Friday-Saturday, August 21-22, 2020 - Travel Day to Shipshewana, IN & Preparing for our Trip to Jellystone Park, Harrisville, PA with Matt & Family

Friday-Saturday, August 21-22, 2020 - Travel Day to Shipshewana, IN & Preparing for our Trip to Jellystone Park, Harrisville, PA with Matt & Family

Friday, August 21, 2020 

We were in no rush Friday morning as our travel day will be short and check in time at Shipshewana South Campground is not until 1pm.  We planned to leave around 10:30, but it was 11:17 before we pulled out of the park.  We were visiting with our new neighbors who arrived yesterday sometime.  They were a nice couple who originally lived in Grand Island, NY, where Matt and family live.  It's really interesting visiting with people, only to find things you have in common.  We sure enjoyed the opportunity to visit with them.

Cute little town along Paw Paw River.

Paw Paw River

This bridge leads from a parking area to Maple island....

...and the island is a park!

Unfortunately all I could get a picture of the Van Buren County Courthouse was the dome.  The Sheriff's Department sits along the highway, so we were unable to see the entire building.

Another old barn!

I found this information on Welch's website:  https://www.welchs.com/careers/communities-where-youll-work  See Info on Lawton, MI.  We noticed fields after field of grapes in this area but nothing about a nearby winery - after reading further I would guess these grapes were for Welch's.  I love information like this.

Just one of many huge grape fields near Lawton, MI

Neat sign & of course I love the flag.  Welcome to Marcellus, 36 lakes within 6 miles.  We must have seen at least a half dozen, maybe more in the short distance we drove.  

Display at the Marcellus VFW

It was 1:40pm by the time we had set up at Shipshewana South RV Campground, in site 92.  We ate a couple of snacks on the way.  We were not too hungry so we just had our apple/peanut butter for lunch.  The electric hot water tank quit working again a day or two ago.  Steve at Affinity had told him he might want to go ahead and replace it.  Since we can still use the gas to operate it, Dean would like to go ahead and take care of it if we can find the part while we are in RV Country.  We went to two RV supply centers and of course, neither of them had the one he needed.  Since we don't need it, we'll wait and buy one later since all of the remaining centers are closed on the weekends.  

We decided to splurge this evening for dinner.  We headed to 5 & 20 (located at the intersection of US 20 & IN 5).  We have always enjoyed the meals we've had here.  Dean ordered fried chicken with hash browns and I chose the Hot Beef Manhattan.  

While we were waiting outside the restaurant to be seated, we called Josh (Matt's oldest son) who is now 6.  Dean asked him, how many days until we get to see you?  He thought for a couple of seconds, then said 2.  I'm not sure who is more excited him or us.  Megan told us he had been counting down the days.  It was the week of July 4th, 2019 that we last saw them.  

When we returned, I was happy to get the last few blog posts completed.  I'm not sure how much, or if I will get anything posted over the five days we will spend with Matt, Megan and the grandkids. 

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Even though I woke early, we were slow getting around this morning.  The next seven days are going to be on the go go go, so we better take advantage of it.  That's why we decided to stay here in Shipshewana rather than going to the city park in Albian, IN like we originally planned.  I wanted to be sure our laundry was caught up before we arrive in Pennsylvania.  With full hookups here I am able to do that and that was not an option in Albian.  

We are not in this area often - once every couple of years at best, so we decided we needed another pecan sticky bun this morning for our breakfast.  Dean didn't even look twice at the apple fritters today.   It was a short drive to Middlebury, so we returned to Bentley to enjoy them.  I warmed each one up for 40 seconds.  I was surprised how it softened the roll.  They were delicious.  I'm glad we don't visit here often.  It's a great place to visit, but the food could easily become a habit.

After searching online this morning, Dean found two more RV service centers that are open Saturday mornings, so after we enjoyed our sticky bun we set out to find them.  The first one is normally open on Saturday's but upon arrived, Dean found a note on the door that they would be closed on August 22.  Okay, on to the next one and sure enough it was open but not the parts portion of the business. Oh well, we needed to come back to Middlebury for fuel anyway, so it was not a wasted trip.  

The rest of the day I spent working inside Bentley, and Dean had a few things he wanted to take care of outside.  We are ready for our travel day tomorrow, when we will meet up with Matt and family.