Happy F&T Sunday

Today is Sunday 5/6/12. The first Sunday of the month is usually Fast and Testimony Sunday. But every Sunday is the day to go to church. Many years ago our family decided that even when traveling we would go to church. I think we have pretty much kept that resolve. One of the testimonies given today was on the blessings of going to your meetings. I believe that. It is a precious opportunity to contemplate our savior, renew our covenants and receive strength for the upcoming week.

The church has a fun little app on its website called "Meetinghouse Locator". So I went there and typed in "Verona New York". It told me that the closest meetinghouse was the Oneida Branch with meetings beginning at 10. Then it gave me driving directions. It was only 5 miles away from the RV Park.

The street address was on Middle County Road. When we turned on it we started looking for a likely building. Branches are sometimes in a small rented building or even in a residence. We were a little surprised to find this nice red brick building after the manner of buildings we are used to. But inside we were again surprised. We entered the room with  the "chapel" sign there were no usual pews. There were a  few rows of stacking chairs. The front of the chapel was the usual "stand"arrangement with choir loft and organ, etc. This is a miniature building, designed to be flexible. I was told that :

1) such buildings are around for institutes, small branches, etc

2) this structure was situated on a lot to allow for future expansion. Their property extends to the crest of that hill back there

The first people to greet us were Elder and Sister Karlinsee, senior missionaries in the Utica, NY Mission. The amazing thing, I had never heard of that mission until a few days ago when Megan called us to tell us that Arnie's parents had received their calling to serve in this mission beginning next September. That will put them a short 300 miles from Meg's house in NH.

The Karlinseys are "Office Missionaries for the Mission". Between them they have many responsibilities to help the Mission President run the mission, which is a huge mission covering everything in the state not covered by the New York City and the Rochester missions. They were very interested in the Hammari news. They usually see paperwork ahead of incoming missionaries and will look for them

Photo courtesy of Becca

Strange side-note: We bought an iPad just before we left on this roadtrip. I asked for the instruction book. The salesman smiled, "It's on the iPad". Well, that would have been fine for any of our children and/or their spouses and/or many of our grandchildren. Anyway Gramma and I have been having some success with our newest device. I have the scriptures and the hymns on it, so I've been taking it to church. Those apps work OK. But today it seemed to have a mind of its own. Who remembers "HAL"? I was sitting in Priesthood. The iPad was on the empty chair beside me. During a quiet moment I  faintly heard women singing. First thought--must be the ladies down the hall in their meeting. Then I heard the lyrics coming from the seat"..walking in a winter wonderland" The iPad had decided on its own to sing Christmas songs!! I grabbed it up and turned it off. It still kept singing!! Luckily Megan had taught me in an email message how to turn the volume down. So I did that. Cue the spooky music.

Happy Boys' Day!

Yesterday (5/4), We woke up at the Hickory Hill RV Park in historic Bath, NY (founded in 1793)

Are you ready with your map Chris?

We left the park on Haverling merging onto a pair of 54 roads, Liberty then right on Washington which led us back onto I 86 E for quite a distance, then I 81 N. Near Syracuse we took 481 to I 90 E. Our exit was 33. Then we went west on 365 about a mile to this Indian sounding place. Note the bottom line. 

"In fair Verona (New York) where we lay our scene"

(apologies to Romeo and Juliet's author)

Here is the entrance to our area. This is a very nice family camping park. We see many families here for the weekend, many with their dog  which doesn't seem to make the numerous Canada geese nervous. The spacious sites all have fire rings. The families we've seen follow a pattern--they get out the camp chairs and build a fire. It's still chilly enough to enjoy a campfire. There are many ponds here. We saw some fishing activities this morning.

But we're not here to camp and fish. Gramma has a -- wait for it -- a distant cousin near here. Gary Dunbar is yet  another 80 year old distant relative. This is an interesting story for those who find family history stuff interesting. This is the first time these two have seen each other. They were e-introduced by a mutual relative doing research.

Gramma had me take a picture of this old photo. The little girl in the middle is Catherine Loucks, Gramma's grandmother. The lady on the left is Gary's grandmother. See the relationship?

Here's a better look at Gary's grandmother, Maude Loucks

Here is Gramma with Gary and his wife, Elizabeth. They are spry. Here's a little story. Gary was a professor at UCLA in the 60ies, during the time Gramma was a student there. Did you know Gramma went to UCLA? As did my sister Catherine. Small world.

We met another old couple in Nauvoo who used a phrase we like to describe their trip and ours. "We are traveling between kith, kin, kids and friends". And having a grand time.

Happy (belated) Lei Day

Actually I began these notes on May 1. So here goes my makeup report.

Previously on our blog, we went to bed at the Circle B in West Angola, Indiana. And that's where we woke up on May Day. We headed east on IN Road 20 where we had our first Amish sighting, just like you see in the movies. These looked like teenagers. Going to school?

Then we got on the I 80/ I 90, known as the Ohio Turnpike

Turnpike equals toll roads

Now in Ohio we need to pass through Cleveland. From sad lessons learned, we try to avoid going through large cities before 10AM and 2PM, to avoid rush traffic. This was a good idea today. Cleveland is an old city. Even on the Interstate the route was serpentine and narrow.

We sighed relief when we got out of the city and saw where we left I 80 and pursued I 90 into Pennsylvania.

Gramma wears many hats for the Auswanderers. Among them is our Moving Photographer Hat. She is a delight to travel with, as is Becca, also a talented photographer. Both relish the digital photography age where you seemingly never run out of film. Among her photo categories is the "2 story houses with 4 story trees". Isn't that a clear image? For many states she has seen this housing pattern, and she has the photo collection to prove it.

What a country this is! We have seen along side our highways rich farmlands and verdant pastures with cattle and horses grazing. And as we traveled though PA there were lush forests on either side. Reminded us of driving in British Columbia.

I've gotten my days confused. We won't go into PA until the 2nd. This can happen when you travel hard and get put away wet. Hope you didn't get whip lash. Anyway, as afternoon arrived on May 1 we were still in Ohio. We exited 80/90 at Exit 218. We took 534 south and 307 east to this park.

Nothing says 'welcome to our rv park' like an immense pink plastic pig waving across the pond. Turns out the pig was one of the nicest things about this park. Our site was tilted. We had no satellite, no local tv and no internet, meaning I couldn't do a blog. So we had another pioneer night.

Here is a peek behind the scenes in Bigfoot preparing to roll. This is Gramma's room. If she doesn't protect her shelves of neatly folded clothes, her printer, dvd machines and thousands of dvds, then during the sometimes bumpy ride of the day, everything might, and has, been thrown all around. So over the years, she has collected a wide variety of bungees for the job.

In the morning (5/2) I saw a rig had come into the site next to ours. It was a Bluebird Wanderlodge. It brought a flood of memories.

I first saw a Wanderlodge in California when I was a teenager. At that moment maybe the seed was planted that one day I'd own a motorhome. Now I've had two. This neighbor is an old rig. Bluebird makes busses. You may have seen school busses made by them. They are made to last. So this is what is called "a bus conversion". It may be 40 years old. I could see it has been repainted, but seems to be going strong. A gray haired guy and a gray haired lady with her tiny dog appear to be the residents. Every rig is different. Every rig has its own story.

OK Chris. when we left this park we went on Ohio Roads 307 west to 534 north and on to I 90 east. When we got into Pennsylvania our hwy became I 86/17, and that took us into New York.

In New York, we saw a "Rest Stop" sign and pulled in. We have been in rest stops in all 48 contiguous states, some shabby, some nice. But the Chautauqua Lake rest stop should be called A Rest Resort. It deserves its own blog post. So one will be coming to your computer later.

I 86 is a great road (not even a toll one), going through beautiful country with rolling hills. Funny sign--"Summit Altitude 2021 Feet". The Rocky states would laugh. Smooth driving into the Five Finger Lakes area. Our destination is near the Keuka Lake. Doesn't that sound like an Hawaiian word?

Exit 38 was our off-ramp into the historic town of Bath, NY

We're spending the night of the 2nd and 3rd here.

We are here largely to visit this lady, Sondra Lyke, to continue our Family History research. Are you surprised? She and Gramma, both descendant of Howard and Avoca, NY settlers, are somehow distant relatives on her mother's grandmother's side. Gramma can give you details. Are you amazed at the number of relatives Gramma has scattered across the US? I am. And new ones keep popping up. The next new one is near Cooperstown. We'll go there tomorrow

Today (5/3) we will take a day to do what we call "life". We'll go to  the Post Office, Walgreen, Walmart. You know, exciting stuff.

Oversized Loads are Big Fun

See the sign in the back of this pickup truck.  
Can you read it? It says "OVERSIZE LOAD".
 If you ever see a sign like this,

it means that something like
 what is in the picture below is coming.

I don't know what this huge thing is but I have seen ones like it in the past.  I don't know if you can tell

but this thing is so big that it doesn't fit on a regular truck.  The clever truck driver has connected the

front of it to the wheels in front and then there is NOTHING under it and then the back is connected to

the bunch of wheels that you can see in the picture below.

Then at the back there is always another vehicle such as the red one you can see in the second photo, that drives along behind carrying the OVERSIZE LOAD sign in an effort to let the other drivers know that the thing ahead of him
 is wider than the truck it is on.

I think that this is the same thing. I don't think that this one has a warning truck out front but if you look closely 
you'll see the one in back.

This large load is not so long but it is very wide so it also has to travel as Oversize Load. You see wide loads can be dangerous.
If a car tries to pass them and didn't allow for the extra room
it was sticking out into the passing lane, there could be
an accident.

Papa and I saw a few of these before we realized what it is.
Can you tell what it is?
Check out the photo below

What do you think?

On to Indiana

Yesterday we attended church in the Joliet 1st Ward--nice stake center, nice folks. Very memorable gospel doctrine teacher--she was a dynamic black lady wearing a broad-brim sunday bonnet. She led a fun lesson. The combined relief society/priesthood class was about the indexing project. It was led by a pair of young single adults complete with a power point presentation, which had a number of tech hiccups. Can you imagine? The guy tried to explain the slow connection. The gal blushed prettily. But they knew their stuff and they made it through. I needed the lesson. You know I'm a Family History Consultant.

This morning at 7 AM we left the Leisure Lake place (the lake is in the bg) in Shorewood Illinois

Chris, are you ready? We took the frontage road to Seil to I 55 S to I 80 east into Indiana. Then we missed our exit on I 69, so we had to continue on the turnpike (yes means we pay to be on it) into Ohio! Really not too far. We got off on the first off ramp, then back tracked(which we loathe to do) west on the 20.

Our destination for tonight is the Circle B Campground on Hogback--not making that up--Lake

It's a nice Good Sam park in Aurora Indiana. We are hooked up and cozy with the  rain on the roof.  We changed Amanda's calendar to May. We're changing all of the clocks to Eastern time zone--same as Meg's! We're more than halfway to NH!
 We hope all is well with you.