The first week of June found us still at "The Vine Camp and Lodge" in Temperance, Michigan...just over the state line from Toledo, Ohio, our former hometown.  "The Vine" is associated with the Greater Toledo YMCA and is host to a day camp program from the nearest Y branch, the Francis Family YMCA, in Bedford Township, MI.  Two busloads of children arrived each weekday morning around 9am to join a few others whose parents had dropped them off earlier, and the day began!  We were never "bothered" by the youth and their activities...in fact it was fun to watch them paddle canoes, shoot archery, and jump from the trampoline in the middle of the lake.  There is a lot of adult supervision and the lifeguards are on duty until about 8pm because the lake is also open to the public for "day use."  The large lodge building was host to several graduation parties this week.  Our campsite was located across Lake Joy from most of the activities, in one of just seven full hookup sites.  The rest of the 72 sites are water and electric only and there were few campers here this week.  The population did pick up over the weekends, however, mostly with tent campers and a few trailers.                                Our adventures for the week included two rounds of golf at the "Sand Wedge Golf Club."  The course is pretty "rough" and the holes are built very close together, but the price is right...$10 per senior for 18 holes and a cart.  On Saturday mornings, the course pro gives a free clinic and we were the only ones who attended, so we got a free one hour lesson...not a bad deal!   Also during this week we enjoyed getting together with Tom's sister, Judy and her husband, Ron and having good friends, Kathy and Dennie Dew over for dinner and cards.  We were able to attend a periodic "care conference" for Tom's mother at the nursing home and Mary was able to get in some serious shopping with her friend, Kathy.       "The Old West End Festival" in Toledo is an annual event in the once fashionable central city residential area.  Over the past few years the homeowners have been working hard to restore the beautiful old homes and the neighborhood - and are doing a great job.  We had often attended the festival when we lived in the Toledo area and our visit to town coincided with the festival this year...so we went to see how things are going.  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed walking around some of the neighborhood.  One of the houses, built in 1897, was auctioned that day and sold for $267,000+ and while it was a great looking house, it also appeared to need a lot of work...we weren't among the bidders!
 
 

The floating trampolines on Lake Joy at "The Vine Camp and Lodge"...the view from our campsite.	Along Robinwood Avenue in Toledo's "Old West End"	Buddies from our freshman year at Eastern Michigan University, Judy Kastel is a retired English teacher in Tecumseh, MI	You don't want to run the red light in downtown Tecumseh.  Even in the 30,000 pound RV, we'd loose the contest at this intersection.

The coach got some cleaning twice during the week...one day we returned from a trip into Toledo and it was pouring rain.  The coach hadn't been washed since we'd left Arizona as most campgrounds we stop at do not allow washing of vehicles.  So, taking advantage of some "soft water" Tom went out with a bucket of soapy water and his brush and washed down the coach, letting the rain finish the rinse work after he used the hose a bit.  A second washing came unexpectedly the following Saturday night.  We had left The Vine and driven to Jackson, Michigan on Saturday, June 10.  We parked, as we have several times previously, in front of Mary's mother's house in a "quiet up-scale adult condo area."  After spending the evening having a great visit and some fun card games we went out to the coach around 11pm and discovered that we had been "egged."  It was graduation weekend, so we assume that prompted some adventurous teenagers to go on a spree.  So, we got out the bucket and rags and cleaned off the passenger side front of the coach.  As we were getting everything put away we decided to look over the rest of the coach and discovered another large "hit."  So, it was back to work, bringing out the ladder and million candle-power flashlight to clean a large section near the bathroom and bedroom windows.  After our work was completed, we went for a walk around the block to see if there were any parties going on.  There weren't any parties, but we found another egg-covered vehicle, so at 12:30am we were knocking on the front door of an unsuspecting elderly couple.  (Their lights and big screen TV were on, so we assumed they were awake) and they got to have their own midnight washing adventure.      On our way to Jackson we had stopped in Tecumseh for lunch and remembered that an old college friend (and bridesmaid in our wedding) of Mary's lived just a block away from where we had stopped.  We gave her a call and within minutes Judy Kastel had joined us.  We sat and talked for a couple of hours catching up on all the family news.

On Sunday, June 11 we drove from Jackson to Charlotte, MI and parked at the Eaton County 4-H Fairgrounds as one of about 150 coaches on a Spartan Motors Chassis.  The Spartan Chassis Homecoming is a four-day rally for owners of various brands of RVs all built on the Spartan Chassis.  We had attended the homecoming two years ago and found it to be very beneficial, so decided to return.  We parked in a very pleasant part of the fairgrounds (however, pleasant shade trees drip stuff on your vehicles and prevent your satellite TV from working!) and were surrounded by many Dutch Stars and Mountain Aires by Newmar, as well as Travel Supremes, American Eagles and a few Winnebagos.  We spent our days in seminars learning all about our Cummins engine, Allison transmission,  Meritor brakes, the Spartan chassis itself and many other related topics.  Throw in quite a few meals and some evening entertainment and we had a fantastic week.  Even attending some of the seminars twice, we gathered new information.  The weather couldn't have been better...bright sunny days and cool nights for sleeping without A/C.  The Spartan company went "above and beyond" to make certain that we were all taken care of, had a good time and learned a lot.  The great thing about this rally is that all the seminars are training sessions, not sales presentations.  Even the few vendors who were there were careful to present their subject, not their product....and in fact, we felt a little sorry for them as there didn't seem to be much sales activity at the booths in the vendor area.  At the end of the rally on Thursday afternoon we moved the coach over to the service center at the Spartan factory where they had been doing a "booming business" all week.  Everybody was taking advantage of having the factory itself do routine maintenance and give good prices on service and parts.  We had them look at our coach-to-tow car electrical system that hasn't been working.  Once they were able to get to us, they found the problem and fixed us up in no time at all, and did it with no charge.  Worth the wait!  We parked at the service center "overflow" lot for the night with several coaches.  Spartan has just begun a large expansion and renovation program so on our next visit we should find an all new service center and overnight parking with hookups.
 
 

Site #D-17 at the Eaton County 4-H Fair in Charlotte, MI...our spot for the Spartan Chassis Homecoming	Tom checking out a new RV.....it's still missing a few parts, but when it grows up it could be an Essex or a quad-slide Dutch Star.	Everybody needs to get out and stretch at the rest area!

It was "westward, ho!" on Friday, June 15 from Charlotte, south on I-69 and west on I-94.  We stopped at a rest area to follow the tech advice we got at the rally...running the transmission through some diagnostic tests and bleeding the air dryer...things we've done in the past but it had been a while.  Then it was on to Michigan City, Indiana for stops at the Outlet Center (outgoing cash flow) and the Blue Chip Casino (incoming cash flow!!)  After an overnight stop in a local rest area on I-94, we made the drive through the "windy city" of Chicago on Saturday during the late morning hours.  Traffic wasn't too bad, but it did get windy.  We arrived around 1:30 local time at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds in Pecatonica, Illinois.  Last month while visiting in the area to see our daughter's new home, we had made arrangements to park the rig here during our current visit.  One of the maintenance men is an RVer and had promised to be certain all our hookups would be ready and waiting.  We had run into him at the FMCA GLASS Rally in Michigan over Memorial Day and confirmed that we were expected here in June.  Sure enough, we easily parked in a nice level grassy field, with full hook-ups (W,E,S) facing the swift moving Pecatonica River.  We were warned that water pressure was high, and we did have two regulators on the line, but we still had a leak around the filter casing, which seeped into the carpeted storage bays.  So, on our second day here, we were motivated to do our "once-a-year clean out and reorganize all the storage compartments."  The bays got dried out and we even managed to rid ourselves of some weight by pitching a few things.  From there, the pace picked up...we got drawn into life in the McCurdy household.  That means juggling work demands and three girls on three different ball teams.  We are parked closer to the local ball fields than their house, so we became the "command center," occasionally providing evening meals and a spot to exchange players and re-organize transportation.  Being in a small town with few teams in each age group, Ann and her family have found themselves driving to other small towns all around the area for games.  Matt is still quite busy with his new responsibilities at Pactiv and Ann was called on short notice to inform her that she had the opportunity for a new job at Daimler-Chrysler. (Having been born and raised in Toledo, home of the Jeep, she has now moved to Illinois and is helping to make their newest model, the Compass.  It's a part-time position and the pay is quite good.)  That offered US the opportunity to become the babysitters and we have enjoyed having the girls spend several "overnights" with us.

We took advantage of our new area and set out exploring the many paths in the woods next to our parking spot, chatting with the fishermen who come to fish on the river, practicing golf and softball in the field and checking out the fairgrounds facilities.  The weekend of June 24-25 was the "Peeketolika River Festival" at the fairgrounds.  Several times over the weekend, we walked over to the festival area  and checked out the booths, activities and entertainment.  One thing we hadn't watched before was "mini-tractor pulls."  There was quite a competition of various sizes and modifications of garden tractors pulling a very large and heavy sled.  The drivers were both male and female and of all ages.  It's quite an organized sport we were not aware of in the past.

Because of Ann's and Matt's new jobs and the girls ball games, we weren't able to schedule a family trip this summer.  Being in a new area, though, gave us lots of places to go and things to see that we hadn't done before, and we found several things that made good "day trips" for Grandma, Grandpa and the three girls.   On trips to the nearby town of Freeport, IL we found our nearest shopping opportunities and a wonderful city park with mini-golf, tennis, paddleboats and canoes, a huge play structure, a fire engine to climb on, and a wonderful merry-go-round.  We pedaled up the Yellow Creek in a swan-shaped paddleboat and several times have taken the 25-cent rides on the carousel.   Another day we crossed into Wisconsin (only a few miles away) and in the town of Monroe we toured the Alp and Del Cheese factory.  It is a small operation and has big glass windows facing their manufacturing center where we were able to sit on stools to watch the curds and whey turn into big rounds of cheese.  At the Monroe Welcome Center and Cheesemaking Museum we compared how they made and sold the cheese in the "olden days" to what we saw at the factory.  The Welcome Center is in a refurbished train station and we saw how the station master took care of train traffic, passengers and freight.  From Monroe we drove a little further north to the town of New Glarus.  Here we saw the Swiss influence on the many buildings in town....lots of "gingerbread trim" and flower boxes.  Monroe and New Glarus are in Green County which claims to have produced 70% of the US Swiss cheese in the mid 1900's.  As a project to bring attention to the county's place in dairy history, various businesses in the county painted large fiberglass cows in themes related to their business and placed them on their property.  Then they produced a game sheet asking visitors to go on a scavenger hunt to find all the cows and match up names and photos.  We had great fun driving around the small town of New Glarus looking for the cows!
 
 

The little garden tractor is pulling the big, weighted sled.  You can tell that the tractor is alcohol powered because the driver is wearing a "fire suit" and a helmet.	Hey, cheeseheads!  Does this make them "Packers Fans?"	The cow's name is "Honey Belle."  She is dressed up like a train engineer and lives at the Monroe, Wisconsin welcome center and cheese museum.	Mary, Merrick, Coffey and Close enjoying the carousel.

 

Merrick making a base hit at T-ball.	Close making a wind-up as pitcher for her team while coach Matt (Dad) watches from second base.	Ooops!  Close wasn't quite ready for the dominoes to fall.	Making "S'mores" with Grandpa along the Pecatonica River.

Closing out the month on Friday, June 30, was one of our favorite "summer with the grandkids activities".....making "S'mores."   At the end of one of our baby-sitting days we built a fire in a fire ring near the riverbank at our fairgrounds home and got out our roasting sticks and supplies.  Yummy!!              It was the start of the Independence Day Weekend and a crowd of campers had gathered at the edge of the fairgrounds where one side of the road is a city park and the other is the fairgrounds, both allowing camping.  It should be a busy time.....stay tuned!