Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, totally worn out, shouting "Wow...What a Ride!"

Saturday, September 1, 2018

Fun Times: Family, Friends, Food and Fixes


July 1-August 31, 2018
 The silver lining to leaving Durango CO early was the chance to see family and friends.
 Family
We’ve been fortunate to get two visits in with my folks who live about 280 miles away. We stay in our go to place of Forrest Bo Woods in Sullivan IL about 25 minutes from my folks house. This is our go to place to stay when we’re in the area. On our first visit we got to check out what’s new in Casey IL, a small town with big things. We also checked out a few of our favorite restaurants and helped my folks with some projects at their house.



Moonshine IL home of the Moon Burger. A favorite stop with the motorcycle clubs.





Casey IL the new big things.


On our second visit we celebrated my folk’s 60th anniversary!!! Again we did a few projects and also got a quick visit in with my 94 year old aunt.

Hope I look that good at 94
Friends
Our friends Paul and Cindy spend their summers near Des Moines IA at another COE project, Paul volunteers to cut grass. They took a ride over one day to check out our project and to see some COE friends who now work here. We’ll see them a few more times in the next few weeks J

Friends Mark & Nancy already had reservations at one of the other campgrounds around Coralville Lake. We had a fun few days visiting with them on our days off. As is the case when we see them, fun times going by way too quickly. We’ll be catching up with them when we leave here.





DuWayne and Jackie live in Prairie De Chein WI about 2 hours away. We decided to meet up for lunch at Potosi Brewery in WI. Great to see them, we’ll see them again when we get down to our place on the TX Gulf Coast.




Since we planted ourselves right in their path our friends Curt & Glenda, of the blog Camp Lowry: That's How We Roll stopped into see us. They were fortunate to get one of the best sites on the lake. Our few days were spent catching up, making plans for traveling together in September and doing a bit of the tourist thing.


Great friends, a campfire and beer-for some of us, doesn’t get better than that. 



We went to the Iowa Raptor Project which only a few miles from our place here at Sugar Bottom Campground.  While there we took a walk down to Lake McBride, along the way Curt and I found a geocache. It was a great place to get a few pictures in.







The Queens

And their consort 

We’ve made some new full timing friends this summer, Greg and Jill have been on the road for 6 years. They came to the park for a month and have been splitting wood and doing landscaping around Sugar Bottom. Their goal is to volunteer in all the lower 48 states. We’ve gotten some great info from them on different types of places to volunteer and workamping. We look forward to seeing them down the road somewhere one of these days.

We decided to play tourist with them so off to the John Deere Museum we went. An interesting museum made better by the personal tour we had with a great docent.



After the museum we headed to Antique Acres where there was an antique tractor show going on.








Being a Grand Design RV owner has brought many new friends into our lives. We’ve known Annette online for a while now. Recently they were passing through the area and stopped in for a few hours so we could finally meet in person. Conversation flowed with lots of laughter. Thanks Annette and Mike for stopping by, we look forward to our next meet up.

Food
We’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of food we’ve found here in North Liberty. Iowa has some of the best sweet corn we’ve found anywhere, we’ve frozen up 2 one gallon bags full of it for enjoyment when we leave here.

We enjoyed four meals at Fiesta Mexican Restaurant and plan another meal there before we leave. Run by three brothers who know how to cook some great meals, we’ll be comparing future Mexican Restaurants to theirs.

Mirabito’s Italian Restaurant has become our go to Italian dinner place, just wish we had found them sooner. Between the specially Veal Parmigiana and Tiramisu, Stuffed Shells and Antipasto appetizer and the other things we tried on our second visit we highly recommend them if you’re in the area.  





Fixes
As with any home there’s always fixing and upgrading to do to our home. Our entry steps recently broke, we decided to go replace them with MORryde step above steps. After reading the installation instructions on their website we ordered a set. Installation was quick and easy, they are sturdy and so much nicer than our stock steps.

Our 5th wheel has always been heavier and listed on the off door side. The slide on that side houses the refrigerator, pantry and entertainment center. We upgraded the springs on that side, the 5th wheel now rides much more level. Forgot to take pictures but it once we had all the parts the installation was relatively easy just messy.  
While not the summer we planned on, being here has worked out. The Visitor Center here though has been quite slow so the days are long but we’re thankful we found a volunteer position in the middle of the summer. Being here has afforded us the opportunity to enjoy Iowa for a few hot humid months. Our time is winding down here, we leave on 9/7 and will be exploring new places as we slowly head south to the TX Gulf Coast. We have a Grand Design Rally in San Antonio TX in late October. We plan to arrive at our place in TX on 11/15 where we spend a few months before we start a year of traveling.
Until next time…




12 comments:

  1. You can't beat time with family, especially the dear ones getting older. Loved the giant bookworm. Always nice to see Curt and Glenda and all the FOOD and DRINKS!! Hope your summer wraps up nicely. I'm just not ready for it to be over yet!!

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    1. One of the big plusses of being in the Midwest is the family I have here, always fun to see them. FOOD & DRINKS seem to go hand in hand with RV'ers.

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  2. I'd been wondering what you'd been up to. Two months in one post is amazing! I too hope to be like your Aunt at 94. She looks great. So nice that you could visit family and friends. David would love the John Deer tour. What a gorgeous lake front site. Sounds like they grabbed it at the last moment. Pretty sweet.

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    1. Never seems like much going on daily but when you add two months together it does seem to have been busy. Something about the Midwest and longevity go together, my grandfather from this area lived to 103. I imagine David would have loved the museum.

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  3. Wow, you two have been busy with lots of visiting! Safe travels down south we may be headed through Texas at some point this winter and will touch base if it works out.

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    1. Thanks, the visits sure helped make the time go by quickly. We'll be in TX till 1/31 then slowly heading east. Hope our paths cross.

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  4. The steps look pretty snazzy. The detour from Colorado seems to have been the right decision. So glad you got time with friends and family. Love the golden retriever faces.

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  5. Your gig may had slow days, but visits to family and friends compensated for all that boredome. Well it looks like you will have the genes that your folks has, and you will still be pretty and spunky at 94 :)
    I will give you our route heading east, perhaps we will cross path somewhere in TX :)

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    1. The family and friend visits were priceless. Hope we can cross paths in the near future.

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  6. Looks like everything worked out for the best....how nice for your folks to be that close!

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    1. Life has a way of working things out for the best.

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