August 1 Lowell, Indiana - On The Road Again

All good things must come to an end and the Oshkosh 2005 Air Venture is now complete. Even though the event was scheduled to run through Sunday, by Saturday many of the participants were starting to dismantle their campsites and head home. I do not know the official count of airplanes in attendance this year but they reported that the Oshkosh airfield had 3,300 aircarft departures within a 16 hour period of time on Saturday. To put that number into perspective, even O'hare in Chicago (operating 24 hours a day) only had 3,000 on Saturday.

After a number of nights of comraderie and joyful campsite singing around us, it was sad to see it all come to an end. Each time we looked out the window, another campsite had been folded up and vehicles driven off. Finally we could again see the miles of green grass and open spaces. I commented this morning that we could even hear the sound of the nearby freeway, previously muffled by all the RVs and campsites.

We got up fairly early (before 9 am, WOW) appreciating the fact that the line at the septic dump station was not too long and everyone was in good spirits.

So now here we sit in the parking lot of a Flying J Truck Stop just 235 miles south of Oshkosh. We are exhausted from the sensory overload at the air show but have lots of very special memories of the sights and sounds which we experienced.

Our next destination is Port Washington, Ohio in Tuscarawas County where a number of our ancestor Stockers lived and died. We will be attending the Pioneer Days and Craft Show put on by the Gnadenhutten Historical Society.

Hope all is well in your corner of the country...it is very hot here today...in excess of 95 degrees but low humidity.

Linda