We are family. Come on, everybody, and sing.

With wine on Birgit's shirt...shhh.

On Tuesday October 2nd, we left our campground in Cedar Springs, MI and headed south to West Lafayette, Indiana, to visit my cousin Ryan, his wife Birgit and their kiddos, Ben and Bea. Through bad timing, Ryan was out of town on a business trip, but we had a great visit with the rest of the clan. After a tasty dinner (pre-prepared by Ryan...thank you), we chatted with Birgit over several bottles of wine. Nice. Too bad 10 years have slipped away since we last saw them (before the kids!). Next time we'll come when Ryan's in town, too, and hopefully it won't be another 10 years.

Jon, Melissa, Lelah and Hennah

On Wed- nesday October 3rd, we drove to Champaign, Illinois, where we visited my cousin John, his wife Melissa and their two entertaining girls, Lelah and Hennah. With the girls swirling around being thoroughly adorable and funny, we adults chatted over dinner and wine. What a great time we had with them!

On Thursday, October 4th, with Hermann, Missouri, as our destination, a tire on the RV decided to blow apart on I-70 near St. Louis, taking with it some trim, most of a compartment and part of the wheel well. Grr. After contacting the emergency roadside service to replace the shredded tire with the spare, we searched high and low for just one working air machine in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. After an hour, much cussing and several gallons of gas wasted, we located a tire shop whose generous mechanics wrestled with the poorly designed truck tire stem to inflate the stupid spare. Finally back on the road, we made it to Hermann a few hours after we had intended, but, thankfully, no worse for the wear.

The Ed is back!

Tom, Aimee and Julaine

Grandma's house

After meeting the 'rents in Hermann (and they brought us The Ed!) at my Aunt Olivia's house, we headed to Julaine and Tom's house for a lovely dinner with them and my cousin, Aimee. The following days were spent working on my Grandma's house with Mom and Dad. We painted some walls, cleaned, replaced a bunch of light fixtures, bought a new fridge, painted the floor in the basement, changed out the old range hood, swapped out some old drawer knobs, painted the laundry room and potting room, hung some drywall, trimmed some bushes and painted some more. Though we're all exhausted, the place looks great. Here's hoping for a quick sale now. In between all the work, we managed to see Tom, Julaine, Aimee, Donnie and Nathan some, as well as try most of the restaurants in Hermann at least once and a couple of them twice (like Montague's and Jillsie's). Nice.

New lights in the kitchen

Painted cabinets and new
carpet in laundry room

With the house updated to the best of our collective abilities in such a short period of time, the 'rents headed home and we headed to Terre Haute, Indiana on October 11th. Having missed his cousins, Connie and George, on our way through Indiana a week or so earlier, we were determined to see them after leaving Hermann. After 42 years, we figured it was high time for a visit. Despite our intentions of arriving early, the spare tire, in an effort not to be forgotten and perhaps to make us late again, decided to lose most of its air on our way to Terre Haute. Thankfully, we were at a truck stop with a tire shop nearby who could replace the old valve stem and...wait for it... actually re-inflate the tire themselves with their own air machine. Nice.

Connie, Ken and George

When we finally arrived, we parked the RV in their driveway and Connie and George treated us to a tasty homemade dinner and great conversation. Spoiling us rotten, they sent us on our way in the morning with a yummy breakfast and a nice cookbook (thank you!). It was great to see them...hopefully it won't be so long before we see them again.

From Terre Haute, we drove due south to the western part of Kentucky. We bypassed the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) on our trip through the area last year, so we made sure to add it back in on this leg. The Land Between the Lakes is a rectangle of land between two south flowing rivers, the Cumberland on the east side and the Tennessee on the west. The rivers form two very long parallel lakes, Barkley and Kentucky, with 170,000 acres of pretty land wedged in the middle of them.

Ken, Hannah and Pam

As a bonus, we met my cousin, Hannah, and her friend, Kellie, for dinner in nearby Murray where Hannah is a student at Murray State University. We enjoyed some nice Italian fare at Tom's Pizza while we chatted with the two of them for a couple of hours. What a nice visit!

Fall in Kentucky

After dinner, Ken and I drove back to the RV in the absolute darkness that is the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area at night. Despite all the animals we saw along the way with the headlights, we made it back safely (and so did they). We camped at Hillman Ferry Campground, easily one of the largest parks we've ever visited (over 450 campsites!).

Mile high lemon meringue pie

In the morning, overcast skies and drizzle kept us from venturing out early. But by mid- morning, the skies began to clear so we headed to Grand Rivers, just north of the campground, where Patti's Restaurant at Patti's 1880s Settlement is the main attraction. With a dizzying array of small buildings linked together via breezeways, doorways, sidewalks, and streams, the campus of Patti's offers everything from mini golf to Christmas ornaments. Mr. Bill's Restaurant, obviously an off-shoot of the main one, provides a similar atmosphere and exactly the same food as Patti's, but, fortunately, without the hour long wait. We ate a decent lunch and then splurged on the 'mile-high' lemon meringue pie. Yum.

Grand Rivers, Kentucky

After lunch, we toured the tiny town and walked down to the harbor on Lake Barkley where we watched some sailboats heading out for the day. As we strolled back toward the car, we noticed folks setting up for an afternoon parade, so we quickly left town. The remainder of our day was spent lazing around the RV, enjoying the late afternoon sun and beautiful fall leaves around our campsite next to Kentucky Lake.