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Spring Tour 1998
The Second Eight Days Chicago through Michigan Part III; Page One of Four
NOTE:
Our trip through Michigan was in at the South and out at the Northwest. After leaving Chicago on Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day Monday, we headed straight east to Elkhart, Indiana. By the time we said our good bye’s and packed the van there was not enough time to visit the Indiana Dunes along Lake Michigan which our hosts were touting. Next trip we’ll do that on the train. That sounds like a good day’s fun. We couldn’t stop in South Bend either. It would have been nice to search out the Studebaker Museum there. I’ve always love them and I’ve owned several: A ’53 Commander V-8 Coupe, a ’63 Land Cruser, and a ’50 Starlight Coupe with overdrive on which I always wanted to turn it’s body around on the frame and drive it backwards. Interesting. Check out a picture of one and you’ll see why. But this time the plan is to visit the RV Heritage Museum, especially because they have a 1954 Spartan 41 41 foot Imperial Mansion. The Spartan we have is a 1950 Manor, 34 footer. There are two others where we live: a ’51 Manor 36 foot, and a ’50 Royal Spartanette 36 foot. There simply is not another brand of coach suitable for full-time living that has survived this long. Oh yes, there are the Airstreams, but they are travel trailers. There are other old trailer, and even some mobile homes here and there, but not with this kind of quality. So what is a Spartan? You ask. The best description is to imagine being inside an executive airplane with the cockpit and wings removed surrounded by birchwood paneling. It’s all aluminum exterior is air tight. These were built by the Spartan Aircraft company when the post WWII housing demand grew larger than the need for airplanes. There were built from 1946 to 1960. By then the civilian aircraft demand had returned and suburbia was well underway. After our tour (they stayed open an extra hour for us to take pictures), we headed north on Route 131 towards Kalamazoo. We passed by Fremont and Angola Indiana where generations of my paternal family are burried in the corner of a cornfield. We have spent time there last July on our previous trip. One the way up we passed through Constantine where many of the 100 year old homes have been restored in the area.and Three Rivers. I worked nights at the Continental Can Company there in the late 50’s while attending Western Michigan University. It’s still there. I remember when General George McPharlan toured the plant as Chariman of the Board. His kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked across the production floor - but when he stopped at the end of the isle he reported everything he’s seen from side to side. The man missed nothing. The sun was hanging low - it seemd to us for hours. We wanted to arrive at my neices house before dark. We did. Lisa was out walking so we sat down and got aquainted with her housemates. Very much like a group you’d meet on MTV’s "Road Rules". Very much. In a few minutes Lisa arrives. We greet. It’s our second visit in ten months - a family record. We eat in the living room - pizza. Lisa is giving us her quarters - two nice rooms ustairs: One for our computer and the other, a sleeping porch over the kitchen. Super comfortable on her bed that she had just constructed herself. Lisa is a true free-spirit in the mold of her Uncle Phil (Ross). That’s why we get along so well. She’s been a baker in Portland and toured Europe. Next she’s planning to work in Africa in healthcare. For now, it’s nursing school at Western where her uncle and his mother attended before her. It’s late and we fall out. Everything’s an excuse to relate and in the mornig we find a good project to do together. I want to take our van to see if I can get the transmission leak stopped. We’d been adding a quart of fluid about every 200 miles all the way across the country. I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is: It’s the selector shaft seal that gits around the rod that changes the gears. Lisa says she has a mechanic so I head on over there. It’s walking distance back home. But it turns out he can’t do it today and recommends the Firestone store down the road. I wouldn’t have considered them for this - but since it’s a referral I decide to go. Without going into the full story here, it turned into a nightmare. (I’ll write about it later on - it’s a lesson in itself.) But eventually it all came together and we were on our way minus the leak. So this gave us an extra day in Kalamazoo. That evening we decided to go hiking through the Nature conservatory on the edge of town. It’s a 600 acre working farm which is being operated as it did in the last century. Students can come and learn the ways of their elders here. There are woods and fields and ponds and no one is around. Just the three of us. We walk and talk and romp and take pictures. It realy gives us the flavor of Southern Michigan. When we get back home I make a slide show of our pictures on the laptop while dinner is cooking. It doesn’t get dark until after 10 pm here. The next day we eat breakfast out in the back yard in the garden. Then we pack the van and head east across the State towards Detroit. But on the way, we stop in a little town where I lived when I was five - where I started school and from where we were forced to auction everything off andmove to Florida. My sister had contracted TB and it was during the middle of the Second World War. We sold everything, bought a housetrailer and moved toFlorida. After school I would hang out with the trapeze artists of the wintering Ringling Brother’s Circus and my sister and I slept in a nine foot by twelve foot armytent. She recovered except for her asthema. In Marshall we stopped at the town circle (Round-a-bout) to take pictuers of the fountain which I used to ride my scooter around and occasionally fall into. Then we found number 120 W. Mansion Street. The old house still there - still looking the same. I parked in front, knocked on the door and introduced myself. The four old women invited me inside to meet the matron of the home. She had lived there since 1950. It was a glimpse of time standing still. We took pictures and drove on past Battle Creek where I was born. My parents met at the Kellog’s Sanatorium in the 1920’s while working their way through college. The next town was a little bit bigger, Jackson, where we turned off to visit the famous Cascades Park which is a large man-made waterfall down a hillside which is colorfully lit at night. It’s a big deal in these parts and counters the presence of the State Prison nearby.
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