October 2-11

Here is the next installment of our travel log:

Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana
On Monday, Oct 2, we went back to the Lincoln Home area to watch 2 movies at the Visitor’s Center. Then we left Springfield, IL, to head east to Bloomington, Indiana.

JUST A NOTE: Wisconsin was beautiful with lots of corn fields and soybean fields and farm houses with lots of silos. We saw quite a few dairy cattle out in the pastures. It was just great to ride throughout the countryside and see the scenery. When we crossed the border into Illinois, the corn fields and soybean fields got larger and flatter. We didn’t notice any dairy farms but it sure is easy to see why the United States grows enough food to feed so much of the world. In Wisconsin the farmers were just starting to harvest the corn and soybeans. In Illinois the harvest was in full swing and the ride was beautiful!

Along the way we saw what looked like a mountain of corn kernels. Mark turned off the highway and followed roads until we found the mountain. We stopped and walked around and talked to the man supervising the operation. We were at the Niantic Crop Service. Since they do not have enough capacity in the storage elevators for all of the corn that comes in during these next few weeks, they receive the corn from the farmers, weight it, dry it if necessary, then take it out of the storage elevators and truck it over to this huge mountain of corn. There are big plastic pipes under the corn to suck the air down. After they fill up the space allocated for the corn mountain, they will cover it with a white plastic tarp for the winter. Those pipes inside suck the air down and help the tarp stay tightly on the corn. The corn will then be processed evenly throughout the year so that it provides a steady supply to the people who use the corn in our food. They had 2 of these areas set up ready to receive the corn mountain. Each area was 3 or 4 hundred feet long and over 100 ft. wide. The corn was piled 30 ft. or higher.

Today was one of those days when the motorhome is really great. After we stopped to see the corn mountain, we made lunch while we watched the corn shoot off of the conveyor belt and the rest room was right there in the motorhome! There was no need to find a restaurant or a bathroom!

Again we camped at our favorite campground…

On Tuesday, Oct3, we rented an airplane and pilot to fly us over the many limestone mines in the area. We really wanted to have a tour of one of the quarry/mines, but ALL of them told us that their insurance would not allow it. The flight was good and we got some good views of the mines/quarries from the air.

Then we drove to our favorite campground on the Indiana border town of Richmond.

Ohio
On Wed, Oct 4, we continued on to Dayton, Ohio, to the Enon Beach Campground. These sites were definitely laid out before the advent of 40 foot motorhomes…but Mark did it and we are parked here for a few days. We just took the rest of the day to make phone calls and catch up on this travel log.

We spent Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. The Museum is made up of 3 big hangers with a huge “silo” at the far end. The first hanger is devoted to the beginning of flight in the late 1800’s starting even before the Wright Brothers. It continues through World Wars I and II. There is SO much history presented and SO much to read. There are SO many airplanes but even if you don’t like spending lots of time just looking at airplanes there is PLENTY to read and look at. We spend about 10 HOURS in just that first hanger! The next 2 hangers had lots of airplanes but not all that much to read about the Korean War, the Viet Nam War and the Cold War. The “silo” at the end had some ICBM’s and some really great displays about flights and parachute jumps above 100,000 feet.

On Monday, Oct. 9, we went to Carillon Park in the southern part of Dayton. It is a village of old houses and recreated houses. We went just to see the original 1905 Wright Flyer III and the Wright Brothers’ recreated Bicycle Shop, but there was so much more to see and learn that we spent the entire afternoon! We learned about Mr. Deeds, Mr. Patterson and Mr. Kettering who were involved in National Cash Register and Delco and General Motors. Their stories are intertwined and very interesting.

On Tuesday we took the day “off” and I sewed and read and Mark read and studied his Instrument Flight course.

On Wednesday we left for Columbus, Ohio, so that we could park the motorhome and fly out of Columbus on Thursday to go to Washington, DC, for Brian’s fly-over during the dedication of the Air Force Memorial.