Elkhart, Indiana

We went to the RV and Motor Home Museum in Elkhart.  Most RV's are made in this area.

I was surprised how early they started having motor homes.

This was a 1931 Ford Housecar.

You ought to enlarge this and read it, interesting.

This is a 1958 Airstream, supposedly the top of the line when it comes to travel trailers.

This is also very interesting.

This was a 1935 Covered Wagon Travel Trailer.

They were one of the first manufacturers of travel trailers and that year they were the largest.

Star Streak II

One of two custom built in 1988.

This is the front.

1916 Automobile Telescope Apartment.

Looking at the 1929 Weidman Housecar from the back.

I thought it looked awesome.

I can't believe they made these way back in the 20's

Read this!

This one has a fence in the back.

It was a 1928 Pierce Arrow Fleet Housecar.

And we musn't forget the Winnebago.  This is a 1967.

Motor homes have been called Winnebagos for many years, irregardless of the make.

Wakarusa, Indiana

I almost missed this Indiana sing.

The Wakarusa Dime Store not only has huge jelly beans, they have all sorts of candy, especially the ones we haven't seen for a while, Necco Wafers, Turkish Taffy, Mary Janes, etc.

This is the Amish part of the state, so we saw many of these, most of which were driven by young women.

It was really neat to see the horses pulling plows and whatever in the fields.  These were wagons parked at a store.

Utica and LaSalle, Illinois

We went to Starved Rock State Park and found many of these white oak carvings around the lodge, just like the ones we saw in Biloxi, Mississippi last winter.  The lodge was beautiful, very rustic.  We ate breakfast there one morning.  We stayed at the camp ground and met some very nice people.  We always meet nice people on our trips. 

There was a museum at the visitors' center, mostly about the Illinois Indians.  They even had this wigwam.

Starved Rock got it's name because in 1760 the Illiniwek Indians fled to the top of the rock after they killed the Potawatomi chief.  The Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians surrounded the rock and didn't let the Illiniwek off the rock so they ended up starving to death.  We climbed the top and this was a view from the top of the Illinois River.

This is an Island in the middle of the river.

Our next stop was in LaSalle at the I&M Canal.  They have one of the old boats they give rides on while hearing the history of the canal.  It was extremely interesting.  Irish immigrants built this canal going from the Mississippi River in St.Louis, Missouri all the way to Chicago.  It made transportation of products quicker and cheaper than going by horse and wagon.  It was 96 miles long, 60 ft wide and 6 ft deep.  It was finished in 1848 and ceased operation in 1933 when railroads became more effective.  The boats were actually barges.  There were paths built next to the canal so a mule could pull the barge.
This is the mule and the "mule boy"

I knew a mule was a cross between a horse and a donkey, but I didn't realize it was always a female horse and male donkey.  They also had passenger barges like this one.  It took 24 hours to make the trip and the way they described the conditions, I'm glad I'm living in this century.

Here's another view of the barge.

Actually the mule didn't have to work very hard.  Once the rope was taught, there was just a slight tug and that got the barge going, then it was nothing to keep it going.

See the rope?  And that mule was just walking.  Once we got to the end of the open canal, they untie the rope from the front of the barge and tie it to the back, give the mule a break and start pulling the opposite direction.

Much of the canal can no longer be used or is totally filled in.  If you go on the link for the I&M Canal up above, you'll find the history very interesting, about Chicago sewerage and Lake Michigan and how they reversed the flow of the Chicago River,

Moline, Illinois

As we left Dyersville, I had to take a picture of the campground, it had spacious sites, very well kept, and hardley anyone was there.

There was a tenter there the 2 days we were there but they were gone most of the time, and 3 RV's that came at night and left in the morning.  We literally had the place to oursleves.  That was nice for Bruno, we let him run when we took him out.  He listens to us so good that it was easy to do.

Many people say that the mid-west is boring to drive through, but I found the farmland to be absolutely beautiful.  Maybe its from having been raised on a farm myself or just plain appreciating God's beauty.

We crossed the Illinois line and into Moline.

We ended up parking the coach in the i-Wireless parking lot.  They were having a concert that night and we saw several of these trucks.  I wish we would have know ahead of time, I would have loved to see that performance.  That's Toby Keith by the way.

This is what we stopped in Moline to see.  We had read about all the things we could see at this museum.

As you can see, camera in hand, Don was quite anxious to go in.

They had several tractors and a few pieces of equipment but we were kind of disappointed.  Most of what they talked about seeing was on kiosk screens.  The museum itself was quite small.

This is a 1920 tractor.

This one is from 1931.

And this from 1959

John Deere was a Vermont blacksmith who began by building plows.

This was their first logo.

This is the only farm equipment company that still carried the inventor's name.

This is a more current logo.

When we left I of course had to take a picture of another farm.

Dyersville, Iowa

A small town of 4,043 people, but lots to see.

Other than lots of farms, silos, corn and soy beans.

Our first stop was "The Field of Dreams", this is where the movie was built, about the guy on a corn farm loved baseball and he built a baseball field in his yard, the saying was "build it and they will come"

I recognized this house from the movie.

This is the driveway comming into the farm.

A further view of the house.

And of course the baseball field.

Our next stop was the National Farm Toy Museum.

It was awesome, They had every type and make of tractor you can imagine, along with different attachments, plows, combines, etc.

They has this scale model of a fair, it really looked real, the people were probably an inch tall.  Incredible.

My Dad always had Farmall, International Harvester tractors on the farm, I remember this sign well. 

Our next stop was a quilt shop, as we left, we spotted the Basilica of St.Frances Xavier.  What a structure.

Then I went into the Botsford Historical House and Doll Museum.

This was apparently the first house, other than a log cabin, built in the area.  It was very victorian inside, and no cameras.  The doll collection consisted of over 1,000 dolls.