Back on the road

After a month of visiting in Ohio, we are headed south again. We really enjoyed our visit with friends and family. A big thanks goes to our daugter and son-in-law, Rachel and Benji for their hospitility and the use of their yard for the last month. I spent last weekend at the annual blacksmiths conference in Troy. I had a great time talking to old friends and meeting a few new ones. Barbara Harmon and her friend Gene came to the fairgrounds for a visit Saturday night. They had a good time watching the forging compitition and looking over the items in the gallery. Last evening we spent with daughter Stacy in Cincinnati. Today it was off to Knoxville, TN for a few days of driving around the Smokies. Tomorrow we will drive to Townsend, TN to the carving store and in search of quilting stores.
Still next time
Duane and Louise

All the girls liked the sparkly shoes
Checking out gifts from us

A beautiful princess card

We have been very busy doing nothing much, mostly visiting daughter Rachel and family. Friday was Madeliene's 5th birthday. We gave her our gifts then. The top pic is at her birthday party next day admiring pink sparkly shoes with mom Rachel and various cousins. Tuesday and today we actually went sightseeing, but both times SOMEONE forgot his camera. Tuesday we went to downtown Dayton (Ohio, of course) to the National Aviation Museum and Wright Brothers Complex. We went there primarily to get Duane's senior's national parks pass. Woo Woo!!! Now we can get in any national park, site, memorial, or recreational area for free for life. We also get 1/2 price camping in any national park run campground. We stayed for a very pleasant and eye opening three hour visit of the complex. This consists of a very nice museum and gift shop, the historic Hoffman Building where the brothers ran one of their print shops, and one of the buildings where they ran their bicycle shops. Just outside of this complex is the site of the house they built and lived in for many years with their family. This house has been moved to Michigan and is now a part of the Greenfield Village Museum. The Complex is part of the Aviation Trail, a driving tour to various places around the area which are important in aviation history. The museum also pays tribute to Dayton native Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the first nationally published black writer. He wrote plays, song lyrics, essays and stories, but is best known for his poetry.

Today we visited Amish Country with our friend Barbara Harmon. Our first stop was Dover and the Warther Museum. This was our second visit and Barbara's fourth. Ernest "Mooney" Warther was a self-taught master carver who specialized in carving steam trains in perfect detail and perfect scale. One of his most famous is the Lincoln funeral train, carved in ebony and ivory. All of his trains moving parts actually move. They are assembled with tiny pins, as the glue available was unstable. Awsome. He is most famous for his pliars tree. He fashioned this from a single piece of wood. It consists of 511 working pliars made with 31ooo cuts and no shavings. It took two months. More awsome. From there we drove through Sugarcreek to Walnut Creek and had ice cream for lunch at one of the new shop complexes. After making various purchases and a serendipitous meeting with one of Barbara's cousins and his wife (small world!) we drove through beautiful rolling farm country to visit various craft shops in Berlin (BER lin) and Millersburg. There were many other towns and villages to visit but we only had one day so we just drove along Rt. 39. Supper at the Cracker Barrel in Hilliard (outside Columbus) rounded out our day trip.

Enough til later.

Louise and Duane

A trip to the service center

Mud daubbers nest in furnace

We took the rv to the service center in Troy for an oil change and lube. We also had them look at the front furnace that was not working. I thought there was a bad part in it and my warrenty would pay for it, BOY WAS I WRONG!! They took the furnace out and found mud daubber nests on the burner and in the heat tubes. I knew that I had had a nest in the blower, but it worked after I took that out. They had built the nests when we worked at Hidden Cove outside of Dallas last year. It worked fine till I tried to use it since we reached Ohio. I looked at it and thought it had a bad part in it so I had them work on it. Oh well.... They also checked for a slow leak in the air system, didn't find anything wrong. After $506.00 we got it back. That was for everything of course. I think I will take the back furnace out myself and check it out. This has been a rough month on the pocketbook. Insurance and repairs both this month, almost a whole retirement check. If anyone out there feels sorry for us, we are accepting donations to pay for it...LOL While the rv was in the shop, I mowed the grass for the birthday party this weekend. Madeleine will be 5 tomorrow, the party is Saturday.

Till next time

Duane and Louise

Hangin out in Troy

Simon
Maddy and Simon chasing bubbles
Judah

We are hanging out in Troy, Ohio. Sunday we went to Piqua to the festival where the kids got to ride the ponies and do some crafts. They each got their face painted and all had a good time. After the festival, Louise and I headed for my brother Dennis's house. We rode with them to Kristy's, our niece, for her and Lisa's sons birthday party. This was first time we had seen some of the grand nieces and nephews in 5 years. Both my brothers were there too. We had a great time talking about old times and what the future holds for everyone. Monday evening was spent at Barbara Harmon's house. We met her friend and played cards after eating a great meal.

We got a call from the Escapees today. We start our training to work for Escapees parks in Livingston, TX on Feb. 15. It will take about 6 months to get through our commitment with them. After we complete our training, we have to work 3 months out of the year to stay in the system. They have 8 parks around the country that we can transfer among.

Till next time

Duane and Louise