A Surprising Day

 We are camped in Site 258 in Turkey Run State Park which is the same site as last year.  We got here about 11:30 a.m. set up camp, and relaxed the rest of the day.  It was a nice day and evening.  We got reacquainted with our old friend Shane and his brother Aubie.  Both brothers camp here on this side of the park every year.  Aubie had a indoor storage facility and we stored our motorhome in it for the last three years.  It was a cool night getting down to 52 inside the motorhome.  We used our electric blanket so we slept very good.  We could turn on the furnace but to conserve propane, we use our electric space heater.  We will turn on the furnace if we need to.  After supper we walked around this side of the campground watched a DVD and then went to bed.  Carol asked me what we were going to do tomorrow.  At that time, I really didn't have a plan.  After we got up, we decided to drive to Decatur, Indiana to a RV repair facility to have the levelers on the motorhome checked out.  They haven't worked for a couple of years and we wanted to know if they could be repaired or if they could need to be totally replaced.  That was the plan for the day.

I took this picture to show how little the trees have changed colors this year.  This is the tree line that we can see as we look northeast from our site.

These are the trees we see as we look south from our site.  Again, there is very little color change.

The clouds this morning looking south from the site.

The sunrise as we drove east from Turkey Run.

We saw several beautiful courthouses as we drove through Indiana .

It took us about three hours to drive from Turkey Run to Decatur, Indiana which is about five miles from the Ohio border.

This was the destination of our drive. It is called REV Service Center and they service Fleetwood motorhomes like ours.  It was an amazing place.  In front of the center is a huge concrete parking lot where motorhomes can park and wait for their service or parts.  They provide an electric hookup and there are laundry facilities.  Unfortunately, they will not be able to help us because the company that makes our levelers sold to another company and the new company does not stock parts for our leveler.  To repair means a totally new system.  

While driving the rural roads of Indiana we discovered a few surprises and this was one of them.  James Dean the actor who was killed in a car accident at the age of 24 is from Fairmount and is buried in their local cemetery.

Another surprise was that although James Dean only lived 24 years and died nearly 60 years ago, he has a following as is evidenced by the articles left at his gravesite.  Some of the articles were an ear of corn, a comb with his name on it, and coins and flowers.  He was nominated for two Academy Awards posthumously. 

We don't know this family but liked their marker.  There name was "Bumpas."

  It may seem weird bet Carol and I enjoy walking through old cemeteries.  Sometimes, you can learn some interesting stories.

We passed the Limberlost State Historical Site and Park.  I was curious to know what this was all about and learned in the early 1900's there was a woman named Gene Straton-Porter who wrote books, nature books, poetry, and children's books and she built a cabin in the Limberlost area.  In her day she was as popular and well-read as J.K. Rowling is today.  That cabin can be seen if you visit this historic site.

We were also surprised to learn that there is a Bill and Gloria Gaither Highway.  It is State Route 28 and runs through Alexandria, Indiana which is their hometown and where the Gaithers have their music facilities.

We also passed Taylor University where Betsy Smith was attending when she was killed in a tragic auto accident several years ago.  We had no idea where the university was located.

Another surprising thing we learned was that Indiana has a bumper crop of pumpkins this year.  We saw so many yards full of pumpkins for sale.  The weather must have been perfect for growing pumpkins.

Carol commented that Indiana loves their stop signs.  There are so many rural highways running through the small towns and it seemed that when one highway intersected another, there was always a stop sign.

Anyway, we spent the day driving the rural roads of central Indiana and along with being a day of nice scenery, we had some surprises which we didn't expect when we started out this morning.  It is amazing the secrets and surprised that the rural roads can lead a person to.

We probably drove 400 miles today and all of it except for 40 miles was on rural highways.  Tomorrow we plan to relax at the campsite and not drive anywhere.  It is supposed to be a beautiful, sunny day.