Princeton, Illinois
Working our way to Nappanee, we spent a weekend in Princeton. Plenty of beautiful old houses… and plenty more that aren’t so pretty.
Lovejoy Homestead
Owen Lovejoy’s home was a prominent stop on the Underground Railroad, sheltering slaves that were running away to safety further north. It was all closed up, but we at least got to walk around…
There is a tiny brick building on the premises, used as a school starting in 1850!
Hennepin Canal
In the early 1830’s, the idea was to create a shortcut between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. In the 1840’s, requests for federal funding stalled, and it wasn’t until the 1890’s that financing allowed the start of construction of this canal. The canal was to be close to 100 miles long, with 33 locks. 1907 the first ship traversed the entire length of the newly finished canal, but by then trains were carrying cargo the canal was designed for. In addition, many of the locks were already outdated. The canal was decommissioned in 1951, and is now used as a series of historical parks. In its early days, ice forming on the canal was sold to help cover operating costs.
I could find no documentation on this bridge, but it is a SLIDING bridge. The half over the land, in the picture below, is concrete, and the half over the water is wood, and the whole thing is framed by metal and rolls on tracks. The concrete half is heavy enough that the bridge didn’t tip over when pulled off the abutment on the other side of the canal. The mechanism to pull or push the bridge is now missing, but the tracks and design of the bridge show its function clearly.
Many other bridges cross the canal… this one used chains to lift it up and out of the way.
Directly opposite one of the locks was a walkway up to this house.
Maybe it was the lock keeper’s house? It looks like it started out a very nice house. Needs a bit of work now.
Hennipen Canal from our campsite
Berrien Springs, Michigan
We stayed in a little campground on the St Joseph River, right in the heart of Berrien Springs. We were honored to spent TWO evenings with dear friends Ron & Betty, and is my habit, I forgot to get pictures both times! Sigh. Great evenings, though!
Along the river we saw lots of evidence of beavers! We even saw a few places you could see tracks in the sand where they had dragged their find into the river. But we never caught sight of a beaver. They don’t actually hibernate, but they are supposed to gather enough food for the winter, and then stay in their lodges until the spring. Maybe these tracks were made by rebel teenage beavers sneaking out for a snack.
Newmar Service Center, Nappanee, Indiana
We had a window failure a few weeks ago. Our windows are double pane, which makes for a quiet coach, and really helps with keeping the cold out. And when it’s cold out, the windows don’t get condensation on the inside, like many previous rigs we’ve had. BUT… on our little half bath, the opening portion came delaminated. The outside pane was only hanging on by some adhesive on the top edge. Not wanting it to fall off, I super-glued it back in place, and made an appointment to have the window replaced at the factory service center. I love this place! The people great, and I like having the folks that built this coach service it. While we were there, we had some slide maintenance done, replaced our coach batteries, and had a few other little things done.
The service center is huge, with something like 53 service bays inside.
They have a nice area to “camp” while at the service center.
We arrive the afternoon before our appointment, then they pick up the coach at SIX AM the next day. We can tour or hang out in this nice new lounge area…
Since a good breakfast seems to be the first touring of the day, we went out to a great dutch restaurant- Dutchmaid Eatery. It was so nice we did that both mornings. The pictures below are the sunrise AFTER breakfast!
Our servicing was finished on Friday, and we decided to stay over the weekend. No work was done on Saturdays, so we had the place to ourselves!
We both found the pics very interesting. I have never heard of the canals and locks. The service center was beautiful with so MANY service bays! The beautiful homes all had basements with windows under the porches…and here I thought we were the only ones with a basement…Oh, this is California! 🙂 Continue having fun and Merry Christmas! vr