Captain's Log:
Last night we spent at Beaver Point RV fishing camp on Mud Lake near the little town of Windfall. I remember my dad telling me about fishing in Mud Lake where only quiet electric boat motors are allowed. I had no idea before last night where it was located.
The best thing about this place was the quiet, until the loudest thunderstorm I've ever experienced blew through. It wasn't especially windy, but the rain came down with a roar and a couple of the thunder claps/cracks were so loud I was sure something nearby had been struck by lightning (like maybe Maxwell!) Each time we thought the storm had moved on, it began its bluster with renewed gusto! Yikes! Poor Peanut dog! I thought he would pass out from fright.
I grew up near here and never have I heard thunder that scary! The lightning lit up the campground, and we finally pulled down the bedroom blackout shades to keep it from illuminating the whole room! This morning I looked around for a burnt-out tree or something looking like it had been struck, nothing! You could hardly tell it stormed if not for the puddles here and there.
The time before the storm included a visit with my friend Cheryl Pyke and her husband Jim. We pulled up in Maxwell and got our first glimpse of Jim's brand new Corvette sitting in the driveway. (Maxwell went and hid behind the garage). We salivated over it a bit before knocking on the front door. It's spectacularly spectacular! It looks like gunmetal grey with a wide, black racing stripe down the center.
We went to dinner and took two cars, my friend Cheryl and I in her red Chevy Malibu and Frank and Jim in the Corvette. Frank happily reported that he and Jim violated the law several times on the way to the restaurant and again on the way home. I don't know why, but we forgot to take pictures! We have requested some by email and will post them when they arrive.
Tomorrow we might try to find our way to the Gene Stratton-Porter Museum. As a child Gene roamed a swampy area not far from here known as the Limberlost. She grew up and wrote novels about her experiences there. Even though these stories are dated, they're really worth the read, and Gene is one of Indiana's very own writers alongside Jessamyn West, Ernie Pyle, William Raspberry and Kurt Vonnegut among many others.
I especially like A Girl of the Limberlost. It's fascinating with it's descriptions of the giant moths and other creatures that used to thrive there. Unfortunately, the Limberlost is no more. The swamp was drained years ago to make way for human conveniences. Whenever I see a tangled woods with thick briers and bushes along the road, I think of the Limberlost and maybe in some small way it lives on if only in my memories of Gene's books.
End Captain's Log
First Officer’s Entry:
We’ve had
two “pucker-factor-ten” experiences on this trip previously. The first, on June 3rd was the “Five Ducks on
the Road” incident, the second; on July 9th was the “Basketball backstop falling
out of the pickup truck” incident. Both
of those resulted in a lot of smoking tires on a lot of eighteen wheelers as we
all slammed on our brakes to avoid meeting by accident.
Today we had
our third experience. We were running
about 65 mph going north on I35 (divided highway) in Indiana when we passed a
big 5th wheeler RV on the side of the road. That’s not unusual so we just gave them a
wide berth and went on. A short time
later we passed two RV’s on the side, one apparently helping the other. Once again that’s not TOO unusual and once
again we swung wide around them.
All things
seem to come in threes, and the third RV on the side was a huge 5th
wheeler being towed by a big 3500 Chevy truck. I swung into the center of the road to pass
wide AND
SHE PULLED OUT AND MADE A U-TURN ACROSS THE MEDIAN IN FRONT OF US! - (BTW, we
know she was a she because we got a real up-close-and-personal look at her as she
turned south while we skidded north past the ass end of her rig.) This was a really, really, really close
call. We almost center punched the
trailer. We couldn’t have passed behind
her by more than a foot or two. Cheryl
was so scared she started crying and couldn’t stop for several minutes.
The good
news was we were pretty much by ourselves on the road with no other big rigs or
RV’s nearby. The question is, “Why did
she make her u-turn in front of us rather in the mile of empty space behind
us?” I guess the answer is that it
seemed to her that there was enough room and it was a simple case of
misjudgment.
Oh well, we are here to write the story.
We are in
Elkhart, Indiana at the Elkhart RV Park.
It is very nice with double wide fully grassed spots. The only drawback is we are parked next to a
Farkle Family with several small, loud, unhappy kids and several short-tempered,
loud, unhappy adults. I just love the
hell out of the happy sound of brothers bedeviling sisters and making them cry,
and the parents screaming at them to stop, and the constant sibling bickering,
and I may ask to move to a quieter spot.
Why oh why
can’t the RV Camp software put families in one section and crotchety old seniors
in another? Seriously, we tell the camps
how many adults, kids, and pets are in each rig when we fill out the
reservation applications. I guess they
just don’t need to care.
Our
appointment to have the air conditioner replaced is still set for Wednesday AM,
so we may do a bit of local area sightseeing tomorrow. I’ll let you know.
End First Officer’s Entry
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