Biloxi, Mississippi - WOW!

We arrived in Biloxi to spend some time with an organization known as "Hands On" for which our niece Sara Hamilton works as a coordinator helping to organize and direct a steady stream of volunteers. There are quite a few volunteers helping out this city after the destruction from Hurricane Katrina, and its needed judging from initial appearances. We arrived Sunday afternoon to find that at least two of the major routes into town were still out (bridges blown away) and the devastation along the shoreline unbelievable. I will post some more pictures as we see more this week, but below are the first pictures we took on the way in. It surprised me that after 14 or 15 months that the devastation was so totally apparent.

One of the many piers that are now longer usable

View from foundations of resturant no longer around

Signs still standing of long gone businesses

One of the areas that Hands On is working

Organizations such as HANDS ON are trying to make a difference like renovating parks, feeding homeless, mold removal, new construction and, even taking care of the animals at the Humane Society. They do anything and everything and work out of a rented church building that now houses up to 300 volunteers. It appears that 90% of the volunteers are between 18 and 25 with a few of us old folks thrown in. Were going to be here through the week to help as we can and frankly feel good about it. Our first job was to work a soup kitchen for the day on Monday...it was fun and rewarding at the same time. More to come.

Mammoth Cave National Park

Main Cave Entrance

After leaving the factory and repairs behind we finally got on the road Thursday morning. When we stopped later in the day we suddenly realized that our time was our own and that we just happened to be near Mammoth Cave National Park. Not having to be anywhere clinched our decision to become adventurous and check out the national park with our "Golden Age Passports" which offer most things free or half price at all the National Parks. I know Emily (our daughter in law) will be disappointed that she was not with us as this sort of thing is right up her alley. I do have to say I was a bit apprehensive and claustrophobic when we first entered the cave. The larger chambers were ok but some of the cracks we had to squeeze through surprised me.







Thought I would attach a couple of pictures from inside the cave which even with a new camera do not do justice to the beauty of all the natural formations we saw. The chambers sometimes were huge with the ranger that was giving us the tour describing what we saw and explaining about the underground waterways that had carved out some 367 miles of cave found so far. They estimate that that is only about half of what they believe to be in the area.

One of two other kind of unique things we saw was the last cable/paddlewheel ferry still in use across the Green River in the national park. See below
On the way in to where the visitors center was I noticed a small strange little engine and railcar that was used in the early years to transport people to the cave opening and the nearby hotels. The trip was only 9 miles but beautiful country side and as I said somewhat special and unique.


Saturday we left for Biloxi with an overnight at a small park near Montgomery Alabama... Northern Alabama is absolutely beautiful with the trees just finishing up their color show.

Coach is done!!!!

Well after three days at the plant having things repaired we feel like we are in a new coach....well almost! Many things repaired and we are pleased with the way we were treated and taken care of. It was kind of nice to be treated like a valuable customer!
While there we met a couple that was written up in the Wall Street Journal a while back about their commitment to establishing a "Lemon Law" relative to the sale of new motorhomes. They have had a terrible time and after hearing the true scoop on things I do not envy the problems they have had with what is now a beautiful coach and almost what it is supposed to be. Below is their coach in the "campground" waiting for service and a good picture of them doing what they do while the work is going on. They have been there since the 2nd of October!!!!


The smiles on their face are nice to see as they have had real problems resolving all that has gone wrong with their new coach (over six figures of repairs and adjustments and 14 months of agony trying to resolve all the issues relative to their home...yes they are full timers and live in this coach full time. What I was most pleased with about their story was that they believe as I do that that this facility is the best and does fix problems to their customers satisfaction. Below are two views of the repair facility in Elkhart where the people know what they are doing.
Thats our coach below in the middle.

Anyway, we are in Cave City, Kentucky heading ? We thought we would have a little respite.....

Just a side note to my good friends Art, Bud & Dave...were only a very short distance from the Corvette Museum at Bowling Green! Maybe tomorrow.

It is great to be on the road again...we will be keeping you up to speed more regularly now.

On the Road!

We leave this morning for Elkhart Indiana to get the last of the repairs done at the factory and then on to ? The plan is to head warm and were thinking Natchez Trace for the moment but will decide in a day or two. Pictures and regular blog reports to come.

Packing the coach

Seems like forever but the coach is pretty much been fixed and were packing to leave early for the warmth of the South. Lots of plans but nothing for sure except a quick stop at the manufacturing plant to finish up a few things and then were off to North Carolina (Durham) for our first stop. Blog will be up to speed as we go and not so dormant like we have been.

Repairs

Ever since we had the blowout we have had a variety of small things that all seem to be related to the blowout damage done under the coach. We decided that the smartest thing to do was to go to the factory for advice and arrange to have those problems and some others repaired. The Monaco plant is in Elkhart, Indiana and they are very receptive to helping your resolve problems with their units. They provide a campsite (40 or spaces)with electrical and water hookups. There is a dumpstation also provided if you stay takes too long. Bottom line is they really treat you well. Tomorrow we have an appointment to have the coach looked over by a tech and we are to give him list of what we need or want done. From there we will decide how much we want to do and how much it will cost. Will keep you posted.
I just added pictures of the "campground" that Monaco provides which has everything you need...even a free laundromat.

Our campsite

A couple of more serious repairs

New units ready to be built

Getting Ready

The weather is cooling and I was finally able to post our picture on the profile part of the blog ....seeing that sand and water of the keys just getting me itchy to follow that warm sunshine south. We are having the motorhome repaired where the blowout caused some problems and we have invested in new shocks and tires. I'm almost ready to go. Its been hard to post this summer as it is more difficult to find things when your not moving. Won't be long though.

The weather is cooling and I was finally able to post our picture on the profile part of the blog ....seeing that sand and water of the keys just getting me itchy to follow that warm sunshine south. We are having the motorhome repaired where the blowout caused some problems and we have invested in new shocks and tires. I'm almost ready to go. Its been hard to post this summer as it is more difficult to find things when your not moving. Won't be long though.

Jag's on the Manistee

We just spent the holiday weekend on the Manistee River at our friends place where they actually made a campsite for us to use. See below:


The weekend turned out to be really nice with warm sunshine during the day and cool evenings to sleep well. We had a campfire each night and canoed the river one day and spent some time at a crapshow in Houghton Lake.....sorry I meant to say craft show.......

The Manistee River as always is beautiful.....




We did run across something a little unique. The guy that lives below has put in his supply of wood for the year and then some. I'm not sure how he will get the upper logs down without the whole thing collapsing but it is quite a pile of logs!


Next stop for us will be Harsens Island for a visit with old friends in two weeks.

Motorhome Heaven

Lowes Motor Speedway became a motorhome Mecca this week with 4,000 or so people with their motorhomes came to see the 2007 offerings by most of the motorhome manufacturers. Lots of people were wheeling and dealing for new coaches and boy oh boy it is tempting when you see these things and how comfortable they have become. It is certainly a far cry from what we had as our first motorhome. All electric units that are no different from home and when slides are totally opened over 400 sqft of living space. There was also a huge number of vendors of every little gadget you could think of to use on the road.
The displays were set in a huge field that probably was 40 plus acres with everything imaginable for choices. Although, I do think that the units displayed were on the high end without too many class C or B coaches. We of course started looking at the high end Prevost conversions that range in price from $1,000,000 to believe it or not $2,500,000......I did say looking!!!!
It's really hard to believe that some of the units are the price that they are, but they have all kinds of amenities that today cost an arm and leg. These units are really to live in not camp.
Yes the red carpet was out!
We do enjoy our motorhome and the urge to get a new one when you see these units gets to fever pitch, but sanity finally came through and although I love these things and the travel that they make possible, the prices are a bit steep.
One particularly nice thing about these conventions is that the manufacturers offer repair services to your coach without labor charges.... only parts have to paid for. This was exceptionally nice as the tire blowout damage we had on the way down was more extensive that we thought. We ended up having a wiring harness reworked and some step parts replaced right where we camped. Thank you Monaco.

FMCA Convention - Charlotte, N.C.

We have belonged to FMCA for 30 some years and have attended their conventions before but its really just a chance to rub elbows with the manufacturers and talk motorhome stuff.....Marge and I both hate doing that!!!!!
We had a rather bad start however.... our front right steering tire blew out on the way down and two new tires and a 4 hour delay was not much fun. It also took out some wiring under the coach but I was able to repair most of it. We may be able to have the Holiday Rambler people look at it down here.

Right Front Excitement

While some things at this convention started today, the main focus with seminars and information really starts in the morning. They have a lot of interesting things from safety driving courses to fnancial seminars and the displays open tomorrow afternoon. We were assigned a site and were quite lucky to have a reasonably open site instead of packed in between some of the 5,000 to 7,00o coaches that are here.

Our corner of the world.

Will send lots of motorhome info once we get it!

Tubing on the Manistee 2006

This was the 35th year we have been doing this....that is tubing or canoeing down the Manistee River and this year we had somewhere around 50 people. Each year this group of friends arrive at the CCC Bridge campground on the Manistee River for a few days of fun, family and a campfire that is enjoyed by all. The weather held and all of us had a wonderful time.

The only way to go!

Our friend Leslie and her niece and nephew

Loading up for the down river float

Just part of the group

Just the Taylor clan with spouses and children

Two of the original founders ....the Ritchies

Our future tubers!!

Jack....My Grandson enjoying his mother and his aunt from Colorado.

As mentioned this trip has been going over 35 years with 4 generations now of my family. We have gone from camping in tents and misbehaving to motorhomes and still misbehaving with all having a great time. The river has had a lot of water flow and the times we have had will always be remembered.

Next stop for us is the FMCA convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Trees Trees Trees

We're in the woods and we have to go to the library in Graying to connect, but we are enjoying ourselves greatly in this warm weather and a nice cool river to soak in. The Manistee River is a beautiful trout stream and the CCC Bridge State Forest Campground is absolutely one of the more beautiful campgrounds in Michigan. No services but spots located right on the river and with a campfire at night just a very beautiful, quiet, relaxing place to be. Will post some pictures of our annual tubing trip shortly.

Holiday Travel Park - Traverse City

I have made mention that my favorite private park in Michigan is located on Silver Lake just south of Traverse city, Michigan. It has about two hundred sites of which 70 or so are absolutely beautiful. It is very well kept and has on some sites really unique features like the 10 or so sites on the "isthmus" I have stayed on the isthmus and enjoyed waking at dawn and wading out to catch a few fish on my fly rod. Totally quiet and calm casting as the birds start singing in the morning....pretty hard to beat. There are other amenities like the beach area which is sandy and ideal for little ones. They have rental boats and canoes, playgrounds etc.
Of course not all sites are on the water and those that aren't still are quite nice. The campground was built some years ago by the Wally Byam Airstream owners group and was limited to airstream owners. While the park limits ownership of lots to airstream product owners the lots when not in use are rented as a regular campground. Our lot this time has a separate little area for campfire and is nicely landscaped.
There are new lots that have all the amenities but are somewhat distant from the lake, but they two are nice and of course the campground is so close to everything that Traverse City offers.

NEW POST !!!!!

I have to apologize for the lack of posts, but two problems .....we've been very much homebody's and on our trip to the Magnolia Music Fest to see Lonestar we got caught quite literally in a tornado in Ohio which damaged our DATASTORM Link to the Internet. M ostly though we have been busy. Our Datastorm should be repaired in the next few days and we are starting to travel again. We are now at our favorite Michigan Campground......Holiday Park in Traverse City on Silver Lake. It's an old "Wally Byam" Airstream exclusive campground, except not exclusively Airstream anymore. Were going to be here through the weekend visiting friends seeing the sights. We'll get camera going tomorrow and show you whats up.

Memorial Day - Jackson, Michigan

We have been home long enough!!!! I missed the motorhome and Marge did too. Memorial Day weekend we left early (Tuesday) and decided that we would combine a little of my business with a trip north. I had some contact to make with people in Jackson Michigan and we decided to see what else was of interest and low and behold there was this fantastic old train station that still operates as an AMTRACK stop. What classic neat architecture.....and brick streets too!


We followed along the track to find a Norfolk Southern rail yard and what appeared to be older rail repair and warehouse buildings from a different era that also have interesting architectural details.

We camped at a place called Greenwood Acres that was the sight of the Goose Lake Music Festivals in the late 60's and 70's. Concerts were put on here in an attempt to copy Woodstock. It didn't have the success that Woodstock had but there was a quite a party here when it was active. Below is what was the stage with light towers. Oh and that's us in the Campground.

Thursday we head to the Upper Manistee River

Freighter Adventure

We have been home now for about 4 weeks and its time to do something soon. I have been ready to go again almost as soon as we got home. It's nice to be home and catch up particularly with the grandkids, but we both enjoyed traveling so much that I miss it. We did however share an adventure that was quite interesting that I thought would be worth sharing with everyone. Our boating friends belong to a group of wood boat hobbyists that planned an excursion to a Lakes Freighter that sailed the Great Lakes for almost 80 years. It was built at the same time and with the same methods that the Titanic was built with rivets and steel. It hasn't sunk yet, but is more or less resting on the bottom of the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio now that it has become a museum.

The ship has obviously seen better days but it was fascinating to see how nice it must have been "back in the day" as our guide put it. Fine wood paneling and surprisingly large kitchen facility. The crew was sizeable in those days (30 +or-)as it took quite a number to be able to load unload and handle that large a ship (700' long and 68' wide) There were only a few passenger cabins but they quite nice, but being in the bow would be uncomfortable if there were heavy seas at all. I tried to take a picture of just one of 4 huge holds but it was so big the flash would not light it all up enough to show.
The view below is from the pilot house back to the stern showing all the hold covers. Todays freighters are capable of moving 4 times as much ore or grain and are substantially more automated with unloaders built in. This was also a steam operated freighter with coal then later fuel oil was used for the boilers.
The picture below was taken amidships towards the bow and pilot house.


While I have enjoyed boating and particularly fishing in the Great Lakes, I can not imagine what it would been like to have been on a working boat such as this. I know I would not have enjoyed any kind of heavy weather.