Another southern town

Leaving Charleston it was a short trip to Savannah Ga. This trip along the southeast coast was an eye opener for us, as this was the first time we had been this far east. The coastal swamps and marshes were surprising along with all the water we passed over by the many bridges. We followed US 12 as far as we could and then US 17. Everything on this trip seemed a lot closer, as our trip last winter covered TX and AZ. Charleston and Savannah are very close together and when you look at a map Savannah is about as far northeast in Georgia as you can get.Savannah and Charleston, along with many other southern coastal towns were founded by the shipowner merchants. They made their first fortunes shipping goods and slaves from overseas. This was hard work so they then went on to become plantation owners as this was seen as a step up and they could sort of retire and show off their wealth. Savannah is more of a coastal town with a water front that has many old cotton warehouses with cobblestone streets and foundations that have been turned into shops and restaurants and other unique places. Charleston was built in the old tradition of getting as much as possible in as little space where Savannah's historic district has 22 squares with many statues honoring the city's founders. Both have many beautiful old houses with many of them open as museums and showplaces.
The next day we took a trip out to Tybee Island to visit the lighthouse there. The lighthouse and most of the area was developed by the gov't--- first as a lighthouse in 1736 (At 90ft--the tallest building in America ) and lifesaving station and then as Fort Screven for the protection of Savannah. With over 400 yrs of history it is a unique place.The fort and lighthouse was used as training grounds until after WWII and in 1947 sold the the community of Tybee. The area was built also as an escape for the residents of Savannah from the summer heat and became summer residences for many. Access to the area was difficult and a railroad was for many years the only way . There was also a big amusement park that still operated in the 1980's. On the way back we stopped at the Crab Shack, a local oddity restaurant that was recommended by a guy at the Ga welcome center.. we found it a fun place with good food.

Southern Towns

After our ferry rides we headed towards Morehead City and a campground. Not finding a campground there we headed on towards a campground in New Bern listed in the PA book. The person on the phone gave us different directions and addresses than what Passport America gave in the book. Our trusty GPS did not like either of them so we tried the directions given us by the man on the phone. At this point in time it is dark and downpouring rain. We came to a dead end in a residential section...... no campground!!!! Now the challenge was to turn the rig around with little lighting, less space, lots of downpouring rain and ( thank GOD) little traffic at that time of night. After much manuvering and frustration we headed back where we had just come from. We went according to the book and stumbled across a KOA. We found a spot, did the after-hours check-in and landed for the next two days. They received 5-11 inches of rain in the 2 days we were there...the aftermath of the hurricane. We burrowed in and did NOTHING. Even Grizz was content to do his duty outside quickly and get back inside to dry quarters.
We left there after two WET days and headed towards Charleston S.C. On this trip we have had several people photograph our arrival and we have caught their picturetaking with our own picture. In Plymouth N.C. the local cop stopped as we were making a u-turn and got his camera from the back of the cruiser and began snapping pics. We stopped and he came over and welcomed us to his town and talked about the truck in the middle of the street for about 10 min. We found a brand new campground near N. Myrtle Beach, S.C. on the Passport America website. Here again as we arrived a guy video taped our arrival. We seem to cause stir when we arrive. The Carroll Woods campground had a very nice bathhouse, nice country setting and friendly, helpful hosts. There was wine-tasting on site hosted by the "Grapeful Sisters". The weather had turned to a cold, light mist and since we don't like driving in the rain we stayed for two days. Still not our idea of nice sight-seeing weather so we did some laundry and read hoping the weather would clear.
We left there on Saturday on dry roads amid sunny skies and traveled towards Charleston, S.C. driving thru N. Mytle Beach and stopping for lunch. We bypassed Myrtle Beach as we figured it would be more of the same...T-shirt shops and golf resorts. We arrived at Lake Aire RV Park, Hollywood, S.C. just ouside Charleston early in the afternoon. Sunday we decided to take a mule drawn carriage ride in Charleston. It really is a way to see the sights and hear some tales about the city. Charleston is a city that has had many earthquakes (200 since 1970)and we saw how they repaired the houses in the 1800's that were damaged. After hearing which mansions were on the "to do" list, we walked back to the Calhoun house for a guided tour. It is called "the oh my God house" because those are the first words out of everyones mouth. It is a 24,000 sq ft house built 1n the 1870's still used as a single family home and opened for tours every day. The rooms are so filled with rare antiques and collectibles. A lot of the house has been restored to the original interior. It is just one of several House museums that are open for tours.  Charleston has a law ( passed in 1931 )that if the house/building is 75 years old you cannot tear it down....you can remodel the interior but the outside must remain original. So there are plenty of beautiful old homes there. They are not all mansions but many,many neat old houses,some dating back to the 1700's. This is one of the cities that we would like to return to for further exploring.

Lighthouse ~ Ferries ~ Spaceship

Since the forecast was for 3-4 days of rain we decided to head to the main land. We left Ocean Wave campground headed towards the ferry. On our way we stopped at the Hatteras Lighthouse-- the tallest brick lighthouse in the country at 208 ft. We couldn't climb it because it was closed for the winter.. boo hoo. In 1999 they moved it almost a 1/2 mile away from shore because erosion threatened to take it. That must have been some sight to watch.
While crossing on the ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke, we met a fun couple from PA, Kathy and Stu. They told us to watch on our way to the next ferry for the pen where they have the ponies fenced in to keep them off the roads. Apparently the wild horses are a danger to drivers on the island like the deer are in Michigan. We did see the pen but the ponies were too far away to get a picture. We got to the second ferry, the 2 and a half hour ride from Ocracoke Island across to Cedar Island. During one of the ferry rides Kathy mentioned that she had gotten a pictue of the spaceship along hwy 12. Well, Bob saw it but of course I missed seeing it. So Kathy sent it via email. I mentioned it to my friend Arlene( during a scrabble move via internet). Arlene is the source of a lot of research being done. If ever in doubt about something I email Arlene. The blessing is that not only does she do a lot of research, when asked she is willing to share it. So we will include Kathy's picture and a place to find out more. Arlene did say it was a restaurant at one time and was a Futuro House by Matti Surronen...supposedly built in Pennsylvania in the late 60's. So if you google that and google space ship on outer banks you should be able to get the scoop.
After leaving the second ferry it was getting into late afternoon. We started watching for campgrounds. They are not highly advertised by bill boards here. We drove by a couple before we saw them. There was one listed in Passport America, even with entering the coordinates the GPS sent us on a wild goose chase..the gps showed our trip on the water but couldn't get us to the campground..wow modern technology. Finally in the dark and rain, we found a KOA. Advertised 2 miles in advance and a sign lit up telling us we had found it. YES!!! We were ready for a nice quiet night of sleep. Since it is raining we opted to stay another day. Not fun sight-seeing in the rain.

NC Truck Show

Sat. Nov 7 the ltlgrntruck made it to the ATHS chapter show in Colfax North Carolina. It was a beautiful day-- sunny & about 70 degrees. There were around 100 trucks of all kinds there-- some that I have never seen, just read about. We open the trailer and got out the guest book. We try to do this at shows, but with so many people we cannot keep up. this show we have over 200 names in the book and missed many. It's fun talking to all these people. We decided after talking to lots that we would go to the Outer Banks and travel south on US-12.
We arrived on Roanoke Island Sunday after spending the night in the trailer in a motel parking lot. It was late and dark so we decided to get a motel as the only 2 campgrounds there were full??? Went to a motel and the clerk said the didn't take pets, she tried to find another place but, no luck other than a $35 pet charge,ha,ha... no way. finally she looked at us and said..you didn't hear this from me but, if you back in that corner you can sleep in your trailer, couldn't believe it but thats what we did. Got up at sunrise and headed on our way east. We arrived on the island during the middle of a marathon, what confusion..two roads and one blocked off, fun, fun. Spent about an hour in the welcome center talking about the area and..guess what else!!) and waiting for traffic to clear. One Campground there so we went and what a neat spot. Only a 1 1/2 years old ,very nice== called The Refuge== the manager said that it is very quiet even during tourist summer.Left Mon. started our tour driving to the North Beaches and Currituck Lighthouse.I climbed to the top while Jan stayed with Grizzly and entertained all the dog lovers. Lots of history, left for the south looking for lunch and found a lot of the places closed for the season. We ate and headed for Bodie Island lighthouse in The Hatteras National Seashore. Then on south to a little town named Rodanthe and a campground named Ocean Waves where we dipped our toes in a cold Atlantic ocean.

Arrived in North Carolina

We left Nashville County RV Park Tuesday morning. Going thru the hills towards Cookeville, TN the truck started losing water pressure and began to heat up. We went to the first truck stop we saw. After checking it out, Bob talked to the service department and they sent us 2 miles back to an International/ Cumings truck repair. They needed the vin# off the motor which was removed by the military before we bought it. After MUCH frantic searching Bob found the certificate from the government to use to apply for a title. YES!!! Jim, from the service center called Cumings with the #. Good, but not good enough. They needed the # off the back of the water pump. The only way to do that was to land at a RV park that would allow us to work on the truck. We headed back 6 more miles to Twinlakes and Catfish Pond RV Park. Bob proceeded to take the waterpump off the truck. Guessing it was the original pump because it had bonded with the motor and did NOT want to leave it! After trying various procedures it finally came apart. Finding several different series of #s on the part, Bob called them in to Jim. Jim called Cumings and called back with the news that those #s worked, Cumings was shipping the part, Jim would have someone deliver it to us in the morning. We received the new waterpump by 11am. Bob had it on the truck and we were on the road again by 1pm.
We were traveling along with a "new noise". Trying to figure out the noise, going down some of the larger hills, Bob noticed the air pressure was dropping, had gone from 120 to 90 and kind of holding there. BUT this was NOT good! We have AIR brakes!! At the bottom of the large hills was a truck stop with a service area. We pulled in there and Bob proceeded to check it out. He found the problem, got a new hose and connectors and within an hour or so we were on the road again. Thanking the good Lord for keeping us safe and putting those truck stops where we needed them.

Nashville,TN

We arrived at the Nashville Country RV Park in Goodlettsville, TN Saturday Oct. 31. We spent Sunday afternoon exploring the antique shops in downtown Nashville. The only thing we managed to find was a framed picture (from an old calendar) of a 1909 WHITE steam car. President William Taft chose this automobile as the first official automobile of the president of the United States. Learn something all the time!!!
Monday we did something we have never done before. We did a bus tour ----of Historic Downtown Nashville, Fort Nashborough, State Capitol, Bicentennial Mall, Music Row, Studio B,and Vanderbilt University.
Then we were given time to go on self guided tours at the New Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, could have spent hours there. From there we went to the Ryman Auditorium, the "Mother Church of Country Music" for another self guided tour. The last stop was at the Legends Corner on Honky Tonk Row for a drink and live music. It was well worth the investment to us since we were dealing with limited time. No hassles with trying to find a parking place or trying to find the right streets.
Our driver on the trip back to the campground was a lady our age and she told us of her experiences as a singer in Nashville. The glamour and glitz of the stars achievements in the music business is not all that glamourous when you hear stories from an insider. Tusday was another sunny day-- two in a row I think for the first time since we left Michigan---and we headed for North Carolina for an ATHS truck show on Sat. where they predicted sunny weather all week..

Car Show in Reed City, MI

Since we are doing very little of interest now, I thought I would post one of our highlights from this summer while we were in Reed City (Hawkins). We posted very little from Hawkins since that was virtually an "internet dead zone".
While in the area I spent some time trying to find old pictures of the Oseola Refinery and their semitrucks. My father drove for them sometime in the 50's, possibly early 60's. I have one picture of my dad with his truck but was looking for more and any information as we may do another "home" with an International like he drove.
During this time we went to a concert at the Crossroads in Reed City on a Thursday night. We got talking to some people there that had been involved with the refinery. We showed them what we were traveling around in now. A son-in-law (who was involved with the car show that coming Saturday) saw the picture of our "home" and asked if we could bring the whole rig to the show.
My best friend's husband had just finished restoring his '64 Falcon. So I called them to see if they were going to the show. Nelson, her husband, had to work but with lots of encouragement, his wife, Joyce(my best friend) was talked into bringing the car to it's first show. Hopefully we have started a tradition. Maybe Nelson will even be able to go with us and relish in the attention that his car received. People were impressed with his car and told of the memories they had of one just like it.
We managed to set-up next to each other which was great because she still lived in the area and knew everyone. I had been gone for 45 years and knew very few. Through
out the day I met a man my dad and youngest brother had worked for in Baldwin at a gas station. Then one of the daughters of another driver came over with her husband whose dad had also been a driver and introduced themselves. What a great time!!! Hearing all the old stories!!
Around 4 pm they were giving out rewards for the show. Life even got better, "Green
Ache-rs" placed in the top 25 and received a plaque! WOW! Who would have thought!!

Tennessee

Here we are in Tennessee back on the Natchez Trace--we traveled north on it this spring from Louisiana to Missouri on our trip home to Michigan. Now we are back after leaving MI. going through WI. and then Ia. and into MO. We left Savannah Mo.--traveled to Tightwad where we stayed for two very rainy days and then headed to Owensville Mo. through California Mo.and Jefferson City-- the state capital. It is amazing the different towns we have traveled through on the backroads of the country.We got to Lost Valley Resort the day after they received 5 inches of rain. We were there 2 weeks and I think we had at least 5 more inches. Our Canadian friend Chester stopped for two days on his way for 6 months at a house he rented in Mexico. It was rainy so we went to the hottub and mostly stayed at the trailer and caught up on things with him. It will be real interesting to hear about his stay in Mexico. We arrived in Tn.and the Trace with the trees still green and now the colors are really coming out. The campground we are at is 800 acres with a 3 mile long lake and we are only about 2 miles off the Trace. We are staying here another week and then plan to head towards Nashville for afew days and then on to North Carolina for a truck show and then south for Florida. We are having fun traveling with the ltlgrntruck to new places and states so no destination is firm --- just plans as we go.

Missouri -Show me state

I'm beginning to think the clouds and rain is over US. We seem to take the bad weather with us irregardless of what weather is in the forecast! We actually woke up to frost on the windshield Thursday,the 30th of Sept in Nekoosa,WI. We quickly left there and went to Frenchman's Landing at Eastman, WI. What a welcoming bunch of people. The managers and work campers made us feel quite at home. We felt like we had known them forever.
After lunch with John and Linda,the workcampers,Bob and I spent the rest of Friday afternoon in town visiting the Villa Louis mansion in Prairie du Chein. What history in that little town!
When we got back to the campground we found a sticky note inviting us to an impromptu supper at the office. We were visiting with some people from Manitoba parked by us when Linda stopped by to see if we were coming up for chili. The people from Manitoba were, also, invited. What a lively group we became. Nothing better that good food, good people and good conversation!
The next day we left early enough to stop at a benefit breakfast for the first responders with John and Linda. Then we pulled ourselves away from our new friends and headed towards Madrid and some old kewpie friends.
We managed to meet with June Anderson and her son,Bob, Monday afternoon. Not only does she have a vast collection, June is a walking encyclopedia about Kewpies and Rose O'Neill. And ORGANIZED!! She has always been a wealth of information and always willing to share it. After a fun filled afternoon, the 4 of us went for pizza at Polk, MO where one of their main toppings is sauerkraut. Hmmm, maybe we'll try that the next time.
We left Madrid the next morning headed towards Savannah,MO and Mabel Dray's collection of Kewpies on display at the Andrews County Museum. I was impressed with the Kewpie Mountain, of course, and all the other rare kewpies in her collection. The museum had a lot of information about Mabel's brother (Harry F. Duncan--Founder of "Little Tavern Resturants")and his collections and about the "the rural way of life"in early Savanah. Definitely worth the time.

Quietwoods Resort, Brussels, WI

Bob, Grizz and I got to Quietwoods Wednesday pm. We found a secluded area near the pond and setup our home. The campground is quite large. After going on a few small walks, we discovereed we had not even begun to see it all. There were numerous seasonal campsites in the woods that we walked by. Definitely looked like heaven to us-- if we were ready to settle down in one spot.
Rob arrived before 7 Friday night. After dinner we just kicked back and tried to catch up on each other's lives. Rob is in the "full-time working" world now. After doing work and college for so many years, this is a change for him.
Saturday Rob, Bob and I went to Door County in Rob's truck. Of course, we left our cameras back at the campsite. Saw a lot of people, as all of the towns were having some type of fall festival. Fish Creek seemed to be the most populated. It rained on and off all day, but did not dampen our enjoyment of sightseeing.
Sunday after breakfast Bob and Rob loaded up the kayaks and headed to Little Sturgeon Bay. The rain had ceased and the wind and sun were out drying up the area.
The guys paddled against the wind going to the bay but had a free ride coming back as the wind was at their backs and pushed them. The day came to an end all too soon. Rob had to pack up and head back to the real world.
We were leaving Monday, but since it was windy and rainy again, we decided to just kick back and do Nothing. By Tuesday morning, after being contained inside for too many hours because of the wet outdoors, Grizzly was chomping at the bit to get "on the road again".
We did spend some time Monday on the computer trying to decide where we are headed.
We headed to Nekoosa, WI from Brussels on our way towards Iowa. Since we have not done Iowa in our travels, we will try to make a trek into that state for a few days and visit some "Kewpie" friends.
Bob discovered frost on the truck's windows this morning so I'm suggesting a more direct route south to warm weather. I'm not sure why cold weather is a problem, I can stay in bed until it warms up. But am definitely in favor of going south......

on the road again

The ltlgrntruck is finally on the road again. We spent the summer in Hawkins just laying around and doing not much, Jan completed her Kewpie rag quilt and I did some maintinence on the truck. Labor Day..Sept 7 we went to a car show.... Cars for Cancer with the truck and had a great time. We saw some really neat cars and showed about 500 hundred people the truck and trailer.We got about 300 to sign our book but missed a lot as it was really busy. The show was for a good cause and there was over 500 cars there. We left Hawkins on the 17th and stayed in Fife Lake overnight at Jan's son's and left fer St. Ignace in the morning. We arrived at the Mac. Bridge just in time to wait for two hours to cros behind the 900 farm tractors that paraded acros the Big Mac bridge. This was the second year that the antique tractors have crossed the bridge. Last year there was about 500 so they almost doubled the number. Friday & Sat. Was the North American Show Truck(NAST) big show in St.Igance, What a show. All the trucks must be working trucks and the ask for last years mileage and the currant mileage. These people put a lot of time and work and money in these trucks. Sat. night about 8 P.M. they turn all there lights on and parade across the Big Mac. What an amazing sight...all the big rigs in a line all lit up. We are having beautiful weather and the fall colors are just starting. We are camped at Bay Mills Casino at Brimely in the U.P. and will head for Marquette tomorrow. We plan on visiting my son Rob this week in Wisconsin and are still undecided on the next destination. I suppose the weather will help us make up our minds. Hopefully we will have better internet access from now on so we can update the blog more regularly now.

update???

As you can tell we are still in Mich at Hawkins and it still is a "tech black hole"
were no cell or air card works. Internet access is a slow dialup or a trip to town for wifi hotspot or the aircard. We are thinking about a trip in Mid-August around Lake Huron and Lake Superior in Canada. Meanwhile we are just putting up with the rainy weather and going to some of the free local music shows and visiting friends and family.

For those of you that have emailed and asked if we had heard from the person that was going to tell us how to get information on updates on blogs, without having to check them only to find they have not been updated. Here's his comment from our blog.
1 comments:
Anonymous said...
We (Bruce & Linda) enjoyed meeting the two of you at the Tin Can Tourists open house on Sat. May 16 at Camp Dearborn in MIlford, Michigan and getting to see the Little Green Truck in person. Bruce follows your blog and said he would e-mail you about the aggregator he uses, but we can't find an e-mail address, so here's the info. Point your browser to http://www.bloglines.com and create a free account. Once you have that, you can visit various blogs and "add" the ones you want to follow to your Bloglines account. There are various ways to do this, but copying and pasting the URL is straigtforward. From then on, you only have to log in to your Bloglines account to view/visit all of these blogs. Bloglines automatically captures new entries as they are posted There are other aggregators available; Bloglines is the one we know how to use.

May 21, 2009

Michigan Lighthouses

We are back...sort of, as you may know we are in Hawkins, Mi for a couple of months so that Jan can fulfill her jury duty requirements that she learned about when we were in AZ. We are staying in an area that it seems that nothing technical works..no cell phones, landline phone took 4 days for them to find us and get us hooked up,dialup internet rather poor until I found this free one, Dialinfree that works fairly good, stays connected about a 1/2 hr at a time. Anyway, this weekend we went to a free Cajun music concert in Reed City and had a great time. We met a guy from LA who now lives in Traverse City and does LA Cajun dance, food and music as a business,, very fun person... good dancer too! Last weekend my brother Harry and his wife Shirley stopped in after they had spent a few days in the upper pennisula. The visited a few different lighthouses that we haven't been to which reminded us off our favorite ones.... Big Sable Point, Little Sable Point and Ludington Pierhead. We have worked at these three giving tours and have loved every minute at the lights. Michigan has about 115 lighthouses, depending on who's counting. Around 20 or so are open to the public, so we enjoy doing our part to help keep some of them open.If you are interested in working and staying at the lighthouse the splka.org has more info. We are leaving tomorrow for an ATHS truck show and are planning on leaving the first part of July for Canada .....Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland so maybe we will find better connections along the way.

TCT Saturday open house.

Yup, we can tell we are back in Michigan. Not quite 60 degrees, drizzling rain, turning to a heavier rain, just in time for the Tin Can Tourists open house, scheduled from 11am thru 4pm. Oh, well, it could have been worse. We could have BOUGHT tickets for an outdoor concert or something like that. I'm not sure how many campers are here, but the space reserved for the Tin Canners is full. There is usually such a variety of trailers and always a brand of trailer or something that we have never seen before. The imagination involved in decorating the interior is always inspiring.
We have a friend, Helena from the Grand Rapids area (now), who is visiting us this weekend. We are hoping to find a motorcoach for her to travel in so she can visit us in our wanderings. She had one years ago, but with work and all, she gave up the camping for awhile. I think the "bug" was just resting. Now the "bug" has revived and she's ready to travel again. Once a gypsy always a gypsy???
We will try to add some pictures when we get better connections.
I was talking to one guy who said he was following our blog. I mentioned that he must be upset looking for updates. He said he has a link to the blogs, that he watches, that lets him know when there has been an update. He was going to email me the info but have not heard from him, yet. Does anybody reading this know how that works??? If so could you email me at grandmabob2@hotmail.com and tell me what I have to do to set it up on our computer.
Let's see I started this blog about 2 weeks ago and am now going to post it. That is what retired means, right? No pressure!!

WE have NOT died!

We are experiencing technical difficulty here in the boonies! We have landed near Reed City, MI. We, sometimes, get service on our cell phone and on a really GOOD day we even can get online on the computer with the air card. Yeah!! We have checked with ALLTEL to see why our service is so bad this year, since it was do-able last year. Their reasoning was that we are in a "weak service area". Apparently an area can change over the winter, duh! Not sure how that works. Must be connected to "global warming"??
We did try to get a "land line" but AT&T cannot find our street. We are checking with neighbors to see who their phone carrier is. We would be on the road except for jury duty that I managed to get postponed but not canceled. Are they desperate for jurors, or what. While I'm playing with the juryduty issue, Bob is doing some maintenance on the truck and trailer.
So bear with us, we will be back online to bore you with more of our travels SOON!

Museums

I(Bob) usually don't like museums. It seems I get bored after a very short while. In Borger, TX we went to a neat little county museum that told the history of the area and I found it very interesting. Saturday Jan & I went to the Ralph Foster Museum at The College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, MO. What a neat place. The campus is on a very neat setting in the hills just outside of Branson. The museum is three floors of the history of the Ozarks and the people who lived and live here starting with the original Beverly Hillbillies truck (built from a 1921 Oldsmobile)from the tv show. The first floor has a couple of showcases devoted to Rose O'Neill and her art including her Kewpies which was one of the reasons for the visit. One whole room was devoted to Ralph Foster,a pioneer radio station owner who started his first station in 1924 in St. Joseph, MO. There is more about him on the website here. Another first floor room has primative Americana, a log cabin, many tools, steam engines and many other things used in settling the area. Another room was art of the area. The second floor is a huge collection of any kind of gun that you can imagine. Many guns and the stories of their help in settling the Missouri and Arkansas area. There are also, displays of the many prominent figures from the college that served in the armed forces and in the government. The third floor is a natural history floor with rocks and minerals, many mounted birds,butterflies, deer and many other animals from all over the world. All in all a very enjoyable place to spend an afternoon. Another impressive little museum is David O'Neill's (grand-nephew of Rose O'Neill). David opened his museum wth his and some of Janet's (his deceased sister) collection of Rose's original art and the Kewpies that she created. David has one large display case of just metal Kewpie radiator caps, which were used on old cars. Another case displays some of the various dishes, and there's several other display cases with other items. As extensive as his museum is, I would have to guess he has only managed to get part of his collection on display. If you are any where near it, I would suggest that you check it out for yourself. His museum is in Springfield MO. in a former general store located in Galloway Center, mingled in an area of other old buildings with some housing antique stores and art galleries.