Here we are, on the road: We’re in Jefferson, Ohio

September 1, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Hello again, sure hope you are having a nice day. It's Sunday, so time to write the blog. This week found us at Thousand Trails, Kenisee Lakes near Jefferson, Ohio. It was a good week for us, sure hope you had one too.

Last Sunday found us writing our blog, which takes a bit of time, but "we got her done". We spent the remainder of the day just taking it easy; followed by a home cooked meal of pork roast, a very tasty meal. We spent the rest of the time just relaxing and watching TV.

Monday found us headed out to go find the Football Hall of Fame, there in Canton, Ohio. This was another of our "Bucket List" want to’s. We wanted to go and see this, so we did. The football "Hall of Fame" was started in 1963 and Saturday, September 7, 2013, the Hall of Fame will celebrate its 50th year. "More than 23,000 men have played pro football, and less than 300 have been awarded the highest honor of the game, to be immortalized as a football legend with a bronze bust displayed within those hallowed halls of the Pro Football Hall of Fame."

Jim Thorpe, a native American became the first President of the Football Hall of Fame. Jim was in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, and entered with two new multi-event disciplines were included, the pentathlon and the decathlon. A pentathlon, based on the ancient Greek event, had been introduced at the 1906 Summer games. Overall, Thorpe won eight of the 15 individual events comprising the pentathlon and decathlon. Jim Thorpe was not of the "Master Race" that Hitler thought was what should have occurred.

To me the Football Hall of Fame showed all the "Great" football players. There was so much there, it took us about 4-5 hours to go through the place. I loved all the information, I loved seeing the "Super Bowl" Rings for all the years; they had casts of different men's hand, and thighs, and various gear the men started with. To me it was well worth the time and effort. If you like football, then you would love the 'Football Hall of Fame".

Tuesday we woke up and found it a bit rainy and cloudy. So I looked up movies in this area, and we decided to go to a matinee. We went and saw "The Butler". I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, it is one I would like to own when it comes out. It showed one butler who was hired from when Eisenhower was president through now, under Obama. I loved it.

Wednesday found us going into Erie, PA. We took off in the morning and spent the day sightseeing in Erie, PA. Talk about some beautiful homes where we went. And the yards these homes have are a lot of work to keep up. Those homes must have had a acre or more, truly a lot of work.

After that we went and found a casino called the Presque Isle Downs and Casino. We played a bit, then had the Buffet. As we were ending our day, they had some horse races, so we watched a bit. Chuck even had me choose a horse for the second race and my horse came in first place. It was all fun, and I did win for the day, all in all a good day.

Thursday we were up and about and I got another migraine. I took my pills, went and laid down so the pills would work, they did. After that we went over to see some new friends from Lewis & Clark, Trish and John Elser from Spokane, WA. We enjoyed visiting with them and decided we would get together with them for dinner for a "Welcome Back" to Susan and Bill R and Larry and Gail from all of us, as they were coming in from Niagara Falls.

So on Friday when everyone showed up, I had made the dinner for the evening. We had Chuck's BBQ chicken, my potato salad, watermelon, Root Beer Floats and a Raspberry Pie. Trish brought a green salad to go with what I had provided. We picked their brains about Niagara Falls as that is where we are heading when we leave here. It was a very nice enjoyable evening for all involved.

Saturday, the group went over to the breakfast get together. From there Susan and the group went to a shop where they sell Amish furniture, then went to several garage sales. Trish and John came over after they finished their breakfast and we played 10,000. It was fun and Trish was the first big winner of our group.

Last night, we all went over to Susan's for a potluck. We all enjoyed our time together, and it was dark out and the fog was rolling in when we came back.

So that is it for the week. Not sure what we are doing today, but I think we will be leaving here on September 5th. Schools started this week here in Ohio, and I know they start out west on the day after labor day back home.

So that is is for me, have a great week and we'll see you "down the road".

Hugs,

Lorraine

9/1/13 Chuck’s report

Still in Kenisee Lake, 1000 Trails park. We arrived here last Thursday, we thought it might be full over the weekend and sure enough, it was. This weekend is the last three day weekend of the summer and we figured it might be really full but are surprised to see more empty spots this weekend than last. But we are settled into our spot with 50 amp and full hook-ups, doing just fine so either way would have been ok with us.

This past week we’ve tried to slow down a bit, we are here for two weeks and don’t have to see/do everything in a short time. But on Monday we did head to Canton, Ohio to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now this one is something I really liked but then again, I do like Pro Football. I was really into the game during the 70s and my two favorite teams were the Dallas Cowboys and whoever was beating the Oakland Raiders.

One of the best early pro football players was my sports hero when I was a kid, Jim Thorpe, a poor American Indian from Oklahoma who won both the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympic games in Sweden. A bit of trivia about him during the Olympic games, he lost his shoes and had to borrow some but ended up with two different sized and colored shoes, he had to wear two pair of socks on one foot because the shoe was too big.

He was almost a one man track team when he was in college at Carlisle, an Indian school in Pennsylvania. He played professional baseball, basketball and was one of the best early pro football players. Unfortunately, he played pro baseball before he was in the Olympics and they took his Olympic medals away from him although they were returned after his death.

He played pro sports until he was 40 but had very tough years after than, he died in 1953, poor and in failing health. He was voted the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century, others in the running were Muhammad Ale, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicklaus and Michael Jordan. There was lots of info about Jim Thorpe in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and renewed my memories of him.

Inside the Hall they had lots of info and displays, I really liked the ones from the 70s when I was a big fan. But the part I liked best was the statues of all the inductees in the same room. They also have a “replay booth” where you can review some plays and try to determine the actual results and see if the refs were correct in their call. We spent over three hours touring the Hall and I really had a good time.

Tuesday was a cooler day, cloudy and threatening rain so we decided to stick close to home. Lorraine wanted to go to a movie, she wanted to see “The Butler”. She found two theaters that had the show and we headed out to find one of them. But our GPS didn’t know where the first one was and the second was has been closed for over a year. We headed back to see if we could find the first one and got there just as the show was to start. But they had some issue and didn’t start the movie on time, it was almost 30 minutes late, not a problem as the seats weren’t too bad or uncomfortable.

Wednesday we headed East to Erie, PA. We wanted to check out the area and see the lakeshore. Boy did we find some nice estates along the waterfront! They were on about 5 acre lots, all were landscaped very nicely and most had very nice rooflines. We drove along the road, stopping to look and take pictures, really nice neighborhood.

Lorraine saw signs along the way for a local casino so she wanted to check it out. We had a good buffet there, a bit on the expensive side but had good food and good service too. We played the slots for awhile, no luck for either of us, however. The did try to entice us to return, they will give us both $10 free slot play if we return sometime this week.

Thursday we made a trip to Wal-Mart. Our friends Bill/Susan and Larry/Gail from Lewis and Clark FMCA Chapter were coming to the park on Friday and Lorraine wanted to have dinner for them after their travel day and needed to pick up some stuff for dinner the next day.

Later that afternoon we also met two other Lewis and Clark Members, John and Trish who are staying the the park too. We had a good “get acquainted” visit with these nice folks at their place and invited them to the dinner the next day too.

Friday we sort of puttered around, doing a few things that needed to be done and waited for Bill/Susan and Bill/Gail to get in. They called and we went over to see them for awhile the returned back to our place to start getting dinner ready. Lorraine had chicken breasts for the grill, made a potato salad, cut up a watermelon, and had the makings for root beer floats. Trish also made up a nice green salad and brought that over too.

We had a good time and stayed around visiting until it got dark and the bugs started getting bad before we called it a day. It was good to see them, we last saw then in Palm Springs last winter and we got caught up on everyone’s travel and plans for the upcoming fall. I still need to pick their brains a bit more about some of the places we might visit along the way this fall.

Saturday was once again a quiet day, John and Trish came over and we taught them to play our dice game, 10,000. They caught on quick and we had a good time and a good visit. We then went over to the ice cream social the park was putting on. Bill and Susan volunteered their place for a pot luck dinner that night so we all went over there. Bill did a good job on the BBQ and the ladies had lots of other dishes too. Once again everyone seem to have a good time and a good visit.

I’m not sure how well I like being in the Eastern Time Zone when it comes to football. I’m used to seeing football games start at 10 am and the second game starts a 1 pm with the evening game starting around 7 pm. Back here, everything is three hours later. That meant the Washington Huskies were playing Boise State on Saturday night, a 7 pm game back there but 10 pm here. That is just about bedtime for me so I taped the game and am watching it now as I type this. I did see the score already and know the outcome but it’s still a good game to watch so far. By the way, the Huskies win, big time and Boise State was ranked #19.

The weather this past week had been just fine as far as the high, daytime temperatures were, in the upper 70s up to the mid 80s. The bad part has been the high humidity, we have lots of dew in the mornings even with a bit of fog over the field in front of us. By the afternoons it’s almost too warm to sit outside, the humidity makes it uncomfortable, sure glad we have 50 amp and can run both of our air conditioners. We have had a couple of rain showers but not the storms other areas in the state have had this week. The forecast is for a rain storm to come in tonight and tomorrow, we’ll see.

Our plans are to leave here on Thursday, heading further East once again. We will be in Gasport, New York, in the Niagara Falls/Buffalo, NY. area, our first visit there. Bill/Susan and Larry/Gail just came from there so we have been and will continue to pick there brains about that area too.

Now to go through the pictures Lorraine took this past week and pick out a few to add here. Then we’ll get this posted and get on with our day.

Our visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.