Thursday, May 13, 2010

The last few days we traveled to the northern part of the state of Indiana. In Elkhart we found the RV Museum. A very nice building with a large collection of camping units from the early years of the automobile era until the new fancy units available today.
There is the unit built on a Ford model AA truck chassis. The engine was probably a 30 hp engine and could not have been very fast, however at that time theroads were not very good, mostly gravel and dirt with very little pavement.

There is the first airstream ever built , a short little trailer maybe 14' long, but well equipped with everything but a bath room. Most of the early units did not include any cooking facilities as that was all done outside, only areas to store the equipment. Most were well built and have really nice wood, popular in the day.


The museum is in a beautiful new building that was paid for before they started using it. Most of the money was provided by RV manufacturers and people interested in preserving the heritage of the camper/RV. There is another wing proposed that will be built as soon as the funding is available to complete it, however with the economic downturn it may be some time before that happens.

As it is, it is still a beautiful facility and one well worth your time to visit.

We left Elkhart and traveled to Kendalville to visit the Windmill Museum. We spent the night and during the night it started blowing and raining and did so all night and all day the next day until late afternoon. As the Windmill Museum is mostly an outdoor museum we were not going to visit in and see it in the rain.

The next morning we traveled on east to visit the Auburn, Cord Dusenberg Museum. What a treat to see all of those old restored vehicles. More about that later.
Posted by Picasa

Friday, May 7, 2010

Not a lot going on around here. Some rain, wind and sunshine, sometimes all in the same day and sometimes multiple times in the same day.

Sunday we went to Church and it was nice to see all of our old friends and get acquainted with new ones that we ran across. It seems everyone is getting older, at least it appears that way. Several had just returned from their winter quarters in the southern part of the country. All said the same thing, it was cooler and wetter than they had remembered in years past.

Monday it was back to another Doctor for another check up. All was good and nothing changed, just keep on doing what we had been doing.


Wednesday, we went to the local Fish Fry with the Keerns'. Good fish as usual by Dan's Fish Fry service. Not as well attended as we remembered in years past, maybe due to the economy, who knows for sure.


I was going to a radio club meeting this evening however there were severe storms in the area and I thought it best to stay home and out of trouble.

We will be going to Elkhart Sunday after church for a few days to visit some museums, etc.

Our photos are of the Harry S. Truman Library that we visited while in Independence, MO. It is a beautiful building and the photos are of the inside before you go into the museum. No flash photographs is allowed inside the library. We took the photos, with out the flash, with permission, of course.

The gardens in the center of the museum contains the graves of President Truman, his wife Bess and daughter Margaret and her husband. We really enjoyed our visit and seeing all of the artifacts and letters written by President Truman as well as those written before he became President.

Currently, they have a display of the Viet Nam War era, which was quite interesting and contained a lot of information that was not known to the public at the time. It is a traveling display and will be at the library until December 2010.
Posted by Picasa