Famous Friends and Famously Found Cache

We are staying at the Elkhart Campground where the Famous Nick Russell stays when he is in this area of Indiana.  As a result all his friends seek him out as he is very famous.  He is the famous author of the Kindle book, Big Lake and many other books; he is the famous publisher of the marvelous RV newspaper, Gypsy Journal; creator of the famous Nick’s Blog, and he is the very famous Rally Master of the Gypsy Gatherings. From the day we arrived until we left, there was a constant string of friends visiting Nick.  We knew most of these friends as they are often at Nick’s rallies as we are.  Every night we went to dinner with the Russells and Greg and Jan White.  The Whites are parked next to Nick and Terry, and also very special friends though not quite as famous. 

Getting together with RV friends always results in lots of laughs, first with Chris and Jim Guld of Geeks of Tour then with Dennis and Carol Hill of RV Driving School.  We had dinner with the Russells, the Whites, and Al Hesselbart of the RV/MH Hall of Fame that resulted in more laughs and we enjoyed real good Mexican food.  We caught up with geocaching friends, Cindy and Will Olsen, who we first met at the Yuma Gypsy Gathering Rally.  We ate dinner with Mike and Elaine Loscher, another couple that is a part of Nick’s Rally startup team.  It was so good to see them again as it has been 18 months since we saw them last, but surprisingly we resumed our friendship as if no time had passed at all.  Funny about this RV’ing lifestyle, we meet with friends, separate for months and meet up again and our friendship remains as strong as always.  We just love it.

We did manage to do a few little touristy things.  We visited the New York Central Railroad Museum in Elkhart.  If you can judge a museum by the amount of ‘stuff’ they display, this is one of the best museum focusing on one railroad company.  In addition to the rolling stock and the history display they have a very extensive working model railroad display.

If this engine and the cab that Tom is sitting in looks familiar, it is because you probably saw the movie, Silver Streak. Tom even checked out the ‘dead man’ brake on the floor; yes, it was there.

A very interesting display in the museum was an engine made entirely out of toothpicks.  It took 7 years to complete, 40 pounds of glue, and 424,250 toothpicks to complete.

The other interesting thing we saw outside the museum was this:

This vehicle was perched atop two gondola cars, rocking back and forth, unloading RR ties as the train was moving along the tracks.  I posted it on Facebook and our friend, Leroy Willis, got back to us and told us it was a ‘car topper’ and it was designed to do this. 

Another museum we went to was the RV/MH Hall of Fame.
 
The displays were fantastic.  These are just a few of the RV’s in the museum.

While talking to Al Hesselbart we approached him on the possibility of placing a geocache at the museum.  Al thought it was a good idea so we went back to our RV and made up a cache, wrote up the description, hid the cache, and then applied to Groundspeak to publish the cache.  We thought it would take up to 3 days, but within an hour it was approved and published.  Within the next hour it was found.  SO COOL.  To see where this cache is placed, log on to Famously Found.   

This was a busy 5 days in Elkhart.  We pulled up next to the Russell’s and White’s rigs to say goodbye.  Even Greg’s cat, Mister, came out to say goodbye.

So we are On The Road Again, Caching Places that We’ve Never Been.