Fire !!

Rudee had an exciting day here at our home on the KOA range. She was slaving away at her desk and saw some smoke. She thought it was odd that someone would have a campfire or were grilling out when it was pushing 85*. She opened the day/night shade and smoke was pouring out of the camper next door. Rudee called 911 and reported the fire and then ran out to make sure everyone was out. The neighbors were not home and (lucky for them) had left their dogs outside tied to their picnic table. The fire department arrived and put out the flames but not before it had gutted the old camper and destroyed everything inside. They came back to find the fire trucks there and their home still smoldering. We really had not had a chance to talk with them too much before the fire. We assumed they were living fulltime in the trailer due to economic reasons and they confirmed that they were now homeless and all their possessions had been in the trailer. They were offered room at a shelter about 20 miles south of here but not sure if they are going there or somewhere else. The camper was probably 35 years old and the license plates had expired in 1984. They told Rudee they had no insurance. The main thing is they are all safe. He normally works nights and would have been inside sleeping and as fast as these things burn, probably would not have survived.

The campground staff are over there now cleaning up some of the debris that was scattered by the fire department. I have a feeling the owners have left and will not be back seeing as there is really nothing left here for them. Hopefully the KOA staff will get the camper hauled away soon.

We had a busy week end. Saturday morning I took the Freightliner over to Niles and Deb's house and we changed the batteries out. They followed us back home on their bike and we hopped on our's and headed to Peru to watch the races. We no more got to Peru to meet up with Tim and Linda when Linda called and Stephanie had blown her engine in a make up race. She was done for the night and they were packing up to leave. We made plans to meet them at a local restaurant for dinner instead.

After dinner we rode back to Niles and Deb's and, since we had made plans to take a long ride on Sunday, Rudee and I spent the night at their house.

Sunday morning we headed to eastern Indiana where I wanted to check out a campground near Connersville. We stopped for breakfast in Cicero and headed east from there. I was leading and we soon found the campground, Robinson's Whitewater Campground, and did a quick ride through. We are going to a wedding near here in September. The campground was nothing special but had nice long pull through sites, full hook ups and some shade. Looks like it will work just fine for a quick week end trip.

We turned around and started towards home. The temperature had starting rising and by noon was pushing into the upper 80's. We stopped in Metamora for lunch at a small diner. The food was only mediocre but at least we were in the air conditioning for a while.

We headed north to Richmond where we took US 40 back towards Indianapolis. There are several historic homes along this stretch of "The Old National Road" and we enjoyed the scenery as we rode.

We made it back to Robinson's around 4:30 and after a quick break (and to hunt for my cell phone) we headed back home. I did find my cell phone which had fallen from my belt in their guest bedroom while I was getting dressed. Rudee and I made it back home by 5:30. We were both drained so we did a drive thru at Burger King and brought it home with us. We just vegged out the rest of the night.

The weather is calling for more heat and maybe some storms this week. We have another motorcycle trip planned for this week end so we'll be getting things ready to go. I'll keep you posted.