the archeological site.  In 1963, college students found the exact location where John Deere built his blacksmith shop. This is where he made the self-scouring steel plow. The plow did not have to be wiped off constantly like other plows. The first year he sold one, the second year he sold two.  Business picked up after that. 

This is the original blacksmith shop. This area is behind glass. The area is marked so that visitors can see what was in each "hole".

A short film is shown in the old blacksmith shop about John Deere.  It was very interesting.

The next stop is a replica of the blacksmith shop where a blacksmith does a very good demonstration. 

Plows

The next stop on the tour is the house that John Deere built for his family.  It started out as a three room house.  The only part of the house then was the portion on the left hand side.  He added the rest of the house later.

Mama did not take any photos of the inside of the house because 1) she only had her cell phone and the battery was running low and 2) none of the furnishings inside the house belonged to the Deere family.  The furnishings are not even what they would have had because the furniture was from the East and not from here.  The only thing that Mama wishes she would have taken a photo of was a doll that was found inside one of the walls of the house.  It was a very small doll that must have belonged to one of the Deere girls.

The final stop on the tour was the gift shop.  The folks bought a magnet that was made by the blacksmith.

Handmade magnet

 You may be asking yourself  "Where are the green tractor?"  Well, John Deere was dead for 30 years before the tractor was invented.  The blacksmith said that if John Deere had been run over by a tractor, he would have asked what it was.  When Mama was planning the trip to the site, it never occurred to her that there would not be any tractors there.  She said when she thinks of John Deere, she thinks of tractors and not plows.  She didn't get to ask her question which was "Why are the tractors green?"  BOL!   I guess she will have to Google it.

Mama didn't think there would be many people at the John Deere site, but it was packed.  Their tour had 50 people in it.  A tour bus full of people showed up as they were leaving, so it seems to be a popular place to visit.

The price of the tour is $5.  The folks were probably there for two hours or more. The folks are very happy that they went.

FYI:  Did you know that John Deere's wife's maiden name was Lamb?  Mama thought it was cute that her name was Lamb and his was Deere.

Joey,
The Greyhound Whose Sock Monkey Lost An Arm Today