Day Eight – Sunday Sept. 8th, 2013.

HEY MR. CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?

We had a pretty good sleep last night but both realized that we like campgrounds and Wal-Marts better than truck stops. They are quieter and don’t have the Semi Trucks running their engines and reefers all night long a few feet from your open windows. Even though we wear earplugs at truck stops sometimes it can still be noisy.

While enjoying my morning coffee outside our rig in the truck stop parking area. I was approached by a man that I would describe as clean cut, 60 years old, glasses, ball hat and wearing shorts and a T shirt like the rest of us.

He apologized to me before even telling me what was on his mind so right then my guard went up.

To make his long story shorter it sounded like his wife left their money by accident in another truck back a few miles and they just realized it. They don’t have enough gas or money to pay the tolls to turn around and go back for it.

I offered him a $10 dollar bill and asked if that was enough and he replied, “No Sir but that will sure help!”

Away he went.

I haven’t had this happen to me since last summer when we were at a gas station in Nevada. I always wonder if I have been taken but then again know that I have been blessed to not be in their situation if it is true. So, I decide to take the gamble and drop them a bit of cash hoping that it will really help them out.

Was I taken by a scam? I don’t know. If I was so be it, if not then I hope they put it to good use. He seemed very legit and didn’t look down on his luck so just maybe one day he will help someone that needs help down the road too?  I guess my thought is we need to gamble on humanity once in a while and pay it forward a bit. Call me a sucker if you want, but I hope that I helped someone?

Coming into Chicago!

The Toll Road saga continued on today as we moved on east. Indiana charged us $24.00 at one booth plus more at other smaller ones! After we were into Ohio where we got our Toll pass, we decided to get off early and paid just $4.00 all to avoid another big toll hit and to see some of the real countryside.

I’m not sure but it looked like the Indiana Toll Road might have been privately owned by a business who contracts this all out. But I guess it’s the only way to keep the infrastructure in good shape when there are so many people and so much traffic?

I still don’t like it and think that they should give privately owned vehicles from out of state a break or a freebie. I don’t even want to add up the total Toll Fees we have paid and know that there are more coming in places along the east coast such as New York and Florida and I’m sure lots of others in between.

If they start adding Toll Roads back home where we live I’ll simply move to another area. I can’t imagine paying some of those tolls twice a day while going back and forth to work.

We had a pretty un-eventful day until we decided to have a late lunch at a Denny’s in east Ohio. We had been driving the non-toll roads and seeing some small towns, farms and acreages. Have I mentioned the corn?

So far in the last few states we have seen about 500 billion tons of corn. All still in the fields. Miles and miles of it. Knowing that they use it as food filler, cattle feed and sweetener not to mention in fuel for cars it was unreal! If they weren’t growing corn they were growing Soy Beans, the next largest crop.

So back to the Denny’s lunch. We pulled off the freeway and into a town called Freemont, Ohio. Nice little place. As we got closer to the Denny’s it looked like we couldn’t park our 50-foot rig on the roadway or in the Denny’s area so I made a last minute and very quick decision. As it turned out it was the wrong decision; I noticed that as I pulled into the Aaron’s Furniture Rental parking lot next to Denny’s but it was too late!

Some Days Barb is Amazed With my Driving...

You see, as we are towing what they call “four down” or “flat towing” (RV lingo again for a tow bar and no trailer under the vehicle that we tow) we cannot back up with out unhooking the car! The Aaron’s parking lot quickly made it apparent that I didn’t have enough room to turn around. We found ourselves at the far end of the lot about 2/3rds around in our turn and couldn’t go any further either forwards or backwards. Oh well, we tried and lesson learned!

So out I get to unhook the car we are towing to independently back it up and then back the motorhome up out of our predicament.

As it turned out I could not get the tow bars to release as there was too much tension on them in the now stopped turning position. As we pondered our situation and had a laugh a man and his wife came out from the Denny’s next door.

Oh great! I was thinking that’s all I need, is a crowd to gather!

As it turned out he was a very nice man and left his lunch early as he watched us and realized we had a problem. He started off by saying “Hi, my name is Fred and welcome to Ohio!” I laughed inside and thought well that was better than I was imagining he would say.

Fred helped me and we managed to pull the motorhome back wards with the car. After a few minutes we finally got the tension lowered enough to get the tow bars to release their ugly grip.

Fred told me how he had been blessed earlier that morning and how he had hoped to pass on the blessing to someone else. I told him, Brother you sure did pass it on and we both had a laugh and he and his wife went on their merry way. We got ready and headed in for a lunch that was much more needed now! Thanks go out to Fred for his kindness and sharing a bit of that Ohio charm with us!

After we got unstuck at Arron's in Ohio next to Denny's

After lunch we headed back out on the freeway (No Tolls please – ha-ha), eventually getting into Pennsylvania at about 730pm and parking for the night at a great little Wal-Mart in Grove City. There is one other motorhome (Class C) parked in the lot here. I am happy to say after a 10-hour day I’m tired and glad to be off the road. So here I sit writing this Blog and relaxing.

Welcome to PA!

By the way this has certainly been the coolest day of our trip yet.

We have been on the road for a week today. Today I don’t think it went past 74F. Mostly cloudy & cool, we were thankful. The humidity has dropped too!

If you are sitting there reading without a map, I encourage you to get one and open it up. If nothing else try Google Maps or Map Quest and open it as a second tab on your computer so that you can refer back to it.

Right now we are about 4.5 hours or so from New York City. I believe we are not too far north of Pittsburgh. Finally I have no recall of how many hours east we are from Chicago, its all a blur!

We are hoping to spend some time in this state, maybe a day or two. We would like to see some of the Amish culture and I’m not sure what else yet. The scenery has been very beautiful from Wisconsin to where we are today and the trees just seem to get thicker with more rolling green hills.

The corn however stays the same – BIG! The corn is so big that it reaches up to the rooflines of travel trailers and higher. Like huge weeds that go on for miles!

We have seen lots of little lakes and of course the shores of a few big ones (Great Lakes). Some campgrounds that look inviting and homes from the early 1800’s that are still being lived in today. These homes will get even older as we head farther east.

The vehicle traffic is getting even thicker with transport trucks. One always knows when they are getting closer to highly populated areas when this happens. Tonight I would say the trucks were at least 5 to every one car if not more.

You might wonder why I am including a few details in these stories that perhaps won’t necessarily interest you?  Let me first apologize and then explain. The reasons are two-fold.

One is so that our children know where we are and what has been going on in our lives and the other reason is because I thought at our age it might be good to keep a diary.

I have noticed over the last few years that I don’t remember much about the trips that we have taken. Barb seems to recall much more.  When I think of how much we have travelled and how little I seem to remember it really bugs me. So there’s your answer to that one & we hope that you will put up with us.

When I get a chance to sit down with Internet for a while I will update the Blog and add in more pictures from over the days. It takes time and some of the free ones are very slow. As you know we do not have mobile Internet with us yet. We will get that going once we come back down into the USA from the Maritimes.

In the meantime I hope you all had a great weekend and that September will be a good month for you both weather-wise and fun wise!

Cheerio for now!