May 18, 2021

Indiana (and a little more OH)

 


I could have alternately titled this post "Town Names That End in EE," but I've kept to my very dull titling method of using actual place names. It's also a much shorter post than usual since one stop was very brief and the other wasn't for fun.

Maumee, OH

After waving goodbye to family, we continued west through northern Ohio, landing in Maumee along with the early migrating birdies. As I've mentioned previously, we are not serious birders (it would be an insult to those who are to describe ourselves that way) but because we love critters, and birds are certainly that, we do enjoy searching for and spotting them. The Maumee area is known among serious and casual birders alike as one of the premier migratory birding areas in the U.S., particularly at Magee Marsh. Maumee was the perfect distance between my hometown and our next stop, and although the greatest numbers of birds wouldn't be arriving for another week or so, we could hardly pass it up.

We stayed in nearby Gibsonburg at White Star Park, which we thought was a nice campground. Because we were only there for two nights, we just had time for one walk on the trails across the road which were part of the park's converted quarry site. Our full day was spent at Magee Marsh.



Normally, it is possible to enter either end of the mile-long boardwalk and travel at will back and forth spending as much time as you like observing and photographing, but during our visit, all boardwalkers were counted, foot traffic was one-way only, masks were required, and there was a two-hour time limit. None of that limited us very much, and we set off on the beautifully clear but chilly morning to see what the marsh had to offer. I was distressed when I turned on my camera for the first time and realized it was one tiny bar away from being completely out of battery power. I hadn't even used it while with my family, so it wasn't on my radar. We relied mostly on TBG's camera, and I used mine very judiciously.






As we knew, the famous warbler show wasn't occurring quite yet, but we did see a few new-to-us species, most notably a bright-as-sunshine Yellow Warbler.

High in a tree on the edge of the parking lot was where we saw my favorites of the day, though not at all new to us.

The dutiful Bald Eagle parents were taking turns tending to their fuzzy eaglet. We've seen a great many Bald Eagles and their nests, but I don't think we'd ever seen a little one in person. What a cutie pie!

While the boardwalk is the most popular trail, there are a few others at the marsh. You can walk along the shore of Lake Erie, too, which we did only briefly.



On our way back out, I wanted to see about getting some photos of the shore birds and swans we'd seen on the drive in, and we spotted a large dirt lot where we incidentally found another trail head.

It was called the Lakefront Dike Trail, and though it wasn't picturesque at all, and the light was terrible for photography, the muddy bog opposite the lake was dotted with numerous shore birds and a few other critters.




All in all, we saw well over 20 species of birds in our couple hours at the marsh, and as our actual serious birder friend, Eric, a.k.a. the raven of Raven and Chickadee and who helped me confirm the I.D. of the Solitary Sandpiper and the Greater Yellowlegs said, "Sounds like a good day to me!" and it was.

Nappanee, IN

If you thought our RV repair work was over, you're cute. Our next location was a scheduled week of service at the Newmar facility in Nappanee, IN. We weren't thrilled about having more work done so soon on the heels of what had transpired in Ohio, but this appointment had been booked over a year ago (almost two if you count the original/canceled one) and they are hard to come by not to mention fit into a travel schedule.

The good news is that, while like our turbo repair in 2019 during which we were also able to stay in our RV while the repairs were being done, unlike that time, the spanky new facility had full hook-up sites. It was like a Newmar rally, with ours being just about the oldest one there. (the employees all said it was in the best shape they'd ever seen one of its vintage, especially since we still have most of the original stuff.)

We had to be up and ready to vacate the rig by 0600, at which point our assigned repairman would come to the coach and go over the day's plan. Then we would head to the waiting area to check in (daily temperature checks and color-coded name tag stickers) while they drove the RV into the service bay. At 1400, all the rigs being worked on for the day would come rolling out, and the mechanics would drive them back to their sites, level them, and set the slides. They left detailed notes each day about what was done and what was next. Customers were, of course, free to go and do whatever they liked, but most folks stayed around because the customer lounge was about as good as it could possibly be short of an indoor heated pool. It had lots of seating options with big-screen TVs, a kitchenette with free coffee and a couple vending machines, two pet lounges, a laundromat, games and puzzles, and restrooms.



Our first three mornings, TBG and I treated ourselves to breakfast out, twice at Renee's Family Breakfast (oh, the crispy potatoes!) and once at Dutch Kitchen (where they gave us a packet of their Cadillac decaf when we commented how good it was.) After breakfast, we hung out on the lounge's balcony, enjoying the free, fast internet, and escaping a garralous patron in his Newmar jacket, who I dubbed The Tri-Athlete Pilot because he would not shut up about having been those two things and generally just knowing everything there is to know in the world. We felt bad for anyone who got sucked into his orbit. TBG developed a good strategy for ignoring him.

In the afternoons or evenings, we took walks around the cute town. The weather was mostly clear, but a cold wind persisted. All the work we'd been slated for was finished with a few days in our schedule to spare, but since we were on their calendar for the whole week, we were allowed to stay in our site until our next reservation. How great was that? We were still allowed to access the facilities, too, and I took advantage of their laundry room, TBG patronized their parts store for a few Newmar-specific things, and we did some cleaning to make sure Essie was ship-shape inside and out for our next adventures in Michigan.

See you in The Great Lakes State!

14 thoughts on “Indiana (and a little more OH)”

  1. I had never seen a repair facility set up like that. Amazing! Your BG fits in chairs (or not) about like mine 🙂


  3. We’re planning a trip to Tiffin’s repair facility this fall and I am pretty sure they don’t have a fancy set up like that… and I know for sure that the whole county is dry. WTH, Tiffin? Ah well, I think you missed a golden opportunity to mess with the know it all guy. “Oh, you’re a triathlete? That’s nice. I was an Olympian.” “Oh, you were a pilot? Cool. I was an astronaut/race car driver/the fifth Beatle…” Whatever, get creative. 🙂


    • See, I needed you there to entertain me with your reparte! I hope your fall service goes quickly; even with great facilities, it’s not much fun.


  4. Hmmm. I thought Florida had cornered the market on names that end in EE (Okeechobee, Loxahatchee, Ochlockonee, etc.) but apparently we need to up our game. I love your bird photos, especially the eagle on the nest. Every time I am close to an eagle I am struck by just how much damage they can do with their beaks and talons, so it’s particularly sweet to see them being delicate with their babies. And your service experience sounds about as good as it could be.


    • Kissimmee! I think Florida would win, but the East is full of them. Eagles never fail to impress, and it was such a treat to see the baby pop up!


  5. Gawd, those know-it-all people are such time suckers. Eric just ignores them and I, being the ever-polite Southerner, just sidle away while murmuring, “Oh my, how fascinating….” But I like TBG’s strategy best of all, LOL!!

    Hey, you can call yourselves birders! And turtlers. And otterers. And just critter lovers in general! So glad you made it to Magee Marsh. Someday I hope you’ll return during prime warbler season. You would love having dozens of bright colored birdies hanging out at eye level!

    Your RV repair facility looks downright luxurious and offered the perfect opportunity to prepare for your summer adventure. And snooze in a big comfy chair, hahaha!!


    • I’m glad that dude never tried to talk to me because my only strategy was going to be to say, “Ya know, I don’t really want to talk to you right now.” 😆

      I would definitely love to see all those pretty warblers! I’m hoping a lot of them pay us a visit in Wisconsin.

      That place needed some spa rooms. I bet they could make money on that!


  6. Glad you had a nice place to wait for the work to be done.

    I have a question… I am having trouble with the new blog interface and as most can see combined with my depression and I just do not want to fight with it while trying to write an interesting posting. My question is are you using the new ‘block’ program or the original ‘Classic’ and if the new one how quickly did you adapt to it. Please use my email address if you want to respond…thanks Pete


    • Hi, Pete! I resisted learning the new editor for as long as I could, too. It does take some time, but there are a few tricks I used while I learned. One was that you can select the Classic Editor block, which will work much like the old interface. It’s still a “block” but at least the format is recognizable while you work, and that helped me transition to other blocks. Another truck is to write your prose in another program (on or offline, like Word, Office, anywhere you can type a document) then you can copy/paste your text into your WP post without trying to wrestle with the blocks, other than maybe some slight format editing if you want. The preview feature remains, and I always use that to see what my post is going to look like before it goes live. I never did watch any of the WP tutorials, but those might be helpful. I probably should watch some, I could be missing something great 😆 I hope some of this helps, I know how frustrating it is when you don’t want a platform you’re happy with to change!!


  7. That is some fancy repair/maintenance shop. Betsy has been to Freightliner Oasis in SC four times and all we get is dirt lot. But the one in Tolleson in Phoenix is nothing compared to your Newmar facility.