Larry Niemann, RIP

 My dad passed away last week at the age of 91. Although he had suffered from dementia for the last few years, he was always eager to carry on a conversation and still had his great sense of humor.

 I love you, Dad, and will miss you!

We traveled to the St. Louis area where Dad lived near my brother, and my sister traveled from Michigan. We don't often all get together, but we decided a good "memorial meal" would be one of Dad's favorites--Buttons, pork chops, and apple salad!

Buttons (I don't know what the German name would be) are a heavy dough that has been boiled and then fried with bacon. Sometimes we would eat it with syrup. I haven't had it in a long time and it was delicious!!

Montgomery, AL

We spent a day on our travel from Mammoth Cave to Destin, FL in Montgomery, AL and had a great tour of the city. Our trolley driver was very knowledgable and we saw and heard some great history. Later we went back to the capitol building for an inside walk. The stairs were just inside the entrance on both sides of the foyer and led to the second and third floors which were open to the beautifully painted rotunda.

Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave was the next destination and we kept busy, saw a lot, and had some fun. We did the two ad a half hour New Entrance tour and saw some amazing structure. Besides the Frozen Niagra we saw these beautiful stalactites.












We also toured the Lost River Cave where we took a boat ride into the cavern on an icy cold river. That was a unique experience.

We also went to see a Civil War reenactment which was a lot of fun on a beautiful blue skied day.

(The blogger does not seen to want me to type my captions next to my pictures!)

Columbus, IN

Next on our list of places to go was the Cummins Rally in Columbus, IN. We toured the Cummins Engine Factory, the Cummins Testing (high tech) Facility, the Cummins Corporate Office Building (which was a museum in itself), and spent time visiting the city of 50,000ish and its incredible architecture. Many notable architects have designed churches, City Hall, schools, office buildings, and the library. This is the ceiling of the library designed by I. M. Pei. Fascinating city!!!

Cincinnati

After the Indianapolis Rally we spent Labor Day weekend in the Cincinnati area. We had a good time visiting the countryside--a wine festival in one town and a music festival with a ride in a canal boat and all the history that went with it in another.

Nope, this isn't the Cincinnati Zoo. It's Jungle Jim's Mega Food Mart, a six acre complex of every kind of food you can imagine. Just what a "foodie" like Mitch dreams of.

The end of August

 After leaving Minnesota we headed north and spent some "quiet time" enjoying the Upper Peninsula of Michigan--you know...








pasties, a bottle of wine, the great outdoors,

 and the Mackinac Bridge. We had a great day on Mackinaw Island doing the carriage ride, checking out the old fort, taking a tour through the Grand Hotel, just fun stuff like that.

We stopped at the VanSchoick Family campground (we love it when we can park at a friend's house and have full hook-ups) and met up with Marshal and Jan, and all of us caravanned to the Monaco Pre-Rally in Springfield, Ohio where we joined more friends.

Eventually we ended up at the FMCA Rally in Indianapolis for more fun.

The Middle of August

The lake is almost back to normal but it is time for us to leave. We had a great birthday celebration for Shayne's birthday... huge cowboy steaks, king crab legs, and all the fixings--yummy!

We will miss the girls, but it's time to move on.