Well the day started off fine. Awoke to all the "camper" hooking up their fifth wheels and hitting the road. It's funny to me how much beige clothing any one tourist can wear. Maybe they are trying to blend in with the dead grass fields of Ohio. Made up our coffee and hit the road looking for a post office and someplace to get the oil in the van changed.
Post office was easy and right down the street, as luck would have it so was a Valvoline quick lube. Now I'm very picky about who touches the van, but I figured an oil change wouldn't require much thought or skill. We pulled in and I dropped the trailer to make it easier on the two guys working. One of them came out and told me that he would drive the van in to the bay and get going on it...first thing I didn't like. Once inside I gave the other guy my info and sat down. As I was sitting I noticed that they were talking an awful lot about something so I sauntered over to the door and did a little eavesdropping.
They had never seen a Eurovan before and one said to the other, "have you ever done one of these before? I'm a little lost down here." To which the other replied, "no". At this point they started cursing and bantering back and forth and I started to get a little nervous about the goings on inside the bay. I was getting so worked up that I had to go and stand outside against the building because I thought I was going to puke. All I could think of was they were going to get something screwed up and I would be sitting in middle of nowhere PA for a week while the local VW dealer bent me over for thousands of $$$.
After what seemed like, and was, an eternity the shop owner came to the window and told me everything was all set. They had dropped the oil cap down into the engine bay and couldn't get their hands on it. Then they were in the process of taking the skid plate off the van when the noticed there are conveniently little tabs that allow it to swing out of the way to expose the oil filter. In any case they got the oil back into the van and got us on our way. For the amount of anguish they caused me they did a good job and I appreciate their effort.
It wasn't long before we were in Ohio, in the middle of farm country, and it was around 90 degress. Now the van doesn't have AC and my wife, as you all know, hates to be hot. She literally was getting a sun burn from being in the drivers seat so we pulled into the next rest area.
This area was the most beautiful I've ever seen. The lawns were manicured, the building was clean and new and the parking lot was immense. As far as I'm concerned it was our best view of Ohio by far. I'll tell you that after that it was all down hill. The road was beat to hell, the traffic was thick, and the radio stations weren't that great. You would expect good stations from Cleveland since they claim to "rock".
We were soon through Ohio and into Indiana with very little to report except more bad roads. Towards the end of the day we passed South Bend and on a whim continued driving. As I was nearing the outer limits of Chicago we noticed a sign for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and decided to check it out. After a 5 mile drive down a long broken road (noticing a theme here?) we came out into a parking lot and got out of the car. What we happened upon was pretty amazing. The beach we were standing on looked like it should have been in California. The sands were white, the water was gorgeous and it was warm and breezy. If it hadn't been for the steel mills dominating the western skyline I would have sworn I was someplace other than Indiana.
We found the campground attached to the park and stopped in to the ranger station. The guy was super nice and after a long conversation (he was married in Bar Harbor, Maine) he offered to let us have a couple of bundles of woods. We gladly accepted and left him to go see the sunset over Lake Michigan.
We relaxed, drank some wine (although alcoholic beverages were strictly prohibited, so said the signs) and had a great little fire. All in all it was an epic night that we stumbled into. And get this, the town we were in was Porter Indiana... You have to think that someone was looking down on us and caused us to pull off there. Maybe some big, brown dog with a big, wet nose =o)
Post office was easy and right down the street, as luck would have it so was a Valvoline quick lube. Now I'm very picky about who touches the van, but I figured an oil change wouldn't require much thought or skill. We pulled in and I dropped the trailer to make it easier on the two guys working. One of them came out and told me that he would drive the van in to the bay and get going on it...first thing I didn't like. Once inside I gave the other guy my info and sat down. As I was sitting I noticed that they were talking an awful lot about something so I sauntered over to the door and did a little eavesdropping.
They had never seen a Eurovan before and one said to the other, "have you ever done one of these before? I'm a little lost down here." To which the other replied, "no". At this point they started cursing and bantering back and forth and I started to get a little nervous about the goings on inside the bay. I was getting so worked up that I had to go and stand outside against the building because I thought I was going to puke. All I could think of was they were going to get something screwed up and I would be sitting in middle of nowhere PA for a week while the local VW dealer bent me over for thousands of $$$.
After what seemed like, and was, an eternity the shop owner came to the window and told me everything was all set. They had dropped the oil cap down into the engine bay and couldn't get their hands on it. Then they were in the process of taking the skid plate off the van when the noticed there are conveniently little tabs that allow it to swing out of the way to expose the oil filter. In any case they got the oil back into the van and got us on our way. For the amount of anguish they caused me they did a good job and I appreciate their effort.
It wasn't long before we were in Ohio, in the middle of farm country, and it was around 90 degress. Now the van doesn't have AC and my wife, as you all know, hates to be hot. She literally was getting a sun burn from being in the drivers seat so we pulled into the next rest area.
This area was the most beautiful I've ever seen. The lawns were manicured, the building was clean and new and the parking lot was immense. As far as I'm concerned it was our best view of Ohio by far. I'll tell you that after that it was all down hill. The road was beat to hell, the traffic was thick, and the radio stations weren't that great. You would expect good stations from Cleveland since they claim to "rock".
We were soon through Ohio and into Indiana with very little to report except more bad roads. Towards the end of the day we passed South Bend and on a whim continued driving. As I was nearing the outer limits of Chicago we noticed a sign for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and decided to check it out. After a 5 mile drive down a long broken road (noticing a theme here?) we came out into a parking lot and got out of the car. What we happened upon was pretty amazing. The beach we were standing on looked like it should have been in California. The sands were white, the water was gorgeous and it was warm and breezy. If it hadn't been for the steel mills dominating the western skyline I would have sworn I was someplace other than Indiana.
We found the campground attached to the park and stopped in to the ranger station. The guy was super nice and after a long conversation (he was married in Bar Harbor, Maine) he offered to let us have a couple of bundles of woods. We gladly accepted and left him to go see the sunset over Lake Michigan.
We relaxed, drank some wine (although alcoholic beverages were strictly prohibited, so said the signs) and had a great little fire. All in all it was an epic night that we stumbled into. And get this, the town we were in was Porter Indiana... You have to think that someone was looking down on us and caused us to pull off there. Maybe some big, brown dog with a big, wet nose =o)
Almost forgot to mention this little tid bit. As we were relaxing around the fire Kristen noticed some russling over near the van. She was sort of talking to herself about squirrels and then all of a sudden cried out something about racoons. Approaching the open door of the van were two of the biggest and meanest looking coons I've seen in my life. They were almost into the van by the time I got away from the fire and started to chase them. The smaller of the two ran off in front of the van and was gone in the night, but the larger of the two ran behind the van and back around the trailer to where the picknic table was. I was hot on his heels and Kristen yelled that he had crawled onto the table. On my way around the table I grabbed the pot we used to make spaghetti in and charged the brazen coon in an attempt to ward off its attack. The coon stood its ground, glowering at me in the shadows. I ran at it banging the pot with my hand trying to scare it away, but all it did was saunter away slowly looking over its shoulder. Naturally this pissed me off, I wasn't about to be shown up by a lowly woodland creature. So I stood up to my full height, charged the coon one final time and screamed at the top of my lungs, banging the pot violently. The coon trotted off into the night. By the looks on his face he was thinking that I had indeed won the battle, but the jury would still be out on who won the war. I was on gaurd for the remainder of the night and I could see that damned things eyes just outside the fire light until we went to bed.
Reminds me of the time we camped at Abol Bridge , cought some Salmon cleaned then on the tail gate of truck , in the middle of night a BEAR awoke us trying to get those fish .I beat on the tent while barking like a dog scared the BEAR off into the camp ground knocking down anything in his path . Wardens cought it next day in a cage .Remember son . Pop's
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