HI, EVERYONE…..YES, WE’RE BACK ON THE ROAD!

Many of you have been asking if we are traveling again this summer and the answer is “yes”. But we decided to try something a bit different this year….instead of moving from one town to the next, we spent 3 months in Shipshewana, Indiana! I accepted a work camp position at Shipshewana Campground South Park, working 20 hours a week in the campground office making reservations and checking in campers. It’s been a lot of fun! We’ve always wondered if we would like a more permanent location instead of jumping around out west or traveling up the coastline. Now we have our answer!

The answer is……we like BOTH! There are definite pros and cons to each. Moving around causes more work of setting up and tearing down as well as increase cost of gas, wear and tear on your vehicles along with campground expenses. When you are in one spot for an extended period of time, you don’t get multiple experiences of being in many places – but you establish friends which makes it difficult to say “goodbye”. We stayed in our site at no cost in exchange for my hours spent at work. It was a pleasure to interact with the campers and we developed the feeling that we were part of the community. The campground owners and co-workers were all a pleasure to work with – it’s so nice to make new friends and create memories.

While we were in Shipshewana, Marj and Larry came in their 5th wheel after the wedding. We’re not traveling together this year so it was great to see them! They’re heading east and we’ll be heading west – will meet up again at the end of October, back home in Naples!

It goes without saying that the Amish food is AMAZING! Some of our favorite things were the homemade soft pretzels, the fried chicken, and the scratch browned butter noodles! My baker husband, decided to try his hand at making the pretzels and they were AWESOME!!

Some may wonder how or why we picked the midwest to stay for three months. For us, it was an easy decision. First of all, we love Shipshewana. The atmosphere is a bit more relaxed, the people are all so kind and there’s just something therapeutic and calming to hear the “clip clop” of the horses pulling buggies past the campground. Then my great niece, Sophie, married Jon over Labor Day weekend. The wedding was in Indianapolis which is about 3 hours south so we were able to attend the wedding – it was so beautiful and the bride and groom simply radiated!

But after our time in Indiana, we have now hit the “happy trails” again. Our first stop was in St. Anne, IL, where we celebrated Howie’s 75th birthday with his family. His daughter, Tracie and husband, Mark hosted and we had a great time!

From there, we went to my daughter, Amanda’s home in Yorkville, IL, where we continued celebrating for the birthday boy. They were lucky enough to experience “Gramp’s” pretzels!

We have just 7 states to stay in before we can boast that we’ve taken Junebug to every one of the 48 contiguous states. So, from Amanda’s, we headed west where we plan to stay in Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma before heading back to our home in Naples. That leaves only Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada all of which we hope to visit next summer!

Many of you have asked about the condition of our home in Naples following Hurricane Ian. We feel very blessed to report that our home sustained NO damage. Our electrical power miraculously stayed on throughout the storm! God is good – all the time!

Next post will be from Omaha, Nebraska! Thanks for joining us again on my blog and as always, I wish you all “Happy Trails”!