700 miles of corn

We were comfortably settled in for the winter and it began to dawn on us that we would be moving on before too long!

The winter seems to go on for ever and we love all the things, places and people we enjoy in Arizona but time flies when you are having fun.

We now had TWO park models to pack up and “Summerize”.

The new place in Casa Grande

Most RV’ers talk about “Winterizing” their rigs to prevent the water system freezing up.

We winterize ours by parking in where it doesn’t freeze – Arizona! But we leave the park models empty in the summer where the temperatures can be over 100 degree for 140 days in a row. Some days get over 120 degrees.

Strange things happen at those temperatures. Batteries in clocks and devices can leak and corrode the electronics. Spray cans can burst. Glue joints can come apart and strangely enough wood plank floors can expand and leave large gaps when the weather cools off again.

To stop these happening can involve leaving the ac on low all summer, putting reflective shades in windows and taking all the batteries out of devices so you can put them in the fridge with the spray cans!

We have now been on the road a month and wandered up to South Dakota to renew our drivers licenses.

Riding the 1880's train in South Dakota

I intended this to be a “Went there, Did that” kind of post but I never got into the mood so this might be a little strange one.

We finally got to Monument Valley

Barbara and I have occasionally talked about our future on the road. We have been traveling for 10 years and to be honest we are getting a little jaded.

We just met up with some great friends from 20 years ago back in Maryland. Ray and Cheryl rode Honda Goldwing motorcycles when we did and we had lots of fun.

Now they are fulltime in an RV too.

Having a blast with Ray and Cheryl

We saw on Facebook that they were going to be in Colorado about the same time we were passing thru so we messaged them and arranged a meet up.

It was supposed to be a couple of days but soon became a week as we all explored the area and Ray and I explored the breweries. Turns out we also share a taste for dark beer!

                                                            They like trains too.

It set us thinking.

Ray and Cheryl were out every day going to National Parks, local sights etc.

We kept saying “Thanks but we have been there” or “We don’t do many National Parks anymore, too many people”.

My vertigo and occasional walking problems didn’t help.

We had just a great time with them and it sounds like we will get to hang out with them again this winter as they intend to spend the winter in Phoenix.

All that set us thinking when we got to Rapid City.

We have seen a whole lot of this country and few things excite us anymore, BUT we do have a great time visiting with friends and go out of our way to meet them.

So do we continue to travel in the RV? Would we be better traveling by car and/or air and staying in hotels?

Would we like to have the RV on a semi permanent place up in the mountains around Phoenix or maybe Colorado so we can still get away from the summer heat without driving thousands of miles a year?

We have a list of things/places/people we might like to see if we are in a particular place and it dawned on us that the people are what we look forward to seeing.

Before it was places.

Maybe we just need to change our thinking rather than our methods?

Enough philosophy! Get back to the blog.

Rapid City is a pleasant place and we enjoy getting back there. There are enough places to visit within a reasonable distance and we really enjoy camping at the Elks Lodge.

Antelope

Buffalo in Custer State Park

The lodge owns the golf course and the bar/restaurant overlooks the first tee. Food is good, drink prices excellent, beer selection extensive and the price to camp exceptional!

We had been there a day or so and bumped into a couple who were walking across the campsite. As we chatted we found that they lived locally and were Elks too, we all really got along and we swapped contact information.

We had new friends! Rudi and Cici.

With Rudi and Cici on top of the Hotel Alex Johnson

They kindly invited us over for dinner and we discovered they were motorcyclists, had a camper, had been to many of the places we had been too. It seemed like we had known them for years!

Then we joined them for a music bingo evening at a local bar and later in the week they took us to an exclusive bar up on the roof of the historic Hotel Alex Johnson. Great people.

Our intended week got extended and extended until we were there for 3 weeks. We got a couple of things worked on that were broken on the rig (there is always something broken on an RV).

1880's train Keystone

Eventually we decided to head off to Iowa simply because our collection of Elks Lodge pins is short of pins from there! Really, no other reason.

We have been thru the edges of the state but just passing thru.

Sioux City was our first stop. It sits on the banks of the Missouri River and was on the route of the Lewis and Clarke expedition. There is a river boat there named after Sergeant Floyd a member of the expedition who died in the area. We never really enjoyed the city, it didn’t seem to have a center and although some cities have a “character” we didn’t find it in Sioux City so after 3 days we moved on.

The Sergeant Floyd riverboat

Des Moines was next and we found some really great places around there.

Iowa State Capital

The State Capitol building was beautiful and there was an area downtown with lots of eateries (and bars) we explored.

Salisbury House

There is also a large house called the Salisbury Mansion that was built in the 1920’s at the equivalent cost of 40 million dollars in todays money and furnished with antiques and artwork from all over Europe.

The Great Hall

On a whim I decided to drag Barbara to an airplane museum about 50 miles away. She puts up with my airplane fixation….

Barbara is delighted to see more airplanes!

As so often happens when we wander aimlessly across the country we happened across a little town called Winterset. Just a little place in the middle of farm country famous for one thing. It was the birthplace of John Wayne.

John Wayne Museum

You probably know that I get mistaken for John Wayne all the time, especially if I wear the hat I bought in Ireland that is modelled after the one he wore in the movie “The Quiet Man” or one of my cowboy hats.

The small house John Wayne was born in.

Anyway the museum was very interesting and I managed to avoid the many fans there.

It seems like every town in Iowa has a "Freedom Rock"

While watching PBS TV one evening a documentary came on about German prisoner of war camps in Minnesota. They kept showing clips from a museum in a little town called Algona in Iowa.

A little research showed it was about 150 miles North of where we were so we decided to go there for a few days.

In looking for somewhere to camp we stumbled across a thing called “The Grotto of Redemption” in the little town of West Bend, a fascinating place built over about 60 years by a priest and his helper from all kinds of stone, fossil trees, sea shells and parts of a cave in South Dakota.

Inside the Grotto, all hand made by 2 men.

From the Grotto across the lake is the campground.

Better yet they had a campground with 30 amp power, a dump station, water fill point and shower facilities for $20 a night! They even gave a discount for Passport America members that brought it down to $10 a night.

We explored the area and visited the museum in Algona before heading off again to Wisconsin.

The whole trip from Rapid City east was on backroads, all excellent roads with no traffic and miles and miles of farms growing almost exclusively corn.

700 miles of corn!!