Because we have friends in Indianapolis (actually just north, in Carmel) we decided to stop there on our way home. There is a very nice KOA just east of Indianapolis, so we decided to spend a night at this campsite. Since we could arrive fairly early in the afternoon we could visit our friends, Patty and Kirk Symons, for the evening and then head out at our usual time the next morning.
The drive was fairly uneventful, though we did see a tremendous amount of a bush that we later discovered is called redbud. It was the perfect time of year to be travelling through, since the redbud was right in the middle of its blooming stage. This is actually a picture of an ornamental pear (on the left) and redbud (on the right). These trees were found in Patty and Kirk's neighbours back yard:
We arrived into our KOA quite early in the afternoon. It was, in fact, earlier than we thought it was, however, the full story on that one later. We checked into our site and found them to be very spacious and full of green grass. This was a welcome site after so many days in the US Southwest with desert conditions. Pam liked all the greenery. There were not too many people in the campsite, which, apparently, was different than the nights before (the weekend) when our side of the campground was quite full. We set up the tent trailer and lounged around for a little while. Here is our site:
We had pre-arranged with Patty to arrive around 5:45 PM, so we headed off at just the right time (we thought) to arrive their right on time (which is very unusual for us!).
We navigated our way to their place, almost without a hitch. I say almost because as it turned out, as we drove into their development we drove around the block, right by their house. This was somewhat forgivable, since the house number I had written down was inverted (a non-existent house). We had a cell phone, so I called their house. Only their oldest daughter Laura (middle of three kids) was home, so she instructed us how to get there (we were a few houses away when we called) and we drove up to their house. Here is the house and car just after we arrived:
Unfortunately, Patty was not home. No problem, we sat around with Laura and chatted. David checked out the house and took some pictures from outside. Here is a picture from near the back of the property:
After a little while, Paul (their oldest) returned home. And a little while later Patty and Katie came in. We had a nice chat while Patty made dinner. About a half hour went by and Patty had a call from Kirk. He said that he would be home around 6:00 PM! Now wait a minute, let's do the math. We arrived at 5:45, there was about 20 minutes before Patty was home, and then a half hour later Kirk is saying he will be home at 6:00. Pam suddenly looked at their wall clock and noticed it was 5:40! We had arrived a full hour early. We were quite embarrassed. The explanation was quite simple. The state of Arizona AND Indiana do not change to daylight savings time (we thought that we had heard someone in Arizona say that they were the only one .. they forgot about this more easterly state). At any rate, we had driven into Indiana in the morning and changed all our clocks ahead to daylight savings time, since we had crossed the time zone barrier. Unfortunately for us, we did not realize that they simply had not moved their clocks forward the several weeks earlier, leaving us on the same time zone as we were in the nights before in Illinois.
We had an absolutely wonderful dinner and evening - here we are at dinner:
The kids had a great time being in a real house (and some house it was!). We were used to 7 foot 3 by 25 foot 9 and now we were in a place about 20 times that size! We spent a lot of time talking about 'getting used to things in Indiana' (for the Symons) and the Trip of '99 (for the Siglers). The boys played Nintendo 64 on about a 36" television (check it out):
Heather Lynn got a chance to do the ICQ 'thing', and Reba even got to watch TV (including Allie McBeal .. it was Monday night after all). It was really great to get together again. Times had certainly changed for both families. The first time we had met each other we both lived in townhomes just around the corner from each other in Rutherford Court in Kanata. Before we left, Heather Lynn and Reba sang their 'Cross the Wide Missouri' song:
We headed home later than we had intended. Which meant that we woke up later than we intended as well. In fact, Pam got up very early, and kept checking up on the rest of us - no movement. In the meantime, she did all the laundry. What a trooper! That morning Daniel and David discovered that McDonald's closes for breakfast at 10:30 (not 11:00 like we hoped). There was a McDonald's practically across the street from the KOA and we had won a couple of free breakfast items when we picked up a little snack when we were in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Besides, some extra breakfast items would save us some time getting going. Sad, oh well. We actually did not get out of there until noon (which was really 1 PM on the new time we would be in that evening). Fortunately, we were not heading too far that day.
So, finally we were on our way up to southern Michigan, and our very last night of camping on the trip! Like they say, all good things must come to an end.