We're Home!

What a gorgeous day for a drive.  We left Jellystone as fast as our little hydraulic jacks could clear the ground and headed for home.... I mean Grundy.  A little over 3 hours later we were installed on RRR's old lot - #224 - and saying hello to old friends who had already arrived.  We set up and sat outside battling hordes of friendly mosquitoes who also came by to say hi.  Thank heavens for ThermaCell mosquito repellent gadgets!  Set up was a breeze, and Nui even managed a swim in the lake.  Considering there was still ice on it a month ago, the water was surprisingly warm.

We spent a nice evening around the fire and then stayed up until nearly 2 a.m. playing "that effing game".

Naturally, the weather gods took note that Nui had arrived and today dawned with heavy clouds and the chance of rain.  This is so normal for Nui that it doesn't even bother her anymore.  It's just nature's way of saying that she has made it to Grundy.

Today, RRR is heading home where she will spend the rest of the week doing laundry.

It's been a hot, dusty trip but we still had fun between heat strokes.
 

Only in Toronto

The quick border crossing gave us plenty of time to criss-cross the backroads of southern Ontario to find Yogi's Jellystone RV park.  We had tried to get into the KOA near Bradford but were told that it was fully booked because of a DOG SHOW.  We thought we'd been through hell in El Paso..... we couldn't even imagine camping in a field full of dogs!

Jellystone is one of the best kept secrets in the Toronto area.  That's probably because they really don't want you to camp there.  That's pretty obvious because the only sign for the place is posted on Hwy 400 as you are driving away from it.  We were in the bush, no indications of where the park was when we saw a small little driveway with a huge red hump in the middle.  Red must be their color because we also noticed 2 red-leaf bushes almost fully concealing a sign that read....."ston.....R" .  We interpreted this to mean Jellystone RV.  We drove up a long gravel road, hoping that we wouldn't end up in a gravel pit.  We managed to find the registration desk and booked in at a whopping $81.00 per night!  This is double and triple what any other parks charge.

So you would think that this would be a nice park, right?  Wrong!  The first thing was that they put the heavy picnic tables dead in the centre of the lot so you can't drive in.  We had to ask for 2 men to come and remove it.  The hook-ups were on the wrong side of the coach - electric and water on one side and sewer on the other - very inconvenient.  Then off we went for a shower, which turned out to be down a very long, steep hill at the back of the main building.  The other showers were not hooked up yet (considering summer started that day, it might be time to turn on the water, don't you think?).  We asked for and were given a golf cart ride down to the showers and back, because there is no way we would have made it without getting hurt.

Off we went for a fantastic spaghetti and meat ball dinner at RRR's daughter's house where we had a wonderful time.  Nui's sister made the trip from Orillia and the four of us women just talked and laughed all evening.  Sharon's husband stayed in the corner fixing his fishing rods and then escaped to the bedroom early.  To be fair, he had a fishing tournament the next day.

Heading back to Jellytone in the dark was another adventure.  You would think that, for $81 a night, they could afford to light up their bushes and/or signs or even the corner of their driveway. Or maybe even just hang a balloon.  Nope - it was pitch black and there was no way of seeing the entrance to the park.  Fortunately, our trusty GPS told us we were there and we finally managed to spot the red hump in the middle of their driveway after driving by it 3 times.

Needless to say, we won't be going back and they are going to get a sharply worded letter from Nui.

Crossing the Border

RRR and Nui were anxious about crossing the border, because of the attitude of the previous border guard (the one with the IQ of lettuce).  We had a fair amount of liquor on board (hey - for $2.97 a bottle, who wouldn't buy wine at Walmart?) .  We had visions of them stripping the coach down to the newly installed power switch and then having us spend hours re-packing.  This would have been a problem because, between the two of us, we have about 50 packages of mashed potato mix, several bags of rice and lots and lots of processed meats that took hours to deploy equally throughout the fridge and pantry so the Beast would stay level.  But the border guard simply looked at our passports and waved us through.  We were back on Canadian soil and having to adjust to the metric system again.  The good news is that kilometers go faster than miles.

Of course, we no sooner made it into Canada when Nui's back-up camera on the Beast gave up the ghost.  It's amazing how necessary that thing is - so we now have to find someone who can fix it.   Does anyone know of any mobile RV service techs in Northern Ontario?

In the fine old Carrey tradition of crossing the border

The legend is told that the Carrey girls once crossed the border wearing identical bright red lipstick which they had bought in a bathroom vending machine.

Never ones to flaunt tradition, Nui and RRR prepared for the border....

 

PS  Everything is bigger in Texas

Shipshewana Showers (or OMG, it's Armageddon!)

One of our primary goals was to reach Shipshewana by Tuesday, because the flea market here is only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  We were in Shipshewana last year, to attend what they call the Midwest's largest open air flea market.  RRR was hankerin' (we've picked up some Texan on our travels) for some more blingy t-shirts - one in particular which was red and had some shiny trees on it.  Anyhow, we got started shopping around 2 p.m. and were told the market closed at 5 p.m.  Plenty of time for a few t-shirts and a couple of bottles of perfume for RRR's daughter!  Around 3:30 we noticed that many stalls were closing - in a hurry.  We were told that there was a severe thunderstorm on the way and the weather alerts had gone out to get under cover.  We just made it back to the car as the first raindrops fell.  The sky was green and black, huge thunderclouds were piled up, there were 60 mph winds, hail the size of quarters and enough rain to drown you while you were standing up.  In seconds the car was sitting in its own swimming pool.  The storm lasted about an hour and moved on and so did we.  The market was closed.

The good news is that RRR got her t-shirts and only 1 bottle of perfume.  But we consider the day a success.

We have Power!

We made it to the KOA in Elkhart, figuring that we would be able to get a mobile RV repair service tech out to replace the burned out power transfer switch.  Elkhart, you should know, is billed as the home of America's largest RV repair service industry.  That may be.... but none of them are mobile!  Heck, even places like Van Horn and Effingham have mobile services!!!

Oh yes....and all the RV repair places were taking appointments for after July 4th - a tad inconvenient when you're planning on a 2-day stay.

Anyhow, we found Master Tech RV who replaced the faulty switch and also tightened the passenger side mirror.  This came as a huge relief to RRR who spent most of the trip from Effingham hanging out the window in 60 mph winds, trying to keep the mirror from blowing off.

While they were busy with the Beast, we took ourselves off to Linton's Enchanted Gardens - a combo garden centre and curio shop.  They had a huge collection of very colorful, very blingy stuff and we loved it.  Then off we went to the Old Bag Factory for a look at some of the most expensive quilts we had ever seen.  They were jaw-droppingly beautiful!  If it weren't for the fact that we refused to pay more for a blanket than we did for our mortgages, we might have bought some.  But still..... they sure were pretty.

Tomorrow we're off to Port Huron, our last day in the US for this trip.  It's been hot and kind of scary at times, but still lots of fun.

Effing Around in Effingham

Wow - we went almost 24 hours without a crisis!   On our last morning in Memphis, we noticed that the coach seemed a bit quiet.  Sure enough, all the electrical systems were out.  No power was getting into the coach at all.  This was a serious problem, since we both needed our morning coffee.

We had no choice but to pack up and move on, though, since we're on a schedule.  We wound up in Effingham (nice town - nothing to do - no attractions listed).  BUT we found a mobile RV Tech who came out that evening and wired us up enough to give us power.

It turns out that the guys who installed the main electrical panel in the coach graduated at the bottom of the class from the El Paso School of Road Maintenance (see previous post).  They put the panel in the only area in the coach that is guaranteed to be wet most of the time:  the area where the sewer and water connections are.  Needless to say, the system shorted out and voila..... $300 bucks later and we were sipping coffee thanks to a jury-rigged electrical outlet.

The fun just keeps on coming......