The Goshen Rally---Day 17---Home

We arrived home around 3:00pm this afternoon. We finally got away from Elkhart about 2:00pm on Saturday after the windshield had "set". It had rained most of the night but had cleared off and we saw no more rain during the drive home. We made our way out of Indiana and into Illinois. Leaving so late in the day we were not sure how far we would get. Finally, around 5:30 we decided to stop for the night. (Actually, our body time was 6:30 since we had gained an hour on our way west.) We stopped in the parking lot of a former Wal-Mart store in Champlain, Illinois. We were parked directly behind a Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant that had an open WiFi connection so I was able to check e-mails. Also, next door was a Ryan's Steakhouse so we walked over there for dinner.

We left out around 9:00am on Sunday heading down I-57 toward I-70. Traveling I-70 on a Sunday was nice in that there was little traffic. This was especially good for traveling through St Louis. We stopped Sunday night at The Big Red Barn RV Park in Carthage, Missouri. We have been to this campground several times over the years. We settled in an relaxed for the evening with cable TV and free WiFi. At this point we were only about five hours from home.

On Monday we drove down the Oklahoma turnpikes to OKC, stopping at the Flying J to fill the fuel tank and have lunch. Arriving home we discovered the place was in good shape except for the yard needing mowing and my flag pole was missing. The bottom two feet of the flag pole was still in place but the rest, including my America flag, was standing in a corner on the front porch. It looks like someone had taken a saw to the pole but one of the neighbors indicated that it apparently came down during a major windstorm while we were gone. Didn't see that we had any other damage.

We did come home to find we have been invaded. The winter cover is still on the pool and has about three or four inches of water on top of it with decaying leaves under the water. We then counted about a dozen frogs living in/on the pool cover. Also, there appear to be several hundred tadpoles swimming in the water. The current plan is to scoop the frogs off the cover and set them free. Afraid the tadpoles will not survive. I plan to open the pool this week and will be pumping the water off the cover. This will leave the tadpoles no place to swim. After I drag the cover to the front yard for cleaning they will be washed down the gutter. Oh well, not sure we could survive the onslaught if all of them survived and turned into frogs.