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 60^th 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 5^th 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 5^th 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…

UT to IA

June 18-30, 2018

Not having received any confirmations from an of our inquiries yet we decided to head towards UT. We tried to get reservations in Page AZ but Wahweep was full and boondocking was out with the high temps. So on Monday, the 18th, morning we headed to Sand Hollow State Park in Hurricane UT. This was going to be a long travel day, 376 miles is way more than we usually do  but we arrived at our destination by mid afternoon. We had a nice large pull thru, FHU, with an expansive view out our door. If only it hadn't been so hot we could have enjoyed the covered patio site WS23 offered.

Hurricane UT is near Zion National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument. Having already been to Zion NP and not wanting to deal with large crowds we headed to Cedar Breaks NM. A beautiful ride with a 2 mile hike on the Alpine Loop Trail at 10,000' was just what we needed.

By the time we arrived home we had an email from Lake Coralville near Iowa City IA. We were offered a position and their Visitor Center, 2.5 days on and 4 days off. Not having heard anything from other inquiries we decided to take them up on their offer. We had paid thru Friday the 22nd and figured it would take a week to get there, 1500 miles to cover. The next few days were spent taking another scenic ride and then get groceries stocked for our mad dash to IA. Looking at the weather we decided to head out a day early and left on Thursday, keeping an eye to the weather we knew we might be moving along quicker than originally planned.

Our first travel day was 480 miles north thru UT to I80 and onto Rock Springs WY, a new state for us. We decided to stay at another fairgrounds, the Sweetwaters Event Complex is home to the fairgrounds and there campground. FHU's for $28/night, we decided to stay 2 nights.

After looking at what was available in the area to do and knowing we didn't want to spend the day riding in the truck we decided to take a short scenic drive. The Pilot Butte Wild Horse Scenic Tour takes you on a butte above Rock Springs. The Rock Springs BLM is headquarters for the Wild Horse Program in Wyoming,  The 24 mile scenic ride on gravel roads not only offers the opportunity to view wild horses but also other wildlife and there are some expansive views to enjoy.

 

 

Did you know stallions mark there territory? 3' tall sometimes

Meanwhile while Dave was busy taking pictures I was busy grabbing some geocaches, too bad there was no one there to help me with the 50+ string of caches.

A long distance view from the scenic ride of the rv park

On Saturday, the 23rd, we continued our eastward push, 475 miles and we arrived at the Lincoln Fairgrounds in North Platte NE, $25/night for w/e. We hoped this was going to be an overnight stay, since we got in early enough we headed over to the Golden Spike Tower. Did you know it's not there, but the nations largest rail yard is. After playing the tourist we fueled up the truck and ourselves with a Chinese dinner out.

Lincoln Fairgrounds

Sunday, the 24th, when we got up we saw there was a break in the weather and if we left soon we might just miss the thunderstorms. After driving another 422 miles,we arrived at Prairie Flower Campground near Des Moines, no thunderstorms, just a few showers. After getting set up in the campground we contacted our friends Cindy and Paul who summer here. A great visit and dinner with them, plans for getting together again since we're only 120 miles away.

Monday the 25th we arrived at Lake Coralville IA, we met our contact at Linder Point campground and proceeded to get set up. Well we couldn't get Dish satellite and our Verizon signal only had 2 bars. There had been mention of another site somewhere else, after inquiring about it and checking for satellite and cell signals we moved over to Sugar Bottom Campground. The campground is about 10 miles from the VC but it's so much nicer, I'll gladly do the commute.

We've spent the last week working at the VC, getting acquainted with the area and taking care of mundane tasks (oil change/laundry ect) done. We've already found a Mediterranean buffet, a Neapolitan Pizza place, a farmers market, good grocery stores and have tips on other places to check out.

Many may wonder why we picked IA, first off they were the first to offer us a position that we'd want to take on. When we applied we looked at the location and then who was in the surrounding area. Friends Cindy & Paul are 120 miles west, meet ups already planned for somewhere in between. Our friends DuWayne & Jackie are about 125 miles north of us in WI. Friends Mark & Nancy are directly 90 miles east of us just over the IA/IL border, they already had reservations at this project and now we've got plans for later in the season with them. Since we've been here Curt and Glenda have made plans to stop in for a few days, we're hoping to hatch up a travel plan for mid September.  Last but not least is the relative closeness of my folks, they are 300 miles southeast of us. With my folks hanging up their keys for any long distance traveling we hadn't had plans to see them this summer...originally they had planned to drive to CO for my nieces wedding, which has been cancelled. We now have two reservations at the COE project we worked at last year where we were near my folks. We'll be able to celebrate their 60th anniversary with them in August. So looks like it's going to be a busy summer in Iowa.

Until next time....