We left Gordon WI after saying goodbye to Ma and Pa. The drive out was beautiful and we stopped for wild rice and baby swiss cheese in Spooner per Ma and Pa's recommendation. We had another Walmart night in Madison, WI and got out early the next morning. Lavender grows wild along side the freeways and everything is turning green again the farther south we get. We crossed over the Illinois state line at 0930 and paid our first toll of the trip at 2.85 for the privilege of driving on a crappy road !!! It costs us 16 dollars to just get through Chicago. Lexi loved the sky line and we had about an hour detour situation where we got just a little lost before we made our way back to the right freeway going the right way.
Traveled down on Hwy 65 through Indianapolis and listening to football on Vic's phone. Still haven't got to see a game yet and wouldn't have wanted to see that one (Denver). Got to Scottsburg and found an overpriced RV park to stay in (44/night). The good part was that they sold the Passport America, which gives us 50% off our stay at selected campgrounds, so it came down to a reasonable price (24/night). Nothing special about the campground. We are in Scottsburg for one reason only. I wanted to surprise Dad, and mom too, by going and caring for the Rice family cemetery as the last time they were out the stones were in poor condition.
Got up early the next day during a record heat wave of 98 degrees ... HOT HOT HOT. And humid too. We went to the county clerks office and we were able to get a county map that has the Rice Cemetery listed. With the map and dad's memory, we were able to find it. It is a small cemetery and about 100 yards back from a road that was chained off with a "Private Property" sign but no number listed so we just went on in through the soybean fields to the cemetery on the hill. Lexi had her brush and scrubbed each and every Rice stone to clean them up. One is falling over and we picked it back up and leaned it against the base stone but am not sure how many more years it will last.
We also were able to find Maggie's grave stone in a different cemetery. Maggie was Grampa Rice and Uncle Bob's mother and she died very young from TB, leaving behind 3 small boys. It was sad to see. I didn't realize they had lost their mother so young. Her site is in good condition.
At the Scottsburg IN city cemetery we found Russell Rice's headstone. His is in the best condition of all so Lexi had no cleaning to do; instead she picked up some beads from the ground and placed them on his grave.
It was a quick short visit to Scottsburg but we did what we intended to do and I am so happy we got to see the cemetery and that Lexi had the opportunity to clean the stones "for grampa".
We left the next morning driving through Jefferson County Indiana where the original Rice homestead was. We didn't find the actual area but it was just nice to look out on the same rolling hills that my ancestors did. It is a beautiful area. We wanted to take the scenic route but about 7 miles in .... thank GOD there was an option to get back to the main highway. It was a crazy 7 miles and everyone driving towards us looked at us like we were insane !!! The road only said "No through trucks" not "No trucks". We have learned our lesson though that we need to take routes that are safe for through trucks too.
We met a great man at our RV park in Scottsburg named Herb. He is from the Merytle Beach area and was on a several month US tour. He gave great great advice for the next couple of weeks as he had just come down from upstate New York. Per his advice for our Chain Reaction tour, we are now headed to Clayton NY, the 1000 Island Two Nation Tour and the Hope Cemetery in Barre, VT
We got as far as Akron where we planned to spend the next night but decided to keep going. Was a great freeway surrounded by miles and miles and miles of Ohio cornfields. And around the next bend ... more cornfields. Off to your right ... cornfields. And up over the next hill on your left ... more cornfields. It got so monotonous that we were excited to see a soybean field (surrounded by cornfields).
We skirted through Pennsylvania and on into New York. Lexi finally said she felt like she was a long way away from home. Spent the night in another Walmart just over the state line in Fedoria, this one really not worth it as I ended up spending over 100 dollars at Walmart and we happened to be there the night of their scheduled parking lot cleaning. Late into the night we got hit by the remnants of Hurricane "something" ... can't remember which one. But the winds came in with tons of rain, we had no leaks and by the next morning it was overcast and a little windy, but not bad.
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