Knock - Knock

Sitting at our picnic table this morning over western omlettes we heard a "knock, knock" behind us. As we turned around there were four people standing by our coach. One lady says "this is just what I want - can you tell us about your coach?" Sure, we spent about 20 minutes talking and giving a personal tour. This is not uncommon! We have finally gotten use to the stares and people walking slowly by the coach several times a day. Every where we go people have commented "nice rig"! It makes us feel proud.

We rode our bikes to the other side of the campground and took the Gorge Trail that ran beside the Mohican River. About 20 minutes into the hike we came to an access spot and looking into the river we saw 5 beautiful trout. We had checked all kinds of fishing access while we were here and they were right under our nose. The hike took about 2 hours and it was nice but we were tired.

Planned the next stop. We just learned that it is "bike week" in Sandusky, Ohio next week and that is where we are headed. Hope we don't have trouble finding a camp site, but it should be interesting.

Amish Country - Holmes County Rail Trail

Headed back up Rte 39 to Millersburg and back into Amish Country. There is a rail trail we read about so we found the old Millersburg railroad depot which was the trail head. Soon we found that we were going to share the trail with horse & buggys. There was a lane for horses and one for bikes. It was really fun. We saw different types of buggys and the horses were gorgeous. We rode about 5 miles round trip. The trail took us through forest and farm land. There was a trail that lead to a little rest area and we had lunch at "Skips" and then rode back to the depot.

Next stop was the Guggisberg Cheese Factory - home of the original Baby Bell Swiss. Unfortunately it was the weekend and the factory area was closed. However the Cheese Shop was open! Naturally we got some swiss and some jalpena cheese to make nachos with. On the way back we found Hersbergers Truck Patch. It was all fresh vegetables and we picked up 1 zuchini, 2 summer squah and a blueberry pie (home made) for $8! (Try that at home.) The place was really neat. They had farm animals and pony rides for the kids. We saw a 10 day old baby goat. He was really tiny and fluffy. The grandkids would have loved this place!

Hung out at camp as you can see in the photo. Planned the day for tomorrow.

Flying With Hawks

Left Paul & Suzie's after breakfast and took the backroads back to the campground . When we got back into the Mohican State Park area we found a little stone shrine on a hill overlooking the forest. Very quiet and peaceful. We stopped and found that it was a memorial to all of the lost veterans from WWII on from Ohio. There were 26,000 names listed in several 3 ring binders. The stone building had glass cases with different military momentos and the outside had a couple granite benches. It was a very moving.

We moved on and found an overlook to a gorge in the Mohican Forest. We walked down a path to a viewing platform. We were about 200 feet over the gorge. There were a large number of hawks circling and eventually they came closer and closer to the platform. They were at our eye level and it was a feeling that is hard to describe. They were flying so close we could see their eyes! We felt like we were flying with them. It was awesome.

We are finding that we really like the state parks more than the private campgrounds. The sites are bigger, and they aren't as commercial. There are hiking and bike trails that start right in the park, great boat launches and some even have canoe livery. Most of the restrooms and showers are pretty modern.

We had a fire tonight and naturally the camp firewood is still wet from last weeks rain. Oh well we had a smoky one anyway.

"Uncle Mike's" Beef Jerky

Finally moving! We entered the Amish Country today on Route 39 going through Walnut Creek, Berlin, and Millersburg. It's beautiful with rolling hills and farms right out of the picture books. This is a scenic byway. The entire route is shops, farms, and little restaurants. We stopped at the Walnut Creek Cheese Company. One reason is because we love cheese the other was we saw a sign for "Uncle Mike's Beef Jerky". (Uncle Mike is what our grandkids call our son.) It was a really neat place and you could smell the bakery from the parking lot! Homemade jams, kitchen gadgets, groceries, and homemade ice cream. We had lunch on the balcony that over looks the store floor. Across from our table on a platform is the truck you seen in the picture.

After leaving the store we moved on to the Mohican State Park in Loudonville . We didn't stop along the way because we wanted to be sure we could get a walkin spot at the campground. We will drive back and see some of the Amish areas later.

We called Paul Nystrom (a friend Ken used to work with) who lives in Powell Ohio. Paul invited us to stay overnight so we parked the RV and headed out. It was great to see Suzie, Alexis, and Paul again. They have a beautiful home and we had a great time. They even replayed the American Idol Finals for us as we had missed them while we were on the road. (Thanks!).

Ups and Downs along the way

We were suppose to leave Ravenna this morning, but when I went to bring in the slider it wouldn't work. (Just another adventure!) We will need to spend another day here to get things fixed and the folks at the campground were wonderful and booked the site for another night. Ken worked on the hydraulics all morning with the tremendous help of the Coach House staff and the hydraulics vendor HWH. Every0ne was terrific. HWH helped Ken and we were able to bring the bedroom in. We slept with the room in so we could just leave in the morning. We took a walk and sat on the campground office deck and watched people come and go. Believe it or not we had a sort of sunset at 8:30 tonight!

Camping isn't just about the sunshine!

Another rainy day, but there is still plenty to keep us busy. We just hung out, took a walk in the rain (very romantic) and planned some more of the trip route. However, we could both use some sun! The rain let up a little and Ken through a line in an snagged 2 little fish, but they both jumped off...but we saw them "honest"!

Fold Cat Funnies

I can't believe it's June 1st already. Now that our sight seeing trips are over we will be around camp more. We have a really nice site right on the lake. The picnic area is really big as you can see in the picture. We can launch the boat just over the edge of the bank and tie it up to the tree.

We'll be here today and tommorrow hoping we can get some more fishing in. The sun finally came out and we launched the Fold Cat. Thank goodness we didn't have an audience. We had to remember how to put it together and got laughing so hard I didn't think we would ever get in the water, but we did. The lake was great and very scenic, I had a "nibble" but that was it. We had been out about half an hour and of course the wind came up and it started to rain. We got hooked up on a sandbar on the way in and that started us laughing again. It got worse from there, it is all clay here on the banks and clay gets slippery in the rain. Picture us scrambling up the bank trying to pull the boat in...we will definitely need the laundry to clean Ken's rain jacket and shorts!

We have been having problems with wifi access and we finally gave in today and got a Verizon card. Now we should be able to get on line most anywhere. (We have people now...)

I think tommorrow will be a house cleaning day.