Camping with the Carnies and the Lost Wallet Adventure

The adventure continues!
The remainder of the bluegrass festival was about the same as I wrote of on the last blog.  Very good music and extremely hot weather as well.
The highlights of the festival for me was when IIIrd time out sang "Erase the Miles" with most of the audience singing along (myself included).  On Saturday our friend Cricket (DJ from WMNF) came to the festival with Carl Jackson and his father.  A side note of interest - Carl wrote "Erase the Miles".  We got to hang with them for a bit and watched as they rehearsed with Bradley Walker and Darrin and Brooke Aldridge for the evening performance.  These folks make it look so easy.  I got to visit a little more after the show and picked up a CD of Louvin Brothers songs performed by Carl and others - great road music.
A funny thing happened when Connie and I took our evening showers at the festival temp facilities.  Connie's shower did not have a spray head on it and every time she turned the water on, mine dropped off to a weak drizzle.  She got done and knocked on the door to see what was taking me so long.

We left OH on Sunday about 11, stopping at the Model T Ford club of America museum in Centerville IN.  Had a nice visit with the RV parked at the side under trees.  Didn't know it at the time but Connie left one of her canes there somewhere - a hint of things to come it turned out.
We hit torrential rains most of the way to Indy after that stop.  If you read my early blog, the RV repairs held up well and there were no leaks.
My brother Steve had called around and found campsites at the Johnson County fairgrounds in Franklin IN for a very reasonalble price (107/week full hookup) so we were headed there.  The GPS didn't have the fairgrounds as a point of interest so I got to the town and stopped at Tractor Supply to ask direction (cue the impending doom music).  I hopped out of the truck putting my wallet in my pocket (I thought) and headed into the store.  I saw a couple getting out of their car and asked them.  They gave me a "Duh" look and pointed to the double ferris a block south of the store.  Hopped back in and away we went.
Got to the fairgrounds and found the midway being dissasembled and also noticed no wallet in my pants or in the truck!  Scooted back to Tractor Supply and looked around with no success.  Asked inside and no one had turned it in.  Noticed a white van parked where I got out the first time but the man and boy getting inside didn't say anything and left before I could ask about the wallet.
Resigning myself to dealing with a lost walllet, I called and cancelled all of my credit cards and turned in a police report incase it turned up.  I was sick over this.

AAA to the rescue!  About the time I finished all of this, my phone rang with a call from AAA auto club South in Fl.  They were on a conference call with AAA hosier club and a man who found my wallet in the Tractor Supply where I lost it.  He was only about a block away and brought it to me intact including the cash.  Amazingly he was driving a white van and had his young son with him.  About the same time a policewomen came by to complete the report.  A happy ending all around but we won't have credit cards for a while.  He refused a reward but at the urging of the policewoman, took it for his son's education.

Steve came down from Greenwood and had steaks with us as we celebrated.

The campground was about 50% filled when we arrived with the majority of the folks associated with the fair midway.  They must not have another fair to go to as they took about four days to take stuff down and are removing it with just four semis making trips each day.  Not much drama but they seemed to be tolerant of banjo music.  Most are gone now and the campground is down to six RVs and of them, three have FL plates.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday saw more work on Steve's with the exterior finally completed and water-tight.  We celebrated by going to Johnny Carinos italian restaurant in Greenwook.  There used to be one of these in
Brooksville FL that we really liked but it closed.  I had Chicken Marsala - most excellent!

This morning (Thursday) we loaded up and went back to Lafayette to get in some quality visiting with family.  With all of the work I really haven't had much opportunity.  Once again we hit the Dog N Suds for rootbeer and coney dogs on the way in.  We plan to hang here for about a week then go to the state fair before heading to Arkansas and then eventualy home.

Thanks for reading.
Ron