Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana: Oh, my!

We finally pulled ourselves away from Springfield and Lincoln and headed toward Kentucky in search of Bonnie's ancestors. To avoid an 8 hour drive, we decided to check the Harvest Hosts Directory for a convenient stopover. Harvest Hosts are wineries and farms (and a few museums) that invite RVers to "camp" for free on their property overnight. Free is a relative term because you usually end up buying some of their product...but it's still a great deal. We usually select a winery and this time was no exception. We found the Ertel Cellers Winery located only 1 1/2 hours from Covington, KY. Of course, we enjoyed tasting their delicious wine offerings and bought a couple of bottles, just to be polite! What was unique about this experience was the fact that they told us to drive a couple of miles back to the main road, turn left and then pull into their vineyard. They even had an electric outlet for the RV. Just us alone with the grapes - how cool is that??!!

Among the grapes at Ertel Vineyards

Great, great grandfather

In the morning, it was on to the local history section of the Covington Public Library to research Bonnie's ancestors who settled there in the 19th century. We didn't find a whole lot of new information, but we did unearth an excellent 8X10 picture of her great, great grandfather who had immigrated from Wales in 1870 and served as the mayor of Covington from 1904 to 1907! How's that for an immigrant success story?? We collected the names of a few distant ancestors we didn't know about (there may still be some living relatives in the area, but we didn't pursue that avenue of inquiry). We did, however, visit the impressive gravesite of the "Beach clan" and found it quite interesting.

 But enough of old, dead ancestors. We gathered enough information to add to our collection, but wanted to get through Cincinnati, across the river, before the traffic made the trip north  more difficult. We spent the next three nights at Wright Patterson AFB outside Dayton, where our primary purpose was to visit the National Museum of the US Air Force, the world's largest aviation museum. From the early flying days of the Wright Brothers and World War I to the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries, the museum had a phenomenal collection of aircraft and memorabilia. We were thoroughly exhausted after a day of walking around this museum, and still didn't see everything. (Lew will share more about this museum and a few car museums in Indiana in a separate post.)

An added bonus that I hadn't remembered would be part of our Dayton experience was all the information about the Wright Brothers, who had hailed from Dayton. I had recently read David McCullough's book, and enjoyed seeing some of the places he talked about and revisiting the dawn of flight that happened right there in Dayton.  We enjoyed the Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center that explained all about their early experiments, as well as the Wright Brothers Memorial and overlook. (that looked over the original field where they first tested their heavier than air flying machine).

Wright Brothers Memorial

 From Dayton our itinerary took us to Decatur, Indiana, to the Fleetwood RV factory. We spent the night at their RV Park (parking lot) where RV owners waited their turn for maintenance and others of us waited for the 9 am tour of the factory.

The tour was fascinating. We saw how an RV is put together, from start to finish: how the walls are constructed: the wiring added: the flooring laid: the cabinets constructed: the finishing touches added. It was all very hands-on, customized when possible, not mechanized - an interesting assembly line. From the time the chassis is rolled into place until the rig is ready to be painted - a mere 7-10 days, depending on the size. The painting itself was all done by hand and took almost as much time, also interesting. We were impressed with the workmanship of the Fleetwood line - but since we were seeing the really big diesel RVs being built, how could we not be impressed? I didn't understand all the jargon - especially when it came to engines and electricity and other "esoteric" subjects - but I got the drift, and was glad we stopped to visit. Sorry, no pictures allowed.

This was just our first taste of Indiana (and vehicles). My next blog (and Lew's) will share more about the 9 days we spent touring this part of the country.