You say tomato and I say tomahto.  You say potato and I say potahto.

You say Mackinac and I say Mackinaw . . .

The real skinny:  The French spelled it with “ac” on the end but pronounced it “aw.”  The British heard it pronounced “aw” so they spelled it that way. Whichever way it is spelled, it is always pronounced “aw.”

We were already due south of it at the Heartland Rally, and our home club, the Friendly Maryland Travelers, were heading there for a Rally. Longtime members, we hadn’t joined them for eons because of our cross-country adventures, so it was nice to hook up again. We all stayed in the Mackinaw City Park in sight of Mackinac Island and not far from the Mackinac Bridge across the straits between Lakes Huron and Michigan. It’s a large, naturally-designed, well-maintained park with many sites on the Huron shore.  We did group meals, side trips down town, a day-long July 4^th party and, of course, a trip over to Mackinac Island itself. We took a jet boat over.  There are no cars allowed on the Island except an ambulance.  Some of our folks were drawn to a three hour long horse-drawn tourist cart adventure, while others brought their bikes.  As we went past the Grand Hotel, biggest and fanciest on the island, we learned they charged gawkers $10 to enter the grounds and look around!

Back on the mainland, we toured the Icebreaker Mackinaw Marine Museum.  The ship was commissioned in 1944 primarily to keep shipping lanes open for the transport of raw materials during WW II.  She is 290 feet long with three propellers – two aft and one forward – driven by six monster diesel engines.  She served until 2006, when she berthed for good in her namesake port and gave way to a new Mackinaw, the slightly smaller WLBB-30.  The docent in the engine room when we took our tour was very well versed, and she handled my curiosity thoroughly.

Another highlight was a spin along the waterfront.  Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse is adjacent to Fort Michilimackinac, where a statue tells the story of one of the earliest English inhabitants.  After the British gained control of Canada and the Great Lakes in 1760, 22 year old Alexander Henry (1739-1834) made his way down from Montreal to explore the fur trading opportunities.  Others followed and continued to use the Fort, abandoned by the French, as a trading post.  A year later, the Ojibwe entered the fort, killed all the British and held it for a year.  Alexander, however was spared by Chief Wawatam, who adopted him as a son.  A year later, when the Ojibwe were repulsed, Alexander was granted a monopoly on fur trading on Lake Superior.  After 11 active years, he returned to Montreal and became a merchant.  Among his plaudits is the fact that he introduced John Jacob Astor to the Canadian fur trade.

Mackinac Bridge

And then we trekked the long span to the Upper Peninsula.

Numerous nice things happened at the Rally.

When the damage on my trip home from North Carolina first occurred, I contacted the director of dealer services at Heartland to enlist his aid in finding a suitable repairer.  Jim and I have developed a “working knowledge” of each other over the years.  I then contacted the director of the Heartland Owners Club, sponsor of the Rally.  As a result, the word got around, and everyone I ran into when I got there bent over backwards to accommodate and help me.

One of the perks of the Rally was the opportunity to have Heartland perform a couple of factory service needs on each rig.  Techs showed up from neighboring Elkhart in droves on the first Rally day and stayed for several days to complete reasonable requests.  We got everything done that we’d requested!

One more repair was required by the tire explosions — replacement of a small body panel.  Heartland uses an authorized agent for most of its repair and dealer prep work, and Jim made arrangements for me to get that job done before we left – at a very reasonable price.

Despite the fact that we’d spent a week in Goshen in 2012, we still found two new area attractions.  One was Menno-Hof, the perfect place to hone your knowledge of the many area people with straw hats or bonnets, beards or long dresses, boxy black buggies, and houses with no electricity.  Collectively they’re Anabaptists, a movement founded in Zurich, Switzerland in 1525 in the early years of the Reformation.  The movement spread north and east, to Tyrol, the Low Countries and into South Germany and Russia.  Convinced that the church had become corrupted, Anabaptists called for the strict separation of church and state.  They also sought the purity of the simple life.  They were violently persecuted by both Catholics and Protestants — members were declared heretics and treated as such.  They escaped by migrating into the U.S., beginning in 1644 and increasing throughout the 18th century.  William Penn welcomed them to Pennsylvania.  Between 1815-60, others flooded into Ohio and Indiana.  Many of the Pennsylvania Mennonites migrated to Ontario, and direct immigration into Canada followed.

Menno Hoff Center

Menno-Hof, in the neighboring town of Shipshewana,  is a multimedia presentation of the heritage, beliefs and lifestyle of the movement.  One of the most important things it does is define the groups within the movement, primarily Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites.  The original movement was the Hutterite, but the largest is the Mennonite.  Today, Anabaptists can be found in 66 countries, on every continent except Antarctica!

Your experience begins with a 13 minute introductory video, and then you pass through two dozen exhibits that document nearly phase of Anabaptist life.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to understand – and respect – their culture.  Speaking of respect, the Goshen Walmart isolates a section of its parking lot with hitching posts!

Adjacent to Menno-Hof is the  Hostetler Hudson Museum.  Eldon Hostetler grew up on his family’s 280 acre Amish farm, where automobiles were, of course, verboten.  A neighbor’s son, however, went south and west to follow the wheat harvest, and when he returned, he was driving a 1936 Hudson Terraplane.   In 1940, at age 18, Eldon began his own lifetime bond to Hudsons,  purchasing a 1938 model with a secret loan from his grandfather.

Eldon had a profitable life.  He left the family farm and started a poultry business.  He revolutionized the industry when he invented an automatic feeding system for laying hens and started Ziggity Systems in 1977 to take it to market.  This was followed by dozens of other patents aimed at streamlining farm processes.

Eldon bought a new Hudson every year until manufacturing ceased in 1954.  After that, his wealth made it possible for him to amass and restore a collection reputed to be the largest in the world.  In 1997, Eldon donated the collection, a maintenance fund and 18 acres of land to the town of Shipshewana, which, in turn built the complex to hold it.  Most are now housed in the museum; a few are loaned to other   I took a picture of every one but will spare you by selecting a sampling!

During the Rally, I took advantage of a service called Smart Weigh.  The advisors weigh each wheel of the RV and tow vehicle independently.  I frequently checked the overall weight to be sure I wasn’t exceeding road limits.  But this program revealed a significant fact:  the left rear trailer tire – the culprit in my May travail — was overloaded.  So just before we left town, we installed a new set of heavier-duty Goodyears.

Now we were broke!

We left Sandy Oaks for the season on April 29 and took three days to travel to Brasstown, NC so I could do my annual Nantucket Lightship Basketweaving teaching gig the following week.  The puppies rode with me in the truck, and Dot followed in the car.  Having the car with us in Florida was a boon; it gave the truck a much needed hiatus, and it was infinitely easier to park and get around in.  Interestingly, we hardly ever needed two vehicles for separate travel.

On the way, we stopped to visit with Bob and Pat Rotchford in Cumming, Georgia.  Bob and I were business associates in Boston as well as officers together in the New England Direct Marketing Association.  He and Pat came over to our unit in the county park and we treated them to a sumptuous five course dinner, anchored by individual Beef Wellingtons!

My class at the Folk School this year numbered five, just as it did in 2012. The makeup of this class was quite different, however.  Two of the students were serious basket weavers, members of the N.C. Basketweavers Guild. They had both worked with Nantucket Lightships, but they were anxious to learn the process end to end – as I teach it. One brought a mold made by her husband, a 13 inch tall round behemoth that was solid through and through. I’d guess it weighed 30 pounds. Fortunately, she brought a stand for it, along with a base and a set of wood staves.  Another student was a returnee from two years ago. She was ready to make a Reyes Friendship Basket, and she did a great job.  Another was director of operations for the Chautauqua Society, an organization of great interest to us.  We had a wonderful week, meeting everyone’s needs.  By request, a new trick was included: the creation of a spiral pattern in the weave. The picture at right shows how it develops. (P.S. my students liked it better than I did. I’m quite a purist about Lightships.)

JCCFS holds over 800 classes per year;  mostly week-long but some over a long weekend.  If you’re interested, peek at their website: www.folkschool.org.

While there’s entertainment at the campground clubhouse nearly every Saturday evening, there is one presentation that exceeds them all:  the annual Sandy Oaks No Talent Show.  It’s an evening of sidesplitting humor, as many of our fine citizens go all-out to give us a great evening.  In fact, this is the only occasion where the hall becomes too small; if you don’t plunk down your five bucks early enough, you’re likely to be outside looking in.  This year, two emcees kept us laughing between acts while “sets” were being changed onstage; in fact, Sharlene really put on her best Phyllis Diller.  Pictures will tell the rest of the story.

The Crystal River Archeological State Park evidences the efforts of Native Americans who lived here in the 16^th century.  The area, however, was actually settled more than 2,500 years ago, a time when the river system had matured enough to support a sedentary population.

The 61 acre site consists of a half-dozen mounds and a vista of open ground looking out to the River.  The largest mound, with a platform on its top, is a temple.  The others are burial mounds.  Also at the site is a midden, or dumping area for remnants of living – perhaps our equivalent of a garbage dump.  An unexpected addition are two steles, or limestone slabs.  One clearly depicts  a face, while the other appears to be undecipherable.  The site, an exceptionally calm place to walk and reflect, also included an artifact-laden visitors center.  It’s a worthwhile stop.