Wed, Sept 30 - Day 16

 Made a trip to the RV store this morning, no news on when our axles will be delivered. Kathy and I think it is now to late for us to take a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway this year. We don't want to be gone more than 4 weeks. We think we will make our way back toward Centertown once the repairs are complete. We might go down to the Ohio River, follow it over to the Mississippi and then follow the Mississippi north. We could spend some time exploring the river towns.

More importantly this has been a learning experience for me. I talk a good talk about believing that my Lord is watching closely over me and wanting only what is best for me, but I don’t do a very good job of walking the walk. It takes a lot of time to get things through my thick skull.

It is no accident we are here. God has a plan and it is a detailed plan. He is not on vacation, or taking a nap, or to busy with something else, to be fully aware of what is happening during our trip. I/We don’t know, and may never know, how our being forced to spend this much time in Coldwater fits in His plan, but it does. I need to be more aware that there is a purpose for this and be looking for opportunities that He might be providing me/us with, so that we can take an active part in His plan.

It was WINDY here today. When I looked at Weatherbug around noon the wind was blowing 16 mph with 25 mph gusts. Kathy, my sister-in-law said that gusts of over 50 mph had been reported in the area. It also misted rain on and off. It would definitely not have been a good day to be on the road with an RV. Some weekend people who leave their units here during the week leave their slides out. The wind shredded the slide toppers on one of the units. They slide toppers probably had some age on them and the wind finished them off.

Kathy fixed roast beef, mashed potatoes, squash and deviled eggs for supper. We took the food out to Mom’s. David and Kathy came down  and we had supper together.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Monday & Tuesday, Sept 28 & 29 - Days 14 & 15

 Monday

I went to a Rockwell American distribution center in Angola, IN Monday morning, to see if I could buy axles from them. They have an 8 week backlog. (How can it possibly be that we have so many in need of welfare when you can't seem to buy anything, because there are no workers to make what you want?)

Kathy went out and spent several hours at Mom's while I stayed at the camper.

In the afternoon Ed & Cindy (Kathy's sister and her husband who live in NW Ohio) stopped in for a visit. They had been out "exploring". We had a nice visit with them.

Tuesday - Still stranded in Coldwater

Today's high was a breezy 64. It was 44 out when we got up this morning. If we are here Thursday and Friday the overnight lows are supposed to be in the 30's. 

In the morning I went out to Mom's and replaced a sink strainer. After that I stopped by Haylett's RV to check on the status of our axles. They were closed, both yesterday & today, while a section of their parking lot was being repaved. 

In the afternoon I removed the active propane tank and had it refilled at Tractor Supply. It took 5.6 gallons, I think holds 6.6 gallons if completely empty. We are now ready for several weeks of cold weather.

Kathy and I took a walk around the campground. There are at least one hundred small pine trees around the campground. The one in the photo below was certainly doing its best to reproduce.

We only saw a pine cone on one other tree.

This leaves on this little tree have turned to a beautiful red.

The campground is very quiet this week. I think less than 10 sites have people in the RV's.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Sunday, 092720 - Day 13

13 days on the road, 1,050 miles on the truck, and we are less than 600 miles from Centertown. Sure hope our new axles arrive soon.

We overslept this morning and didn't make it to church. Didn't accomplish much. Did go out to Mom's for supper. Both Kathy's made soup.

Back at the campground in the evening. The lake was beautiful. There is a gazebo, with multiple porch swings, that overlook the lake. Someone flying an ultralight made passes over the lake, up high. Was interesting to watch. There are at least 5 swans on the lake.

Standing at gazebo looking back over one end of campground. Our truck and trailer is about in the center of the photo.

Lots of campers left today. Some of the seasonal lakefront renters were winterizing their units. Saw three boats and on pontoon pulled out of the water and leaving on trailers. My guess is that less than 15% of the spaces have campers with people currently staying in them.

Talked to a guy a couple of rows over. He travels the nation installing the underground wiring for wind farms. He has even been to Hawaii. He said Hawaii wasn't that much fun, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week the entire time he was there.

Friday & Saturday, Sept 25 & 26 - Days 11 & 12

 Friday - Kathy went to Hamilton Lake, Indiana to spend some time with her sister Judy. Its about 30 miles from the campground. I stayed at the camper and did some maintenance in the AM. During the afternoon 15-20 campers pulled in for the weekend.

In the evening we met family at the Moose Lodge in Fremont, Indiana, for fish. For years we have went to the Moose for fish on Friday nights when we were in the Coldwater area. Perhaps our taste buds have changed, but neither Kathy nor I thought the fish was as good as we remembered.

Saturday - I took a walk first thing in the morning. There were at least a dozen kids trying to wear out the campground's playground equipment. 20 minutes later, as I was getting back to our camper, there wasn't a kid in sight at the playground. I think they must have all heard the call, "BREAKFAST". 

We drove over to Sturgis, MI for lunch at Maria's Mexican restaurant. Our meals were excellent!

It was a beautiful day again. Farmers were out in the fields.

A few days ago my brother-in-law was telling me about the recent sale of a couple of 70 parcels of farm ground, near him in NW Ohio. The ground sold for around $6,000/acre. No farmer can make money farming $6,000/acre ground. The only justification for these insane land prices is constant government subsidies. There must be over a million dollars worth of farm equipment in the photos above and they don't even show the two combines.

Leaves are starting to change colors. It has been dry here and we were surprised to see some reds.

Kathy took the above photos through my dirty truck windshield. The red color in the photo directly above was much more pronounced.

We then drove out north of Coldwater, a direction we had not been. The north side used to be where all the merchant growth seemed headed. It is now pretty dead. All the merchant growth (Walmart, Meijer, Home Depot, etc.) are all on the east side of town. We were on old Hwy US 27 coming back into town when we noticed a sight we had not seen for years. The steeple of the First Presbyterian Church can be seen from several miles when driving into Coldwater from the north.

In the evening we went out to Mom's for a hot dog roast. We enjoyed the campfire until dark. From left to right, Colton, my brother's grandson, Mom, David, Kathy, his wife, Kathy, my wife and my empty chair.

A highlight of the evening was a ride around the east side of Coldwater Lake in my brothers 51 year old Chevelle. Once out in the country a hole shot and trip up to 120 mph was exhilarating. He has some type of radial tires that have a phenomenal bite when launching. 

I forgot to take a photo of it but below are photos from a couple of  years ago.

Today's little hopped up, turbo'd, rice burners might be quicker, but they will never come close to matching the excitement produced by a good ole American V8.

God  is good, may He bless you and yours.

PS. Still no word on when our new axles will arrive and be installed. God must want us to stay here for a few more days before heading to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Thur, 9/24/20 - Day 10

 Didn't do a lot again today. It was another beautiful day so we spend some time outside, but mostly at the campground.

In the morning Kathy needed to go get her glasses fixed so we went to Walmart for that, took forever to get the right person. Took the right person less than 5 minutes to do the repair. Then we went over to Meijer to pick up a few things. On the way out I took a different route, a road that wasn't in existence when we lived here, and we came up on this 

Its a 2.2 million square foot hydroponics setup to grow tomatoes and cucumbers.

Next door is a 1.7 million square foot facility to grow peppers.

And a 13KW natural gas fired generating station that provides steam to heat the greenhouses.

The parent company for the greenhouses is Mastronardi Produce, a Canadian company. The generating station is owned by the city of Coldwater.

This facility is down the road a couple of miles from the campground.

While doing some surfing to find information on the facility I hit on the YouTube video about the generating station. It has great photos of the greenhouse facility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VUB3FC_W2w

Another thing that struck me as we drove around is the incredible number of small business in the area. I noted in an earlier post that the county population hasn't grown much in the past 50 years. I don't know where the businesses find workers. I think it is a huge problem. Two years ago my brother shut down his 35 year concrete construction company because he was tired of trying to find people who would work. He went to work, as a Field Manager, for a larger general construction company. He still has the same headache, he can't find anyone who wants to work, not even unskilled people who want to work. Why work when Sugar Daddy Uncle Sam (scumbag politicians) are handing out so many  goodies that you don't have to work?

When Michigan's Governor shut the state down Branch County's unemployment rate skyrocketed from 3.3% in December 2019 (everybody willing to work had a job) to 23.0% in April 2020. By June 2020 unemployment had decreased to 12.2%. Still, 12/2% unemployment and the company my brother works for can't find workers. Is there anyone but the self serving politicians who refuses to admit that all the COVID welfare, funded with debt piled on our children, is rewarding people for not working?

PS. We have seen help wanted signs at many places.

God is good, and I know that He is in control, but it scares me a little to think where the US is headed. May He bless you and yours.

Wed, 9/23/20 - Day 9

 Didn't do much today. Drove around a little. Weather was beautiful. Sat outside and read a lot.

In the evening we picked up a couple of pizzas and went to my Mom's for a meal with her, Kathy (my sister-in-law), Chasen (one of my brothers grandsons) and Kathy. Pizza was really good.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Tuesday, 9/22/20 - Day 8

 One week down and less than 600 miles from Centertown.

We found a campground, Harbor Cove RV Resort, only a few miles from the place that will change the axles on our camper. It is on Messenger/South lake/s. The two are fairly small, natural, spring and river fed lakes that cover 120 acres. They were good fishing lakes when we still lived here, but not noted for swimming, even though the idiots running the county constructed a park and public beach on the west side, by hauling in hundreds of tons of sand/gravel to make a beach (Branch County Memorial Park).

The "campsites" along the water appear to be seasonal. People have direct access to the lake and some have a dock for mooring boats. We are parked at the blue dot. There are 169 full hookup sites here.

It took a lot of fill to develop the campground. The pond in the photo below looks like it was a borrow pit. It makes a nice swimming hole. There is a fair amount of playground equipment for kids if they get tired of swimming.

This is an unoccupied "lakefront" site. Many of the people at these sites have small storage buildings on their sites.

Coldwater currently has a population of 12,200, compared to 11,000 when we left in 1970. Branch county has a current population of 43,500, compared to 37,900 in 1970.

One thing that has always impressed Kathy and I is the number of beautiful old homes in Coldwater. We have been in few towns that could compete. We walked a few blocks on two different streets today and I took some photos of a few of the houses.

The home below is now a museum. It was closed.

We had lunch at the Willow's, a bar on the river/channel between Messenger/South lakes (120 acres of water surface) and Cemetery/North lakes (510 acres water surface). "The Willows" has been running for longer than I can remember.

Masks - You must wear a mask to go into any store. You are supposed to wear a mask between the door and your table when in restaurants. There have been 5 COVID related deaths in Branch county. Michigan's idiot Governor forced the application of the same rules on Branch county as she did on Democratic stronghold counties (larger cities) with fatality rates 10 times that of Branch. There are sparsely populated counties in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that have had no COVID deaths yet, it appears to me, that they are under the same mask rules as Detroit, a hotbed of COVID, sheer lunacy. Only a "one size fits all" Democrat could come up with such an idiotic policy. Actually it kinds of fits in with the Democrats who are "Land of Equal Outcome" party. (If you work hard and make good lifestyle choices the outcome should be the same as for the slothful who make poor lifestyle choices. Government, not you, should have the freedom to redistribute the money YOU earned, as it sees fit.)

Executive Order 2020-147 reiterates that individuals are required to wear a face covering whenever they are in an indoor public space. It also requires the use of face coverings in crowded outdoor spaces, where you cannot maintain proper social distancing.
Businesses are expected to deny service to those that refuse.

One of the days highlights was this sign

Same house in photo below. The homeowner got another Trump sign but put it close to the porch.

Politics in Branch county is similar to my impression of rural Cole county. Most people here are conservative and just want government to get off their backs. But there are some around who think the primary job of government is to take from those who work for a living and reward those who won't, or those whose personal lifestyle choices have caused them to be unable to, support themselves. 

The problem here is just like we saw in Missouri with the Medicaid Expansion vote. The masses in St. Louis voted overwhelming for more free stuff. Popular votes on issues in Missouri are now like two wolves and a sheep voting on who they will eat for dinner, with the wolves being those whose appetites for government income redistribution will never be satiated. Time to get off my political horse. This isn't supposed to be a political blog.

It was a beautiful day for walks around town and around the campground.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Monday, 9/21/20

 Today will be a day we will long remember. We arrived at the RV Store at 9AM to have the wheel bearings "washed and repacked" and to have the wheel assemblies checked out. Two hours later we found out that we had major issues with both axles, because I had been lubing the wheel bearings the way the manual said to do it.

Bottom line is that we now have 2 new axles on order. They won't be here for a week. We found a local campground where we could stay for the week so that we have a full hookup (water, sewer and 30 amp electricity), rather than just 20 amp electricity at Mom's pond.

We moved away from Coldwater in April 1970. We will get to spend some time checking out how 50 years has changed it. I'm hoping that I will be on the lookout for opportunities the Lord may have in store for us.

Praise God that we are two old retired people who don't have a schedule we need to keep. We don't have a job we have to be back at this week. We don't have to worry about not being able to pay bills due to this expense. We were able to find a campground where we could get a site for the week. There is no danger of our going hungry 😀, although a little hungry might be a good thing for me. The weather is beautiful.

We actually looked at several used campers and has a salesman work up trade-in deal on one of them. We liked the floor plan but it was a 2010 model that showed some wear and tear. The more we looked at it the more we saw that we didn't like, or that would require "improvements" (no covers on the slide roofs, tires has lots of tread but probably needed to be replaced due to age, even though it was a bigger unit it has less storage, etc.). Bottom line the price he gave us ended up being quite a ways from what I thought was reasonable, so we passed. Had we made a deal we probably could have been back on the road tomorrow.

God is still good, even during trials, may He bless you and yours.

Sunday, 09/20/20 - Day 6

 39 degrees outside this AM, 57 degrees inside before I kicked the thermostat up several degrees. At least it was warm enough this morning that I could check my blood glucose level. Yesterday morning when I tried to check it my meter said it was to cold to operate. I had to put inside my shirt for several minutes to warm it up.

When Kathy put up the blind/shade on the window at the back of the camper there were 3 deer standing 30' away, staring at her.

The high for the day was a VERY breezy, but sunny, 68. There was a good turnout of family for lunch and an afternoon of fun at the pond.

Yes, that is an outhouse at the far left.

The old bulldozer is one of Mom's lawn ornaments. My Uncle Richard ran it doing some grading one day. That evening he went home went to bed, had a heart attack and died. Many years ago Dad drove it up to where it now sits and it has been there ever since.

My brothers grandchildren did a lot of fishing.

My brother is an awesome grandfather.

For a period of time my sisters granddaughter, Sara, got on the bus at my Mom's. Dad built her a place to stay out of the wind while she waiting on the bus. (This was back before bus drivers had to wait for snowflake kids to come out whenever it is convenient for them). It is now a storage building for fishing tackle, back at the pond.

 Kelsey is our granddaughter. I had never noted these "license plates" before.

An old corn crib on wheels has set back in a field as long as my brother and I can remember. He decided to turn it into a mobile hunting cabin. The tires were rotted away and even the rims had partially rotted away. My brother had rims fabricated to fit the rear axle and is putting and old house trailer axle under the front of the building. The "slot" window is to shoot a bow out of. All the small windows open as shooting ports.

After sitting out in the elements for over 60 years the wood framing was still in excellent condition. David, my brother, covered the old corn crib walls with insulation board and metal siding. He plans on installing shelving and battery powered lighting. The family normally harvests 6-7 deer a year. They do their own processing. The deer provide them with a beef substitute for most of the year.

A good day was had by all. We are so blessed to live in a nation where we have the freedom to earn a decent living, to travel as we please and to join one another in family gatherings.

The plan is to hit the road again tomorrow, and head southeast.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Some Saturday Morning Sunday Thoughts

 When we come to an understanding that we are all sinners who are absolutely unable to earn God's favor during this life, as well as unable to earn a place in Heaven after this life; and we choose to acknowledge and accept the free gift offered to all (the gift being that Jesus Christ, the sin free Son of God, came to Earth and paid the price for our sins by dying on the cross) we are invited to join God's workforce. When we ask to join that workforce we become part of God's "well oiled machine". 

Sitting here this morning, catching up on my daily devotional reading, I received a picture of a factory floor full of workers, workers who are joyful because they understand that even though the work is some times very difficult, it is rewarding now and that the "pension plan" is absolutely out of this world. They know that they work for a Boss who cares about each of His workers and who wants only what is best for them. They also know that their Boss has a plan, and the vision and the authority to guarantee that His plan will be enacted.

To often I fail to keep in focus that the Boss doesn't actually need the workers (me) to help Him bring His plan to fruition, He could do so without them (me). He has chosen to design the plan so that each worker (me) gets to join in and participate in His plan. He delights in watching as we (I) begin to understand our (my) part in the plan, and even more so as we (I) actually embrace the concept that He has chosen us (me), He has a plan for each of us (me) and our following His plan will make our (my) time here the best that it can be.

Now, as usual for me, begins the difficult process of moving this vision from my head and planting it solidly in my heart.

Saturday, Day 5, 091920 COOL Morning

 It was a COOL morning. 35 degrees outside and 45 degrees inside when I got up. Didn’t take me long to get the furnace turned on. There was steam coming off the pond.

After a great lunch of Kathy’s homemade vegetable soup she drove down to Hamilton Lake to visit her sister who has a cottage there. Mom and I went shopping for some exterior porch lights, unsuccessfully. Her post mounted exterior light has broken. We bought some JB Weld epoxy. I tried gluing the 3 pieces back together. Tomorrow we will learn if it was a success.

My brother took me for a Polaris tour around the perimeter of the farm. He has deer plots around the perimeter of almost every field. We saw 5 deer during our tour. He showed me his new mobile deer stand that he is building. I will try to remember to get a photo of it tomorrow.

I also cleaned the storage area under the trailer today and reorganized some of the stuff I just threw back in there after yesterdays escapade.

Parked down by the pond.

Mom, Kathy & I had bacon and tomato sandwiches for supper and then went out and sat by the campfire. 

My brother and his wife came down a little later and had some vegetable soup and joined us at the campfire.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.