Events of the Past Week

Well so much time has passed since the last post. We made it safely to Bowling Green, Ohio on Sunday morning leaving Bremen, Indiana about 7:30am and arriving about 10:30am. The Newmar group was parked on the campus of Bowling Green State University. There were over 2700 motorhomes of most every description at the rally, some parked on the campus and others at the county fairgrounds nearby. Seminars, vendor areas and entertainment were all held on the university campus. On Sunday evening Tom and I went to Findlay, Ohio to have dinner at Max and Erma's, a restaurant, with some high school classmates of Tom's. Through email communication it had been arranged to get together since Tom would be in the area. It was a nice evening. Monday morning we went to Fayette, Ohio to Tom's sister, Julie, and her family's home. Tom had left a hat at Julie's when we were there at the family reunion in June so we needed to pick that up and we thought we should visit again with them before going home. In the afternoon the motorhome display area was opened for viewing so we went over and walked through several units. We still like our 10 year old motorhome best! Tuesday was the opening day of the vendor area. We had some items we were interested in obtaining or learning more about. Our 10 year old tow bar was a number 1 concern so we were able to get that replaced. The vendor area always has trinkets, candies and information handouts so we end up with bags of "stuff". We had a coupon for pancakes, plain and blueberry, that we could get at a booth. I thought it was going to be pancake mix but it was actually frozen pancakes that were packaged 24 to a pack. A package of plain and a pack of blueberry were given to everyone turning in a coupon. (We did try eating pancakes for breakfast one morning and they were good, just warmed up in the microwave and eat.) The evenings entertainment was 4:2:Five, a group of 5 young men that sing acappella even making sounds of musical instruments. During the course of their entertainment the generator supplying power to their sound system failed but these guys just came out into the audience and continued the show until power was restored. Wednesday, Tom's brother, Roger, stopped by, visited and had lunch with us. Roger lives just north of the Bowling Green area. Lorrie Morgan was to be the entertainment for the evening but it had rained much of the day so the show which was to be held at the stadium was cancelled. Actually at the time of the show rained had stopped so there were some unhappy campers! Thursday we were up early to attend 8am seminars. Tom went to a seminar on Google Earth and I attended a seminar on quilts. FMCA members make small, children's quilts throughout the year and then donate these quilts to a hospital or shelter that is local to the rally. There were more than 50 quilts of all kinds patterns and designs donated. We attended other seminars later in the morning, Tom went to Picasa 3 and I went to recycling gray water. We went out to dinner with Ed and Barb Perry,Maryland friends we have known for sometime that recently bought a motorhome and were attending their first FMCA International Rally. The entertainment for the evening was a group called Phil Dirt and the Dozers, an oldies group. Friday morning we departed Bowling Green and headed east toward home. It is amazing how quickly a large group of motorhomes becomes dispersed throughout the country in a short time. Everyone leaves on their own time, some leave before the rally ends and then on the day of departure people start leaving at 6am and others will hang around until late morning. We got away about 8:30am. Not taking the turnpike, we traveled over route 70 and stopped at a KOA in Washington, Pa. for the night. Today we continued our travels over route 68 through western Maryland to Hancock then on to Taneytown. That is a very scenic drive but the hills are long and plentiful. The abundance of rain while we were away sure had the weeds in the flower beds growing. We commented on our way home about the green countryside compared to what has been for numerous summers brown dried up environments.