3 September 2013 Ohio and Indiana

We left humid Jefferson, Ohio, today at 9:15 and traveled 275 miles to Howe, Indiana, at the Grand View Campground. A long day of driving. Our route was along I-90 through Cleveland and then along I-90 and I-80 from just west of Cleveland to Howe.

At one rest stop there were two old Allis Chalmers tractors on a large flatbed trailer. Philip talked to the driver, and he picked them up in Vermont to take them to his home in Michigan to add to his collection. Those two old tractors drew a lot of attention--old farmers like to reminisce.

The dark and threatening clouds that were hanging around Jefferson slowly gave way as we headed west, and by the time we got to Howe the skies were clear and the excessive humidity was gone. Yea! It has been a long time since we have been able to sit outdoors in our chairs and relax and socialize.

It was great to be back in farming country and see the corn and soybean crops. There were many acres of good-looking corn and some acres that were stunted due to the lack of rain. A few acres of corn had been stripped by hail and several acres that had been detasseled. Detasseling is required to produce hybrid varieties of corn. The process involves planting two different varieties of corn in the same field and then removing all of the tassels of one of the varieties. The tassels remaining on the other variety then pollinate the corn of the detasseled variety thereby producing a hybrid corn. All of the soybean fields looked great. Some of the corn and soybeans are beginning to turn brown before harvesting. The back window of our rig looks out on one of these green fields of soybeans.

Our 2004 Alpenlite Portofino on the right, 

and Marge and Jerry's 2006 Alpenlite Voyager on the left.

Out our back window

After dinner Patrice and I (and Carlos) took a five-mile ride south to Lagrange just to look around a bit. Tomorrow we have a vet appointment to get Carlos's nails trimmed. Eight miles to the west from there is Shipshewana. The area is bills itself as being the largest community of Amish in the world. We saw many of them in horse-drawn buggies and on several bicycles along the road. The buggies were well lit with 12-volt tail lights and some with head lights--it was getting dark enough for autos to have their lights on. They look rather pretty all lit up, but it seemed dangerous  to us for the riders and the horses.

Tomorrow morning we will go to a huge flea market at Shipshewana, in session every Tuesday and Wednesday throughout the summer. There are hundreds of outdoor booths, selling everything from produce to crafts, furniture to flowers, and buildings contain other retail shops. We'll see what we find!