Monday, September 12, 2011

TIME TO MOVE ON

Monday, September 12 – With a little sadness in our hearts, it's time to pull out of Canton, Ohio. We've enjoyed spending time with our family and friends and will miss them dearly.....we'll be back soon!

We are heading West to Elkhart, IN, to check out the RV furniture stores and motorhome factories. We have quite a few sights to see in the area and plan on spending about a week in that area.

After Elkhart, we will travel to the Louisville, KY, area again staying about a week. We plan on seeing the Louisville Slugger Factory & Museum, Churchill Downs, check out a couple restaurants recommended by our daughter, visit some distilleries on the Bourbon Trail and several other sights.

From Louisville, we'll travel to Augusta, GA, to visit with Paul's brother and our nephew. Our nephew, Ryan, and wife, Holly, recently had twins. We are anxious to see them and big brother, Noah.

From Augusta, we want to spend a week or more at the beach in Bay St.Louis, MS, or Foley, AL. We've stayed at both these beach towns in the past and had enjoyed are stays.

We want to be in Houston, TX, for Thanksgiving at our daughter's house. We'll stay at the Stafford Elks, just south of the city. Marsha will be flying back to Canton, OH, for some eye surgery and to spend the Christmas holidays with family. Paul will remain in Houston until Marsha returns, or like last year, will meet her in Mission, TX. We will spend the winter months of January and February at Hidden Valley Ranch in Mission.

These plans, of course, are etched on our Magic Slate and could easily change several times.

map

On Friday, we had a wonderful dinner with our daughter, Kelly, and her boyfriend, Dave. This is the last time we will see her on this visit. Thanks you two for a great time. We love you!

kelly-and-dave

Observation from a past blog…
We are aware that many of you are conscientious about buying U.S.A. products. Thanks to our friend, Duane,
Duane and Louise's Travels, who reminded us…our new Honda CRV was made in Ohio!!! If possible, buy U.S.A.!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

GETTING THE HONDA INTO TOW MODE

Tuesday, September 6 – Paul took the CRV to Summit Trailer Sales & Service today to have a hitch installed on the back for his bike rack. They did a super job....it looks really nice.

It's a little scary to take a brand new car into the shop and have a multitude of towing equipment installed. Hope it doesn't come out looking like a tank....LOL This is the same welding shop that installed the equipment on our Jeep Liberty over two years ago, so Paul's confident they'll do quality work.

Thursday, September 8 – Today we get the Air Force 1 braking system and Blue Ox tow bar re-installed on our Honda CRV. It will take all day today and a half day on Friday to complete the installation. Most of the tow bar installation is new equipment because taking it off the Jeep, our former toad, would be more expensive than simply buying new. It would also leave the Jeep fairly unsightly for a future buyer.

This installation is being completed by Summit Trailer Sales & Service the company that did the trailer hitch on Tuesday, and the same company that installed the equipment on our Jeep Liberty two years ago.

We closed up the motor home around 3 p.m. and drove up to Summit Trailer in Akron, about a 20 mile drive. We're spending the night in their parking lot so we'll be here and ready to go first thing in the morning. We won't wake up the neighbors by being parked in Marsha's brothers driveway and won't have to battle rush hour traffic driving up here in the morning. We have electric so we should be quite comfy for the night.

in-parking-lot

Friday, September 9 – We were ready to pull into the shop here at Summit Trailer Sales & Service first thing in the morning.

parked-next-to-bldg

The Honda installation is complete and looks great.

tow-equipment

The guys made the final connections to the MH electrical system. Poor Rick had the job of installing a LED light under the dash that comes on when the Air Force 1 system activates the Honda brakes.

rick-under-dash

That way you know it's working and also know if the toads brakes would lock-up for some unknown reason.  This is a new addition…we didn't have this light before…..nice!

brake-light-on-dash

When hooking the CRV up for towing, the last step is to pull Fuse 34. Instead of pulling this fuse each time, we had them install a switch that automatically turns the fuse off.  With the switch off, we don't have to worry about a dead battery when we arrive at our new destination.

fuse-lever

The technicians walked us through the new hookup procedure for the Honda. We were ready to pull-out and head back to Canton and Marsha's brothers driveway for the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

FUN DAY AT THE STARK COUNTY FAIR

Tuesday, September 6 – WOW has the weather changed. The high today was 59. Due to the electric problems here in Marsha's brothers driveway, we can't turn on any electric heat. We don't have our propane heater set up yet and refuse to do it this early! 

Today, we received our paperwork from the Livingston Texas Tax Office (Polk County) to register our new CRV. Thank goodness we can do this by mail because we won't be in Texas for a couple months. It's a pretty comprehensive under-taking. Several forms to fill-out, copies of titles to send in, and of course a check to write for fees and sales taxes.

We have an Ohio 30-day temporary tag on the car now, so need to get new Texas license plates before October 2.  We have our mail received by the Escapee Club in Livingston, so we'll have them received and forwarded somewhere down the road before our temporary tag expires. Hope this works out!

FLASH BACK TO
Wednesday, August 31 – It wouldn't be a normal Fall in Ohio if we didn't attend the
Stark County Fair with Marsha's dad. This is the 162nd year for the fair.

Midway
midway

Dad grew up on a farm so he really enjoys checking out the animals, 4-H entries, and machinery. To make it even more enticing, if we arrived before noon, entrance was FREE! We weren't the only ones looking for a good deal....the place was packed. We overheard a parking attendant say that they had already parked 1200 cars and it was only 11:30 am.

We were impressed with the crowd, fair ground cleanliness, and the number of animals on display. With much to see, we headed to the goat barn to begin our animal tour.

Some interesting facts…
Fair

Next was the pigs. There were some BIG BOYS among the many entries. Marsha loves to look at the pigs. She is enthralled with all the different ways they sleep.

pigs

Then the beef cattle and milking cows. Fred, Marsha's dad, was a milk farmer so we spent some time examining the cows. He actually worked the fields with a team of horses as a young boy.

cows

Scottish Highland
cow.scottish-highland-cattl

Get the lowdown on this one. Image gaining that much weight each day.cow-sign
cow...big

Speaking of horses, that was our next stop. This horse's name was Bella. Not to be confused with our cat Bella.
bella

Of course, there are the llamas.
llama-and-paul

There are always those cute little babies.
babies

Not only did we view the horse stables, but today the trotters were racing so we stopped at the track to view a couple races. It wouldn't be as much fun with out placing a bet, so we each placed $2 on a horse picked at random.

horse-race-betting

Marsha had horse #2, Fred #3 and Paul #4. Paul's horse led the entire race.....except the last few feet.

Paul's horse out front.
horse-paul-in-lead

It was a photo finish with horses #2 & #3 finishing in a dead heat in first place. The two dollar bet was good for a return of $12.50. That should cover our lunch!

Marsha's photo finish. We were just slightly behind the finish line.
horse-photo-finish

We then walked through the political area where people running for office were handing out tablets, fly swatters, rulers, buttons, bumper stickers, and flags. Not being a registered voter in Ohio any longer, we breezed through grabbing a couple free items.

Of course no visit to a fair is complete without visiting the “huckster” barn where people were selling "must haves" like gutter guards, aluminum siding, replacement windows, swimming pools, Vegamatics, dicers, miracle creams for back pain, and tickets to heaven.

Marsha's favorite area is the hobby barn where quilts, knitting, canning, flower arranging, cakes, pies, huge vegetables, photography, and other hobbies are entered for showing. Marsha should have entered one of her amazing baskets! OH…thanks hon for that endorsement.

This is for our friend Louise, Duane and Louise's Travels, who does amazing quitting, and for a recent fair winner herself, Paulette, Rick & Paulette's RV Travels.
quilts

The flowers this year were amazing. Marsha never saw a brown sunflower.sunflower

Pie judging for our friend Joyce, who every year judges pies at another local fair.
pie-judging

We roamed through the machinery, the trapping & hunting buildings, the 4-H areas, and of course 100's of food wagons. Amazingly, we were able to skip the sausage sandwiches, fries, onion rings, and soft drinks.

The men had to check out the tractors.
dad-tractor

If you ever complain about having a neighbor toooo close, check this out.
too-close 

Now that is close. That's how they park them in the fairgrounds. This one was our favorite.
browns-camper

It was a great day at the Fair. Tired from walking all day, we headed to a local eatery for sandwiches to conclude a wonderful time. Thanks for lunch, dad!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll again. Have a great day!