We test drove our costumes for this year at Shenango for their Halloween weekend. Here are the kids in their costumes…
And Nathan sitting at the front porch….
Samantha was a fairy that she named “Glitter”….
Timmy was Peter Pan…
Joshua was Captain Hook…
My mom was supposed to be a pirate wench but I think she looks more like a hippy….
And here is a picture of all of us, we ended up winning best group/family….
After Michigan we drove into Toronto for a day so Nathan could do some work. We started out checking into a “resort” named Cedar Creek RV Resort that we had to pay in full for when we made reservations (non refundable). The first site they gave us we couldn’t even get into. They let us choose the next site and when we finally got parked we realized it was 30 amp and had no sewer. Good news is that we were able to use the oven and have an A/C on without popping the electric. However, we decided the “resort” was SO awful that we would rather be at a Walmart so after cooking dinner we unhooked and drove through their NARROW streets scratching the sides of the RV and went to a Walmart for the night. Needless to say I spent way too much money at the Walmart because they have different buyers for Canadian Walmarts and they had so many cute outfits for the kids that I have never seen in an American Walmart! :)
The next day we drove back into America at Niagara Falls and headed back to Shenango for the Halloween weekend….
After a break for lunch and delivering lunch to Nathan we decided to go back to Lansing and take the kids to the science museum since the RV wasn’t back yet. Here is the entrance to the musuem…
This science museum was more like a children’s museum. Everything was hands on. They had a bubble room that all of the kids had fun in. Here is Samantha creating a bubble wall…
Here is Joshua behind the bubble wall blowing into it to create another bubble…
Here is Timmy blowing bubbles…
There was also a large mouth that was teaching about brushing…
Timmy and Josh also found an area where they could record sound effects…
The kids had a lot of fun in Lansing but my mom and I were both extremely tired. It was wonderful to get back to the RV. :)
Our first stop on Monday morning was to the Potter Park Zoo. At the entrance is a large wire bear. The kids wanted a picture of them behind it so it looked like they were inside the bear but you couldn’t see them through the wire so I had to convince them to stand in front of the bear…
Walking around the park were a bunch of peacocks. I had never seen a white peacock before so I had to get a picture…
We also saw a very colorful bird but I have forgotten what type of bird it was…
They had some arctic foxes so I had to get a picture for my mom since that is the name of her truck camper…
My personal favorite was the binturong. I looked at it and knew that someone involved with the Princess Bride movie had to have seen one at a zoo when they were deciding what the ROUS (Rodents Of Unusual Size) looked like. I couldn’t get a good picture of the face but even the face and mannerisms were just like a ROUS…
The last picture that I took at the zoo is of Samantha and Timmy posing in a kangaroo…
Right after this picture an employee of the zoo told us that they had an issue at the back of the park and asked us to go to the front of the park. After the cat that got out of his cage in San Francisco we thought that the issue was an escaped animal so we pretty much ran to the front of the zoo. :) The issue was that they were doing some construction and hit a gas line. Since that could have been just as dangerous I think I am glad that we were done looking at the zoo anyways.
After Indianapolis we drove to Charlotte, Michigan to go to Spartan for service. We figured since we had so many miles on our RV we should have the chassis checked out. They have a special inspection where they go over everything. We also needed an oil change on the engine and the generator. Since our service wasn’t until Monday we used the weekend to unwind a bit. The kids wanted to play with their new cars so they made good use of the big empty parking lot….
Charlotte is only about 30 minutes from Lansing, where I was born, so Sunday we spent some time driving around looking at all the places my parents lived and built. I wanted to drive by Sparrow Hospital since it is still there. It is the hospital that I was born in. Mom says it is a lot bigger than it was back then…
We drove by the student house that my parents managed at Michigan State University but it is now a parking lot for the police station that used to be across the street. Here is a picture of one of the first houses my parents built. It is actually for sale….
Then we drove by an apartment complex that my parents built. Here is a picture of a couple of the buildings…
I think my mom was enjoying the drive down memory lane. That night we went to dinner with old family friends, Al and Dorothy Hitchcock. They are semi retired from a family owned trucking business. My dad used to drive for them way back when. Here is my mom with Al and Dorothy…
Monday morning they took the RV in for service. Everything checked out great. Since I didn’t want the kids to run around crazy in the office my mom and I took them to the zoo and the science museum in Lansing.