Wednesday May 7,2009
Spent the morning shopping for need items in walmart and making reservations for next week, Will be at Elkhart co/middlebury Koa
middlebury, in 46540 Ph 574 826 5932. But you can always reach me on my cell phone.
This afternoon started to rain after lunch so I decided to go to visit the Edison Birthplace home. See pics ,brick house is his birthplace, the other house is a museum.. It was in a little town of milan, ohio He was born there on february 11,1847. Not that interesting a deal,but inside. Found out this town was a big port in the middle 1800s. Seems they had a canal in the stream behind his home. It was the biggest grain port in the country at the time. They build lake boats here that took the grain up to the erie canal so it could go down the hudson to be exported. Tomorrow i plan to go up to the lake and try to visit some on the islands.
thats it for today

Tuesday evening May 5
Came from Mt. eaton to sandusky today . not a long trip, probably about 100 miles. Easy drive through farm country and small towns. The interesting thing is that the countryside turned from rolling hills like the piedmont to flat farm country, almost plains.
arrived about 1:00 and set up camp.
Dave called later to tell me he had mowed the lawn and had some mail for me.
Tomorrow I'm going to explore the area,There are several things that sound interesting. Pics if any of them are worthwhile.
Thats it for today.

Monday evening
Today was a do little day. spent most of the day gettingf used to my new computer.Windows vista is different, I,ve said a few choice words over it. All in all i was lucky i guess, I only lost my trailer life program that has campgrounds a,my games and the quicken that came with this one is hard to get uset to.
I plan to leave in the af for Sandusky Ohio for three nights, Want to see the area and it willbreak up the trip to elkhart,
I wikk be staying at Sandusky/bayshore estates koa
Ph 800 962 3786.
Thats about it for today.

Late Sunday night
When i opened my laptop this morning to start to write yesterdays post, surprise/ The led screen had been broken somehow and i couldnt see anything. So i went to Best buy to see about getting it fixed. They said it would have to go to their repair center and would take about two weeks=not good. And the cost would be near a new one. I now have a new hp laptop,and a compac laptop with a broken led. Took most of the day to get to wooster (20 miles) bs
uy new one and have the data from the old one loaded onto this one. Lost a few things thatcouldnt transfer butI have cds at home to reoald them,
I have made reservations fofr tuesday at a koa near Sandusty by lake erie. Plan ro be there about three days then on to indiana near elkhart.Send some locations and phone numbers tomorrow

monday May 4
Saturday turned out to be one of those days that one remembers from travels. Started out early (about 8:30) for dayton. As i was leaving, I noticed a lot of horse and buggy traffic in town. Then as i got about 1/2 way to the town i passed a local grocery, there were a lot of people there. The strange thing about this was that all of the men had on black suits and black hats, Even saw a couple of men walking to town dressed this way, some of the young men were riding bicycles , but they had on stocking caps and nice clothes. Didnt see too many women and those i saw were in the buggys. In town i turned the corner to pass the bank, The bank was packed and there were about 20 men standing outside waiting to get in =all dressed in suits. I finally figured out that they probably worked in one of the plants nearby and had been paid and were waiting to cash their checks,
Across the street from the bank was a grain elevagtor, there were a lot of men there, and buggys and horses everywhere, about a mile out of the main part of town i met a young lady pushing a babby stroller, making big time ti town, Then a little way further, the crowning sight- an elderly man dressed in a black sit and hat in an electric handicapped chair (hoveraround type driving down the midddle of the road to town. Looked nlike a saturday one used to see in westerns-everybody came to town for the day,
Rest of the trip to dayton was undeventful. However it was well worth it., Theairforce museum and memorial was very impressive, I took the picture of the memorial of ther china burma area because Earl Moore (boating friend) had been one of the people that carried radio transmitters into the nmountains on mules and their backs to guide the fliers who flew these missions. All in all I thought it was as good as anything in the Smithsonian in dc.
Then I went to the wright brothers home and work shop across town. That was also interesting .The quality of the bicycles they were making was as good a the best racing bikes today. Amazing when you look at their tools.
All in all a very impresive day. i must admit that i shed a couple of tears at some of the memorials in the air force museum.
didnt get home until late. I just caughtd mrs. yoders cafe for dinner at 8:00 so it was after 9 when i got home and ditred.

Sunday May 3.
sorry for the delay in posting. Yesterday was a long day and I didnt feel like posting when i get home.Thiis morning when I opened my computert the led screen was broken in half and useless so I am sending this on a new hp laptop. As soon as i get used tdo it ill post photos and notes from yestserday and today. Probably tomorrow.

Friday May 1
Started out today by going back to the restaurant where i had dinner last night. Wanted to get a pic of the area a little away from the restaurant for horse and buggy parking including horse manure on the ground.
Then I took a drive down to the south a litte way to get some pics of amish life. An interesting thing is the contrasts in life. About 1/2 the farm houses dont have electricity connections. Yet almost every home has at least one sideline and some two.Almost any kind of home industry you can think of. Many times these industrys have grown into major businesses. The biggest example is Wayne Dalton- they have a huge office and manufacturing plant. The second thing you can see in some of these pics isthe simplehome life - clothes washed without eletricity and hng outside to dry. Then another thing, they do not want pics taken of them they think it is a show of vanity . To get the one pic of the man and woman to show typical dress, I had to do a drive-by shooting out of the window.
Then I went to a typical farm for a tour and talk about amish life. It seems there are two brands of the same thing in the area amish and menonites. The Menonites generally are more tuned into our life style They use electricity and cars and send their children to our schools. Th amish dont drive cars, they dont use elecricity, and they dress in the type of clothes in the pics. Their children go to school to only the eight grade. They are the ones still riding horse and buggy.But, they work hard. If you drive through the ountryside afgter dinner, some of them are still working in the fields. Forgot to mention they use horses to work fields- no tractor.
Forgot to mention that I took a side trip to a cheese factory. Thats two of the pics They make swiss cheese Guggisberg cheese factory. Never had seen this operation before. Bought some cheese-it is very good.
Very educational place.
Tomorrow I Plan to take a day trip to Wright-Patterson air base.