Corn City (and a little bit of Motor City)

We just wrapped up a week of camping in the Corn City (AKA, Deshler, Ohio!) 🌽

Why stop in this tiny town in northwest Ohio? Because my (Adrienne) grandparents live there, and most of my extended family lives in the area too – my parents both grew up here. And who could pass up a week of free camping, catching up with fam, and plenty of food from the grandparents??

The Corn City Campground (as we're calling it lol) gets 5 stars from us. We parked the Airstream right next to my grandparents' barn, where we could hook up to electricity. We weren't hooked up to water, but it didn't matter – we filled our fresh water tank and went to my grandparents' house to shower (that's what fills up our holding tank fastest).

Our back window looked out over the pond and the fields, where we could watch the sunset each night. Hollie got to be on her long leash staked in the yard during the day, where she had fun running around and relaxing in the grass.

A HUGE thank you to my grandma and grandpa for letting us park on their land for the week and use their house, bathroom, and laundry, and for cooking for us and everything else they did for us. And shoutout to all the other family we got to see or who stopped by to visit. It was such a nice week!

Life in Deshler

We drove up from West Virginia the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and it was unusually hot and dry all week – hitting 90 degrees some days. But the constant breeze (or some days, heavy wind) and lack of humidity made it nice to sit in the shade while working or relaxing outside.

But we went to work almost right away, even though we had Sunday & Monday off for the holiday. Our mission: wash and wax the Airstream.

This ended up taking several hours over three days to finish – it took FOREVER, and on Monday we were in the relentless sun and wind all afternoon working on it, but it felt good to get it done (and we got super tan in the process 😎). We only have to wax it about twice a year, thankfully. It looks great now – super shiny!

Quick side note: I want to give a shoutout to Joey, who not only did the bulk of the washing & waxing but has also been making a lot of other improvements to our RV setup – new locks for the exterior compartments, new water hose, leveling system, figuring out how to optimize our internet, etc. He does a LOT of research on all this stuff (and will probably do a more detailed post at some point for anyone interested in our setup & gear). Anyway, Joey, when you read this, I appreciate all the work you've done in making our lives on the road easier. ❤️

Apart from washing the RV and just hanging out at the house, we watched the Deshler Memorial Day Parade, which was the shortest parade we have ever seen. It lasted about two minutes, but it was nice! After, Grandma & Grandpa drove us around Deshler, giving Joey the grand tour.

A lot of family stopped by to see us and the Airstream: my cousin Lauren and her boyfriend Tommy, my Aunt Sue, Great Aunt Harolyn, Great Aunt Marcelle & Uncle Leroy, and my mom's cousin Lee. It was fun seeing them and showing them the RV (and Hollie got lots of attention, especially from Aunt Harolyn – thanks for the toy and treats!)

We also got to see my Aunt Julie, Uncle Bob, and cousins Megan, Tyler, and Dylan in Tontogany for Dylan's baseball game – his team crushed it, winning 16-6! My dad's Uncle Dan & Aunt Janice were at the game too, it was nice to see them.

After the game, we went to Grand Rapids to grab dinner and visit Megan where she worked at Rita's (which has AMAZING ice cream and milkshakes). Funny story, when we walked into a pizza place for dinner, the guy working there just gave us as much pizza as we wanted for free because they were closing soon. It was kind of weird but we didn't question it lol.

Another shoutout: after we told my grandparents that we were collecting magnets, my grandpa drove to all the businesses that were open in town to try to find us a Deshler magnet – and he found one! We now have a magnet courtesy of the Deshler Public Library. 📚

Detroit & Ann Arbor

We've been planning this Deshler trip for a while, and the dates were loosely based on A) when we thought we'd be ready to leave Wilmington, and B) when Ashlyn had a day off work.

For those who don't know her, Ashlyn and I have been besties since middle school. We were band geeks together in high school (along with Joey), roommates in college, and she was Maid of Honor at our wedding. She now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan for her pharmacy residency, which is only an hour and a half north of Deshler. And she had last Saturday off work, so of course we had to see her before we left Ohio and continued the journey.

But first – we took a brief detour to Detroit.

The reason I wanted to go was because of Jack White. I've been a huge fan of him and the White Stripes (my favorite band, who are from Detroit) for 13+ years, but I had yet to make the pilgrimage to Third Man Records, his label/store/vinyl pressing plant with a location in Detroit's Cass Corridor... UNTIL NOW!

I could talk forever about this, but I won't. I'll just say I had a great time geeking out over everything we saw at Third Man. It was such a cool place and I had to restrain myself from buying way too many things.

(Note on the first pic below: Hotel Yorba is a very old, run-down hotel in Mexicantown, the neighborhood where Jack White grew up. The White Stripes wrote a song called Hotel Yorba, and filmed part of the music video outside of it).

Next, on to Ann Arbor! I really miss seeing Ashlyn all the time – it was so much fun catching up and seeing where she lives now. She showed us her apartment and we brewery hopped around town. (If anyone needs Ann Arbor recommendations: we went to HOMES Brewery, Bill's Beer Garden, and Jolly Pumpkin).

Ann Arbor is super cute, seems walkable and bikeable, and the downtown is bigger than I expected! We stayed out late, not wanting the night to end. Miss ya already Ashlyn. 🍻

Sunday, we said goodbye to northwest Ohio and kept heading north to our current stop – Pentwater, a tiny town on the coast of Lake Michigan. We're here for almost two weeks, and it's been super quiet so far. We love our campsite, the weather is cooler, it stays light out until like 9:45pm, and we're excited to explore and hopefully have a relaxing time (with a bit of sand dune action).

That's all for now. See ya next time!