Bye-Bye Email Subscription

A fair number of you have signed up for our email subscription. You get an email with our blog post when we post a new entry. We have been notified that Feedburner, the company that provides that service, will be discontinuing the service. We thought the service expired at the end of June. Apparently, it's the beginning of June. 

We are considering our options. We may leave our blog here and continue posting. The only difference is that you no longer get an email when we post something new. We may also move the blog to a different website that has an email subscription feature. We're looking at switching to Wordpress, but haven't designed the page yet. 

We will be a bit busy over the next couple of weeks with the arrival of our new coach and some friends and family time. So time devoted to blog decisions will be limited. We will continue to post something about once a week and we'll let you know what we decide. 

Thanks for reading.

Museum of Science and Industry

Harold had visited the Museum of Science and Industry years ago while stationed at Great Lakes. It was time to revisit. In a very kind gesture, the museum offers free admission to active duty military and veterans. 

Capitalizing on our new knowledge of the South Shore Line and the Dune Park station, we took the train to the museum. It was $8.00 per person each way. The $32.00 round trip for the the both of us was far less stressful than driving. Assuming that we would have been able to get in the parking garage with our rooftop case on the Jeep, the rate to park was $22.00. The train took a little over an hour and we don't think driving would have been that much faster.

Dune Park to 55th-56th-57th

All Aboard!

About the first thing you see when you enter the museum is the Pioneer Zephyr, a futuristic looking train that completed the Denver to Chicago run in just over 13 hours back in 1934. In some ways, it looks like something that would grace the cover of a comic book, which ties in to the current major exhibit of Marvel Superheroes. 

Art Deco Silver

The Marvel Superheroes exhibit is an additional cost of course. Even so, it's very popular and we considered ourselves lucky to get one of the timed entry tickets. The exhibit consists primarily of original art and costumes from all the recent movies. Unless you're a comic book aficionado, you could probably skip the exhibit and not feel like you missed out on too much. 

Marvel Comics #1

Iron Man costumes

We did see the U-505, the only German sub in the USA. This exhibit, one that Harold remembered, was one of the main reasons for revisiting the museum. Captured in 1944, the saga of its capture and its subsequent arrival at the museum is quite interesting. Inside submarine tours were closed because of covid.

U-505

John Deere fans would love the Farm Tech exhibit. We smiled at the kids standing in the wheel wells of the tractor tires and liked the cutaway view of the combine. 

Combine cutaway

Since we were tired, we almost skipped Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. It was well worth the few minutes we spent viewing it. I lost count of how many times the audio tour mentioned "real" when describing things like the diamond and gold chandelier, the silver coach, the jade statues - all in miniature scale. It cost over $500 thousand to make at the time of it's creation, an estimated $7 million in today's dollars. 

Fairy Castle

The museum had such a variety of exhibits - a hand carved circus, model ships, model railroad with a huge diorama, airplanes, a coal mine (closed for covid), and a weather science exhibit in addition to the ones noted above.  

We were glad we went. We were glad we took the train. We were glad to be back in Indiana at the end of the day. Chicago is not necessarily our kind of town. ; )

Where Are We Going Next?

Indiana Dunes National Park

Since we were staying in Nappanee for a time, we made it a point to visit Indiana Dunes National Park. It was about an hour and a half away and made for a nice day trip. The park designation was changed in 2019 from a national seashore to a national park. Within the national park boundary is Indiana Dunes State Park. You need to pay attention to where you're driving unless you want to pay the entrance fee to the state park. 

We drove to West Beach and took the Dunes Succession Trail. I think it was 168 steps to the top of the first dune. Thankfully, there weren't many people around, and we felt safe enough to leave the masks off for this outdoor climb. Then we walked along part of the West Beach Trail before deciding that we had walked enough. 

Before the climb

View from the top

Down the other side 

Lake Michigan shore line

For the most part, you are not allowed to climb the dunes on your own. You are to stick to the trails in order to protect the dunes. This was very different from the dunes at White Sands National Park and Great Sand Dunes National Park where you could go sand sledding and sand boarding. These dunes also had a lot more vegetation on them.

Next, we drove to the Mt. Baldy area of the park. Mt. Baldy is the tallest dune in the park. It's also the most active, and the summit is closed for the public's safety. We noticed that the dune had partially covered one of the roads out of the parking area. 

Road closed

Indiana Dunes National Park felt very much like a park in an industrial environment. Steel mills and railroads were nearby, and the Chicago skyline was visible across Lake Michigan. Dunes Park Station is on the South Shore Line for easy rail access to Chicago. Both the state park and national park have campgrounds which would make for a quiet retreat from the city.

Where Are We Going Next?

Solitary Confinement

I am currently a part time, on-call employee as a Federal Government contractor.

I was tapped to act as the test conductor on a US Navy ship.  Due to Covid 19 pandemic restrictions, prior to embarking the ship and interacting face-to-face with the ship's crew, I had to self-quarantine for fourteen days near the ship's port in a hotel.  I was assigned to cell 812.

On "cell block" eight

Well, I was lucky enough to get a long-term stay hotel with a separate living room and bedroom. It has a small kitchen with an oven being the only missing appliance. I had an interesting view out the window but it was noisy as the interstate ran right outside the hotel.

The five construction cranes were entertaining

Now I know how the Apollo Astronauts felt like when they returned to earth, but I was in this alone.

Apollo 11 Crew in an Airstream with an important visitor. President Nixon.

I was allowed out of my room to engage in low and moderate-low risk actives so twice I got takeout Sushi. Mmmmmmm, Sushi.

It is sad to see high end Sushi in a plastic box, Yes there is O-Toro in there!

Well, on about day ten I was told to go home. One of the required pieces of the test needed some attention. So, the ship's schedule slid right. I get to do this all over again in a couple of weeks.  UGH.

So how would you react to two weeks in solitary?

Where Are We Going Next?

Heinlein House

While we were staying at the Family Campground on the US Airforce Academy we drove to see the home of one of my favorite science fiction authors.

Sometimes called the 'dean of science fiction writers,' Robert A. Heinlein was one of the leading figures of science fiction's Golden Age and one of the authors most responsible for establishing the science fiction novel as a publishing category. He died on May 8, 1988.

It was the feature article in the Popular Mechanics magazine June of 1952 issue!!! The article was entitled A House to Make Life Easy

Where the house used to be.

Where Are We Going Next?

Abandoned on the Trail

Steve needed a little more help moving RVs to his sales lot. This time he let me pull travel trailers, which are much shorter and have less mass than the fifth wheels he had me move previously. Plus, all trips were in daylight hours.  He also let me move RVs without him.  Elizabeth went with me on the first few trips to get out of the house for a while.

He even provided me with addresses, gate codes and a crude back-of-the-napkin type maps to make sure I could get there and back again.

In the last snow fall of the year.

The first trailer was a lightweight single-axle Aspen Trail.  I think it weighed less than the truck, but there was an issue with the weather....

In the mud bowl, AKA the manufacturer's lot.

The second one, he allowed me to use his new truck! Nice ride with chilled seats and it is a torque monster.

Numbers three and four.

Now it is getting to be old hat.

Steve's empty sales lot

The reason Steve needed my help is he has sold off all his inventory of travel trailers.  Recreational Vehicle (RV) sales are HOT right now.  It is a good problem to have, but on the down side, he has no travel trailers to show people.  He is selling them faster than the factory can produce them.  In the photo above you see one class A RV and some fifth wheels that are for sale. The single travel trailer you see is already sold...  This lot is normally full of trailers. 

I do joke with Steve about being a non-paid employee, but I am having fun helping out family by wearing out some pickup trucks.  It keeps me from getting bored while waiting for our current motor home to sell and our new motor home to come off the production line.

I have moved two motor homes for him, one to the Ford dealer for some warrantee work, and one to a heavy duty diesel shop for third party inspection that was requested by a customer as a contingency on its sale. 

Thrown under the bus, correction, trailer

Credit to Merle Haggard.

Big wheel's rollin'; Big wheel's rollin', movin' on.

Big wheel's rollin'; gotta keep 'em goin'.

Big wheel's rollin', movin' on.

Movin' on, yeah.

 Elizabeth's cousin Steve needed a little help. He had just a few hours to get a few RVs from the manufacturer's lot in Goshen to his lot in Nappanee.  It was about 22 miles each way. It was TRIAL BY FIRE for me. 

Up to this point, the largest trailer I have pulled was our 2001 Coleman Utah popup camper that was 25'9" long, 7'5" wide and weighed in at a hefty 2500 Lbs.

Steve handed me the keys to Junelle's white pickup and asked me to move two of the seven trailers for him. I thought I would be towing a travel trailer or two but boy was I wrong. He jumped in his black pickup truck with his friend Larry, and it was off to the races.

 I had never hooked up a 5th wheel, so I had Steve connect up to the first load.

First one.

The first one was the biggest of the two - a Keystone Alpine 3700FL. Its specs are 41.42 ft. long, 8 feet wide, 13.33 ft tall and 13,793 lbs. empty.....

Second one still hooked up.

The second one was a Keystone Cougar 368MBI. It was petite by comparison at 39.33 ft. long, 8 feet wide, 12.58 ft. tall and only 11,695 lbs. empty.....

 These photos were taken the next morning at Steve's lot. We were in too big of a hurry to get them moved by the "Get 'Em Off Our Lot" deadline.

 We started the haul at 8:30 p.m. So, I was driving an unfamiliar vehicle, pulling the largest trailer I have ever pulled, at night, on unfamiliar roads, doooing my best to keep Steve's trailer lights in sight so I would not lose my way.

 Did I mention that Steve treats those signs on the side of the road with large numbers as a suggestion, NOT a law? We were flying low.  I am so glad I did not have to pay the governor's velocity tax as it would have been painful.

 Well, it was quite an evening of entertainment. I did have to remember that all the best stories in life come from saying "Yes.".

I felt like Will Chandler chasing Sonny Pruitt, or just like those guys in NASCAR chasing ol' #43 around the track. I could never catch up.....

Where Are We Going Next?