Studebaker Museum, South Bend, Indiana

Yesterday after breakfast with the Indiana Airstream group, Anne-Marie and I drove into South Bend, and traveled right by The University of Notre Dame.  I didn’t even know that we were this close to it.  There seems to be more exploring to this area that can be done, and we will need to return for another visit.

 

The Studebaker National Museum was our destination, and we found more interesting places to explore on our way to it.

Unknown to us, there is two museums under one roof here, and we choose the Studebaker side for this visit.  First floor has a turntable display, and the featured car is a Woody Station Wagon, I don’t remember seeing any of these on the road.

There are three floors of Studebakers on display.  Prototype autos, and production vehicles are displayed on all floors.

The first display areas show how Studebaker first made wagons, wheels, and carriages in the 1800s, and progressed to automobile manufacturing.  Studebaker made Presidential carriages for Lincoln, Grant, Harrison, and McKinley, and all are on display.   The first display area was where the early cars were displayed, and I broke away from Anne-Marie, and dashed about looking for the special car.  I found 1927 models and 1930 models, but the special car is a 1928 Dictator model.  I learned to drive in a 1928 Dictator, and it was my car for two years.  The special car belonged to my Grandfather, and in the 1940s, it transported my dads family to Washington State, from Wisconsin. 

The cars from the 1930s were large and expensive in the day.  The basement display, in addition to having a row of double stacked displays, also has a history of their involvement on WWII.

On our elevator trip to the upper level, there was one other passenger with us.  The first small display room was the Avanti Owners Association International, and the passenger followed me to the displays.  We chatted on different Studebakers that we owned, touched on film  cameras, and I mentioned that we are living in a Airstream Trailer, and he was quite interesting to visit with.  During an oh by the way moment he told me that his picture was in the display case, John Hora.

John Hora has a vehicle on display on the main floor, the gold Avanti.  John and I visited occasionally during the rest of our tour of the museum, and he was quick to point out design highlights on several prototype vehicles.  John was mentioning items like “I have one of this year at home, I have a project like this needing attention”, and all this made me think that he must have a warehouse of a garage full of a lot of cars.  John has worked in the film industry on both sides of the camera, but mostly behind the lens, and has bought neat cars his whole life, and it sounds like he still has most of them.  The wide picture has Anne-Marie and John on the right, showing the double stacked display in the basement.

Today Anne-Marie and I are returning to the Museums to visit the Center for History Museum.

South Bend/Granger, KOA, Indiana

Yesterday, we left Grand Rapids without a plan.  I didn’t even look at a map the day before or on Saturday.  I was really interested is seeing Lake Erie, but Anne-Marie had a different view of how many days we have left before we need to be back in Illinois.  After about five minutes of spirited conversation, our direction was changed from East to South, and closer to Illinois.  With no real direction, and no plan, we had a lot of coordination to achieve, to get us on the right road out of Grand Rapids.  We ended up circling town with the Airstream in tow, and finally actually heading South.  Anne-Marie choose a KOA just across the Indiana border, and the one closest to a town, South Bend, Indiana.

As we were escorted to our site, we noticed several Airstream trailers parked about the park.   Once we were setup, I saw that there were two guys at a picnic table between two of the Airstreams.  They were a part of a Rally of the Indiana Unit, and the rest of the group was off touring different directions.  After Anne-Marie and I returned from dinner, and shopping, I saw that there was a larger group gathered with the Airstreams, and I joined them.  The threat of a incoming storm within minutes, and dinner plans of the Airstream group, dispersed the group.

The storm arrived and hit swift and hard, Anne-Marie and I was watching its progress on the RV Parks cable TV system, and a Tornado was seen forming, and our town was in it’s track, and the cable TV service went off….  I put the outside antenna up, and we continued to track the storm with the weather, storm watch stations.  The tornado fizzled, but the wind hit hard, and the rain just a bit harder.  The rain has fallen on and off most all night.

The Indiana Airstream group.

A wide view of the group of trailers.

Anne-Marie and I went to breakfast with the Indiana group.  The KOA campground serves breakfast on weekends during the summer.

We made new friends, even if our visit was  brief.  The Airstream group, being mostly weekenders, was quick to depart Sunday morning, as I was told that several had two to four hour drives to get home.

Woodland Travel Center, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Anne-Marie and I pulled the trailer To Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday, and we are all hooked up with power and water here at the Airstream Dealer, Woodland Travel Center.  The slide gasket got replaced, and a few rivets were also replaced.  The gasket is a black foam material that is glued around the edge of the slide, like a gasket on a car door.  It’s been coming loose for a year, and I intended to replace it myself, but the few RV places that I asked about what kind of material do I use, I would only get a shrug of the shoulders.  Being a two person job, I’m happy to have had it done here, and it looks like new. 

Again, we visited the local Penzey’s Spice Store, yesterday.  Anne-Marie doesn’t need much time, as she knows the general store layout.

Woodland Travel Center does rebuilds, and restorations on older Airstreams, and can make a 40 year old trailer look like new.

This rebuild, is going to be new everything inside, and all upgraded to modern appliances.

Even a washer/dryer in this custom rebuild.  They have a cabinet shop in one of the work areas.

This trailer isn’t as far along in the rebuild, the walls are done and the basic framework is started with the cabinetry.

This Airstream was here for a polishing.

These are the things that I dreamed of with my shop.  Retirement can come swift and fast, and without any planning.  Instead of being a fixer and builder of things, Anne-Marie and I are perpetually on vacation, and I think that this is working well for us.

Photographing Birds and Laundry

Yesterday, was a laundry day here in St Ignace for Anne-Marie and I.  We found a Laundromat right downtown and that is where we spent a few hours yesterday afternoon.

I would have thought that a business like this would be away from the water and the view, but all buildings downtown have a view of the water. 

After we got the machines loaded and running, I went outside, and visited with a lady feeding the birds.  It looked to be so entertaining, that I got a camera.  The birds were a bit skittish, and this is about the best action shot that I got.  In an effort to get a close-up picture of the gulls, I got the Trail Camera out, and set it up under the van, and put some food on the ground right in front of it.

This is some of the close-up pictures that the camera got.  I didn’t set the date, or time on the camera.  This young gull, couldn’t quite understand what the camera was.  I had a lot of out-of-focus pictures, because the birds were too close to the camera.

Today is a traveling day for us. We have a appointment with the Airstream Dealer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this afternoon.  The outside gasket of our slide is coming loose, and has been pinched and torn.  Craig at Woodland RV, has a overnight hookup for the trailer, and we will be spending only one night there.  Our travel plans after Grand Rapids is unknown, we haven’t even looked at a map yet.  I haven’t seen Lake Erie yet, maybe we could go that direction.

When I was in school, I had no interest in the Great Lakes area, but now it is really quite interesting.  Every town we have been in has a unique and fascinating history, and we want to return to them and see more.

Mackinac Island, Mackinac Fort & Historic Downtown Mackinac City

We have two days here in St Ignace to tour and do laundry.  The weather was great yesterday, with blue sky, and forecast to be 81, so we toured.  Anne-Marie and I drove into town, without a plan, as she had already set the slow cooker for 5 hours with the Wolf At the Door Chili, and we had plenty of time.

We decided to visit the Mackinac Island again, and of the three boat services, we choose the Arnold Line, just for fun.  This is our boat at dock, and it holds up to 400 people.  The Captains chair, and what looks like an airplane pilot control station.

We rode on the top deck, for the views, and for the breeze .  This big boat is really fast.  Entering Mackinac Bay, we passed a ferry boat with a UPS truck on it, and as vehicles aren’t allowed on the streets, we thought that this is only how UPS gets packages to the dock, and then the horse drawn freight wagon is loaded for final delivery.

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, has a front porch 660ft long, and is the largest building seen from the boat.  The Grand Hotel provides the ultimate in accommodations, and even has a formal dress code requiring proper dinner attire, coat and tie for men and dress or pantsuit for females, and is required in all areas of the hotel except the Cupola Bar.  The hotel has it’s own elegant carriages to transport guests in their accustomed style.  This is a very foo foo type of place, a non-guest is charged $10 each to enter the hotel, and the rooms start at $600+ and advance to over $1000+  per night.

Downtown in Mackinac was incredible with horse drawn carriages and wagons, thousands of bikes parked and in use, and people walking with no real traffic flow patterns, all over the Main Street.  The only vehicles allowed on the island are the public safety type, fire, police, ambulance, and the power company has a line truck hidden somewhere, and in winter when the roads are too slick for the horses, snowmobiles are used.  When Huron Lake freezes, snowmobiles are the only way to get across the ice.

When we were visiting Mackinac Fort, a huge freighter ship passed through the straights.  This is a view of the boat docks of the other two boat services, and there are hundreds of people on the boats and dock.

The historic Mackinac Fort is taken care of by the Michigan State Parks.  There were almost continuous reenactments by the park employees, this one generated a lot of interest, with the demonstration of firing the rifles and advancing the lines.  The cannon firing demonstration was done with one pointing over the wall aimed at the bay.

The buildings were set up just like when they in use in the 1800s.

The blockhouses all had cannons in them, and one had mannequins reenacting the time when the fort changed hands from the US to the British.  The French, British, and USA all had roles with the fort, from Revolutionary times to the late 1800s.

The Post Canteen display, and they had a tavern here in the later years, in an attempt to keep the soldiers on the fort grounds, rather than having them visiting the town.

A wide view with one of the many cannons.  The views from the outlooks of the fort were great, and all points of the bay could be viewed as could the town.

Anne-Marie and I didn’t sign up for one of the narrated horse carriage tours, but we were able to get a ride down the hill on this carriage.  The operator is a college student, with only one more season of working on the island.

There are working horses pulling wagons of different types, and all doing different jobs, the wagon with sides is used for garbage pickup, and the wagons on the dock are used to deliver freight on the island.

We visited the island last year, and the narrated carriage ride and touring the stores downtown took up a whole day, and the visit to the fort is another days trip in its own.  Anne-Marie said that there is a tour of the historic buildings downtown that we have yet to do.  We did the tourist stuff, we bought T-shirts, and too much fudge 3 1/2 pounds (weighed when we got back to the trailer) and caramel corn, and we can return next year and still explore something new.

Today is a lesser demanding day with only laundry on the need to do list.

St Ignace, Upper Peninsula Michigan and Pasties, Fudge, & Smoked Fish

Yesterday Anne-Marie and I pulled the trailer from Sault Ste Marie, down to the vacation area of St Ignace, Michigan.  This is where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are attached, at the Mackinaw Strait.  These two Great Lakes are attached by a five mile wide body of water and is 120ft deep, and are considered to be a single lake, and the largest fresh water lake in the world.  There is a lot to do here, but we only allowed three nights for our stay.  We need to get the trailer to Grand Rapids, Michigan for a repair on the gasket around the slide-out, it isn’t leaking, but the adhesive holding the seal has let go, and it needs replacing.

Our home in St Ignace is the KOA campground.  We are in pretty good shape here, 50amp electric, water/sewer, cable TV at the site, and internet service.  We are just minutes away from downtown, and all of the tourist stuff.

Last year Anne-Marie and I saw these type of signs, around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and we chuckled, and wondered what is a Pasty?  I had to search beyond the clothing accessory to find the food item Pasties.  Think of a pot pie but wrapped in a pie crust, and baked on a sheet in the oven.  There are many variations of fillings, and most all have potatoes, carrots, and some type of meat inside.  Smoked fish, Wild Rice, and fudge are also a local product, there is a active whitefish fishery in the lakes, and most all restaurants have whitefish on the menu.   The Wild Rice is grown in this part of the Great Lakes area, and is closer to grass seed than rice.