From Toledo to The Motor City

The drive from Stoughton through Chicago was painful. Construction was everywhere around Chicago. We finally made it through the one lane pot-holed roads and into Indiana for the long boring stretch of middle America. We arrived about 6 p.m. into a lovely campground, midway between Toledo and Detroit.
We spent the first day in Toledo at the library. The library was phenomenal. The feeling was cozy bookstore- with lots of couches, little cafes- even a gift store selling old library books. The staff at the historical section was great – getting us set up to access the city directories and old maps. After getting our research done, we stopped at a local tradition- Tony Packo’s – for lunch. We ordered a sampler platter- each- and ended up with enough food for two more meals. Guess Klinger from MASH was right- Tony Packo's chili is great! (Check out the wall of their "Famous Buns".

Detroit, the Motor City, was next. The drive was a challenge- construction had miles of the freeways down to two lanes – with lots of orange construction cones- with no one working. The construction itself wouldn’t have been a problem- but the traffic was a mix of huge trucks and insane 20 year old drivers. The driving style was uniquely Motor City- high speed, constant lane changing to get one car length ahead and tailgating. It was an exhausting drive into the city. And, the traffic was heavier with huge sections of major interstates completely closed.

We finally made it into Detroit and found our way to the library. What a contrast to the Toledo library. The library was old style, cold and un-used. The city directories, a irreplaceable resource, were in huge paper directories with pages falling out. The staff did help point out areas of the city where we should drive with “windows up and doors locked”.
Once we started our house/cemetery hunting, we discovered what they meant. The city felt like a cross between rural Guatemala and a city after the blast. There were blocks of beautiful old houses that were now in the middle of a ghetto. Roofs were caving in, stairs were crumbling, weeds were growing everywhere and trash was littered all around. Spaced in between the beautiful old homes were blocks of parking lots and empty lots where once had stood gorgeous neighborhoods. The roads were pot-holed and in a general state of disrepair. We did a lot of driving and found a number of the old family houses- taking our "drive-by" photos.

We couldn’t visit Detroit without seeing Motown Studios. We arrived for their anniversary celebration and found the yards surrounding the studios filled with bus loads of black tourists. We tried our best to “blend in”. The tour was an amazing story of Berry Gordy and his vision for Motown. He started the studio with money borrowed from his family in an old house on Grand Avenue. As the company grew, he bought 6 additional houses on the same block and set up administrative offices, studios and house for “etiquette and dance lessons”. The artist list was a list of who’s who in the music industry- Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, the Temptations, Michael Jackson….. When we finally got to the recording studio, the guide had the “girls’ on the tour do a rendition of “Stop in the Name of Love” and the guys followed with “My Girl”. Imagine the scene- John and 8 black tourists singing and dancing to a Temptations song. John turned to the very large black man next to him and said, “Help out the white guy, OK?”.

The other major tourist attraction was Greektown. Covering a 3 block area, it was once a true Greek- town with lots of little Greek restaurants and tavernas. It’s now become the surround to “Greektown Casino” and felt a bit “touristy”. We did have an interesting dinner – and conversation with the Cypriot owner.

Being in the heartland of the automotive industry, we made a stop in Dearborn, the home of Henry Ford and “the Henry Ford Museum”. The museum itself was a bit disappointing- a hodge podge of old cars, planes, farm equipment and appliances with very little attempt made to make a story of how it all tied together. They did have the "Rosa Parks Bus" and the "Kennedy Car" (the car driven in Dallas when he was assasinated) Photo courtesy of Flickr . The highlight of the tour was the Rouge Factory. It was home to the factory building the Ford F150’s – a combination of automation and a lot of labor specifically on the doors. The museum did a nice job of presenting the history of Ford and the auto industry. But, when it came to “the future”, they opted for a multi-media sight, sound, smell and touch theater with lots of hype, but little talk of new technologies and plans for the future of the industry. I guess that’s why our auto industry is in such dire straits while the Japanese seem to be going great guns.

We had some free time while exploring Detroit and found the Eastern Market. On the weekends, it is home to hundreds of vendors and a huge farmers market. We were there during the week and the surrounding stores and restaurants were open- selling fruits, veggies, fish, spices. We had a huge corned beef sandwich at the Russell Street Café.

Encounter with Granite in Stoughton, Wisconsin

We had some hesitations about the campground- Kamp Kegonsa. They were a bit hesitant about a 45 footer getting into the driveway.We arrived and were faced with a dilemma of which drive to take in- the “entry” or “exit”. I ran up to try to find the camp owner/manager for some advice. Finding no one around, I headed back to the motorhome, now parked on a two lane road with a blind turn in the road. I had seen several cars carefully go around so when I heard some yahoo honking his horn, I turned and gave him the finger. I saw John’s face in sheer horror- then saw the error of my action. I had just given the finger to the local sheriff. He screeched on his brakes and started to scream at me. Visions of being arrested were flashing through my mind. Fortunately, he must have been on his way home so he just told us to “get this thing off the road NOW”. Well, that left us both a bit flustered so when we pulled quickly into the driveway, we weren’t paying attention to the granite wall on the right side. The Essex had an up close and personal meeting with the granite boulder. The TV bay door was scraped and scrunched. What an entry! We finally found the campground owner who showed us the site (the “pull-through” was accomplished by using the main road as a campsite). Quite clever, actually, and with no one at the campground, it worked quite well.
We called Jeff and over a few beers, showed him the scope of our door problem. Over dinner at the local lakeside tavern, John and Jeff decided that they would try to straighten the door enough to ensure a tight seal (critical since this was the TV bay). On Monday, they took off the door and managed to somehow get it to close solidly. The paint will have to wait until our October factory visit.

Ouside of the scrunched door, it was great to have some time to hang out with Jeff and Kathy. Afer a few beers, stories of this two-some in their younger days could entertain even the toughest crowd.

Catch up time in MSP

There’s something about this particular campground and about St Paul/Minneapolis that makes us stop and relax and play catch-up on all the things we’d been putting off. We got in, set up and headed to an Indian lunch. The weather here has been schizophrenic. One minute it’s sunny and beautiful; the next minute it’s raining and threatening thunderstorms and tornadoes.
The change around the campground in just one year was unbelievable. There was development everywhere—miles of shopping malls and large townhouse/apartment complexes—with no end in sight. Just down the street was a new SuperWalMart being built- across the street from the Sam’s Club. While it was distressing to see such widespread retail development, it did make for a very convenient stop to get all of those errands run. We managed to get computer stuff from CompUSA, XM radio installed at Circuit City and wonderful gourmet food from those great MSP grocery stores.

We also got to spend some time with Mom and E.D. We headed up for a day visit-which turned into an overnight. After a few glasses of wine, it just didn’t make sense to drive 100+ miles back to the campground. Just before we took off, we found a great deal on a TIVO recorder – so we picked it up and brought it to Mom the Saturday before we left. She’s turned into a TIVO addict.

Pender, Nebraska??

Pender, Nebraska....not somewhere I ever imagined we'd be visiting. Pender is about 1 ½ hours outside Omaha. The closest big city is Sioux City, Iowa. It is in the middle of farm lands and cattle feed lots. Needless to say, it’s a very aromatic place. Opening the windows of the motorhome can bring the most amazing smells wafting into the room.

We were here at the Blue Ox factory to get a tow bar manufactured for our new VW Jetta. The company itself appeared to be very well run. We arrived on Monday of Memorial Day weekend and found ourselves in a small campground directly next to the factory. It was obviously a new site- new landscaping, gravel sites – except for one beautiful concrete pad with a gas grill, beautiful trees and shrubs and a brand new Essex sitting on it. Wondering how one got the “cat-bird” spot, we asked the very friendly receptionist, Rhonda, the following day. Her answer, “You have to own the company”…. The Essex belongs to the owner of Blue OX. After giving us a little welcome gift, we met with Steven from engineering. He explained the process (it would take about 3 days during which time, they would design the plate for our Jetta, built it, paint it, install it and also videotape the install and make a master for future use). Then, he handed us the keys to a Honda for our use during the next few days and offered us a factory tour. Never one to pass up a factory tour, we walked through their operation which includes both tow bar manufacturing and some minor farm equipment manufacturing. It was quite interesting to see the complexity of the tow bar industry and all the variability due to all the car models.

Day 1 and it was only noon and we’d already done the factory tour. Rhonda directed us to the three options for lunch- two in Pender and one in the next town of Brewster. We opted for the field trip to Brewster with a stop at the state historical site honoring the poet laureate of Nebraska who had lived in Brewster for a period of time. As John always says, “The steepest slope is the expert run”. We had lunch at the Pub Café – the Tuesday special: BBque chicken, green bean casserole, potato salad and a doughy white roll with butter. The only thing missing was the jello salad. The average age of the patrons was probably 65, most of them old farmers. We returned to the Essex wondering how we’d spend Days 2 and 3.

On Wednesday, we decided to head to Omaha for a Mormon experience. Winter Quarters was about the last stop on the Mormon trail for us. We had seen most of the other major sites last summer and this gave us the chance to see one more LDS movie and meet some more new friends trolling for our souls. Winter Quarters is now a northern suburb of Omaha, but for the Mormons, it was the gathering point for the "Saints" when they were thrown out of Nauvoo, Illinois. Here they gathered before the long trek across the plains and the Rocky Mountains to get to "Zion"--today known as Salt Lake City, Utah. Well, we drove the 1 1/2 hours into Omaha and walked into the Winter Quarters Visitors Center. We were met by "Sister Jessup", a very comely young LDS missionary. Now, it's not often that you get such a good looking LDS female missionary. Typically, they're the 21 year old females in the church that haven't snagged a husband and started having babies. Well, Sister Jessup was a hottie...... So anyway, we got the standard LDS movie and then were met for our private tour of the museum/visitor center. It was actually very well done and Sister Jessup was quite knowledgeable. We made a stop in the library to see if we could find any additional Spencer history and lo and behold found another amazing story. Daniel Jr had brought most of his family into the church and we had heard references to Augustine, the “black sheep” of the family. It turns out that Augustine had brought the charges against Joseph Smith that forced his arrest and incarceration in the Carthage jail (where he was murdered). Sister Jessup took this news without flinching…although, we could imagine the stories she would tell after we left.

We had one more stop on our Mormon pilgrimage- a trip to Council Bluffs and the tabernacle where Brigham Young was confirmed as the second President of the Church. We got another LDS movie- this time about the Mormon Brigade and another personal tour of the tabernacle.

Our 3 Day adventure at Blue Ox turned into a 3.5 day adventure. Finally, at about 1:00 on Friday afternoon, our new friend, Steven, called to tell us that the tow bar was ready. We quickly packed up and hustled over to the parking lot of Blue Ox to get the bar attached and get on the road. We got on the road at 2:30, hoping to make the 6 hour drive to Minneapolis. Two hours into the drive and we knew it was a fruitless exercise. We decided to stop at a Walmart at 5:30 and enjoy what was left of our evening.