Beginning the month of May we finished our twelve days in Branson, Missouri. Nearby is College of the Ozarks (nickname "Hard Work U") with a 1,500 student body. None of the students pay tuition but are required to work 15 hours a week and 40 hours during holiday weeks. The Ralph Foster Museum located on campus was one of the most interesting museums we have visited. It is divided into Natural History, College History, Art Gallery, Primitive America, History of the Ozarks, Clocks, Dolls, Music, Firearms, Animals, and many other display areas. On display is the original truck used in the television series "Beverly Hillbillies." If you visit Branson we recommend you take at least half a day and visit the museum.

There are many restaurants in Branson, some expensive and many franchises. Our favorite was The Shack Cafe on South Commercial in old downtown. They serve excellent home-cooked fare with daily specials for $4.25 including meat, vegetables, salad and roll. After eating the food, if you have room, try their homemade six-inch tall pies ($1.75) - excellent. We finished our stay in Branson by spending three days washing and waxing the motorhome. Branson is a place we want to visit again and we will definitely stay again at Escapees Turkey Creek RV Village.

May 8, we arrived in Kentucky to visit family and friends for fifteen days. We planned our arrival date after the Kentucky Derby so we could find an available campsite. We chose the KOA Kampground in Shepherdsville because it is located half way between our parent's houses. The campground has some stupid rules, all to drain the finances of the camper. All visitors have to sign in at the office and pay $3.00 to visit anyone registered in the campground. This was a rule we have never seen before. The KOA used to have a phone line available for e-mail - now they have a machine to connect to that charges one dollar for every three minutes. Also, we paid a weekly rate and were told we could not have one of their prime sites because they are for people who pay "full price." Their weekly "discount rate" of $21.43 a day is more than we have paid except at Stone Mountain Park in Georgia that charged $22.00 a day. And to top it off, the site was filthy with debris, bottles and cigarette butts all over the place. Norm complained to the KOA owner but he said would not change any rules or charges. We have told all of our fellow RVers to never stop at KOA Shepherdsville.

Our half-month stay in Kentucky was a whirlwind of visits with family and friends. Norm attended an IBM Retirees Luncheon and Linda visited friends where she used to work. The visits were too numerous to list but we enjoyed every day and the home cooked meals. It is always hard to leave parents, children and grandchildren, but we bought the motorhome to travel and we were ready to roll again.

Rich and Diane Emond, friends from the Atlanta area stopped to visit us in Kentucky. They were traveling to Nappanee, Indiana to pick up their Dutch Star motorhome. On their way back to Georgia they camped next to us for two nights. They have placed their home for sale and will start traveling fulltime July 8. Rich retired from IBM a few months ago and we have corresponded by e-mail about motorhomes and traveling. In February they flew to Harlingen, Texas and met us for the Y2K Party. We wish them many happy travels and hope our paths cross many times.

We traveled to Kokomo, Indiana and camped two days in the driveway of Norm's sister Gloria Martin and her husband Don. (Pictured here) Driveway camping is great - it's free. They also treated us to a great meal at Country Cook Inn, a restaurant east of the city that is built into a hill with sod for a roof. Something interesting happened to us on our way to Kokomo. We were early so when we passed through the small town of Burlington (pop. 568) we stopped to stretch our legs and waste a few minutes. Norm stepped outside and was greeted by a woman named Janelle who was intrigued by our motorhome and Texas license plates. Soon Linda and Janelle's husband Bob joined in the conversation. They wanted to know about our fulltime traveling and asked many questions. Then they invited us to stay with them the next time we rolled through Burlington. They said we can camp in front of their house or in their side yard. We meet the nicest people while traveling.

Kokomo boasts it is the "City of Firsts." There are too many to list but some notable firsts are First Commercially Built Automobile (1894), First Pneumatic Rubber Tire (1894), First Aluminum Casting (1895), First Stainless Steel (1912), First Aerial Bomb with Fins (1918), First Mechanical Corn Picker (1920's), First Canned Tomato Juice (1928), First Push-button Car Radio (1938) and First All Transistor Car Radio (1957). The Kokomo Opalescent Glass Company was established in 1888 and still uses some of the original kilns. Our tour started where they pour molten colored glass on a steel table and a man mixes it with another color of glass. Then it goes through a set of steel rollers and emerges a thin sheet of beautifully colored glass. During our tour we had to be careful not to get too close to the kilns or molten glass as it would singe the hair off our heads. Next we watched a skilled craftsman making beautiful objects from molten glass. We got an education as he explained every step of the process. At the end of the tour there was a shop where products could be purchased including stained glass for a bargain price of $1.50 a pane.

The Automotive Heritage Museum in Kokomo has many early cars in mint condition. Elwood Haynes of Kokomo invented the first automobile. (Others had installed motors on buggies but Mr. Haynes designed an automobile from the ground up.) His first car produced in 1893 is in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and his second car built in 1894 is on display in the museum. Haynes joined with the Apperson brothers in 1898 to form Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company and they jointly produced nearly 76,000 automobiles in Kokomo before closing in 1925. The museum contains many items associated with the automobile including a 1932 Gilkie Camp Trailer and a 1962 Heilite One Wheel Camper. The museum, located on 31W, is a "must see" when you travel through Kokomo.


Elwood Haynes not only invented the first automobile, he invented many other products that are used today. His home is now a museum operated by the city of Kokomo. Haynes invented Stellite, an alloy of extreme durability used today in science and industry and in 1912 he invented stainless steel. He worked in the gas industry four years and invented the thermostat to regulate heat in homes. Many of his other inventions are displayed in the museum. One room contains a 1905 Haynes Model L which was priced at $1,500. The museum curator removed the rope across the door of the room and allowed us to closely examine the old car. We found the sights and museums of Kokomo interesting. If you pass through, stop and look her over.

After leaving Kokomo we had the Dutch Star and Honda weighed. We were happy to find we were not overloaded even though we are close to the maximum rating. The Dutch Star weighs 26,820 pounds and has a maximum rating of 27,400 pounds. Including the Honda we weigh 30,040 pounds. Norm talked to a neighbor in the campground about weights and the neighbor said his rig is 9,000 pounds overloaded, but he was not concerned. We hope we don't meet him on the road someday. If we do, his rig will probably be in a ditch. Campgrounds fill up on holiday weekends so we made reservations for the Memorial Day weekend at Interstate RV Park, Davenport, Iowa. The park is clean with level sites and a friendly staff. The area is called Quad Cities and includes the cities of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline and Rock Island in Illinois. The Mississippi River separates the states. From brochures we could see there is much to see and do in the Quad Cities, but the weather immediately turned cold, windy and rained. That put a damper on sightseeing so we stayed in the motorhome most of our five day stay.

The stock market has been going down the last few weeks and if we run out of money we'll have to get jobs and we never want to work again. Then an idea hit us. There are several casinos lining the Mississippi River and this afforded a way to make some quick money. Armed with twenty dollars each we marched into President Casino and took seats in front of slot machines. We fed the slots and watched wheels whirl and bells ring. Linda lost her twenty dollars, but Norm turned his twenty into fifty. With ten dollars more than when we entered, we tucked the money away and marched out the door. Moline, Illinois could easily be called John Deere, Illinois as that name is found everywhere. We visited the John Deere Pavilion and learned the history of farming and farm implements. Some of the wheels are so large a person can sit inside. The tractors of old are primitive next to the new ones. We saw tractors with air ride seats, air conditioning, stereo systems, windshield wipers, and many other features found in luxury cars. Some even have GPS (Global Positioning Systems) that show the driver where he is located in the field and computers that map out crop production for each area of the field. By using GPS and computers a farmer can determine which parts of his fields need more fertilizer, more irrigation or drainage pipes. Farming has entered the computer age.

The month of June will find us in Minnesota visiting Norm's son's family. Then we will cross South Dakota and attend the Newmar International Rally in Gillette, Wyoming. Check back next month.