still not Iowa - Days 17 - 19 - in Wellington, KS, campground

Wellington KOA, Wellington

Thursday, 17 through Saturday, 19 November 2022

I stayed here longer than I'd planned because I checked the weather in Iowa.  Having just thawed out my waste tanks, I wasn't ready to have them freeze solid again with almost half a month still to go.  The forecasts said (relatively) warmer weather would be coming to western Iowa beginning on Sunday, so I decided to stay here till then.  It's not that the prediction for the next few days was balmy for here either, but it was just supposed to be not as cold, which at this point was enough.

Although one day it got really cold here - not even above freezing - and the official wind chill put the temp down to 25°.  If that's what it was in southern Kansas I hate to even think about being in central Iowa right now.

One odd thing about my stay so far in Iowa was that I hadn't been able to take a shower.  All the campgrounds had their water turned off, including their showers.  So I thankfully used the facilities here in Wellington.  And did my laundry, too, which was something else I hadn't done in Iowa.  Nice to have clean clothes for my clean body, and especially my clean hair.

One day here I found myself completely out of propane.  I'd just checked it in the late afternoon the day before and it was about a third of a tank.  And then somehow it was down to completely empty the next mid-morning.  But when the nice KOA guy braved the cold wind to come fill my tank, we found he couldn't.  It turned out there was so much air in the tank his equipment wasn't able to pump any fuel in.  After about 5 minutes of bleeding air out of the line, I was back up to above a third of a tank, none of which had come from him.  It was just the air that caused that reading.  The guy said he hadn't had that happen before, and I told him it had happened to me a couple of times before - which is why I knew he should bleed the air out, because he kept thinking he just hadn't made a good connection with his hose.  He didn't charge me anything for his efforts, which I thought was nice.

One night I called into the Pizza Hut in town and ordered a pizza delivered.  I remembered doing that when I stayed here 2 years ago, and I remembered them being really unclear about where the campground was.  Well, times have changed, and when I called them this time, prepared for a discussion about the location, they didn't need it.  They knew exactly where the campground was and apparently had gotten a map of the campground and brought the pizza directly to my campsite, whereas before I had to flag them down because they were driving all over the campground.  And my phone number was still in their system, which seemed a little odd.  But it was nice to have the pizza.

I went into town one day and got groceries and stopped at the post office and took a walk in the park.  I remembered both the park and the grocery store from when we were here before.  Nice little town, with 7,715 people.

I managed to write 4 blog posts while we were here.  And cleaned the windows, which all the indoor dwellers appreciated.

All in all, it was a productive 3 days.  And I really hoped the weather would be a little easier to deal with when we got back up to Iowa.

not exactly Iowa - Day 16 - Gretna south to south Kansas

Wellington KOA, Wellington (KS)

Wednesday, 16 November 2022

And another picture of Jimmy lying in my shoe while the heater's going.

Odd how much difference a few weeks can make.  When I was here at the end of October, they'd closed up a lot of their sites.  Now I'm here a few weeks after that and find they've opened some of those they'd closed before and, in fact, I'm in one for the night.

But here too the weather was cold and raw and Dext and I didn't spend any time at the dog park or meet new dogs.

Because Google said today's drive would take 5 hours (meaning at least 8), and because I didn't have to worry about snow on the road, I left the campground about 7:15.

Today's route is the blue line -
the orange is from when I spent my month in Kansas.

The US highway that runs past the Gretna KOA intersects a state highway that leads to the interstate.  That intersection has 4 (count them - 4) signs that all say "NO TURN ON RED."  And I saw no fewer than 4 cars turning anyway while we waited for the green light.  I don't wish something like an accident on someone else, but I did wish there were a police officer nearby to mete out at least a little justice.

When we left the campground, my windshield washing fluid was frozen.  NPR was saying it was 21° in Omaha, just down the road.  After we'd been driving for a while, I guess it was the engine warming up the fluid enough that it melted to make it usable again,

NPR also said egg production was down by 25% because of the bird flu that's been going around recently.  So if you think egg prices are going up, that's why.

I'd taken the precaution of checking to see where the rest areas were on today's route, so I knew we'd need to stop after less than 2 hours of driving just to be sure Dext would have a chance to relieve himself on this long drive.

We passed a huge processing facility labeled POET Bioprocessing.  There were dozens of silos, I guess for the corn used to make bioethanol (this plant produces 137 million gallons of it each year).  They say they also make special livestock feed here.  I made some effort to find out what that name means or where it came from.  Still a mystery.

Past that plant I saw another herd of cows grazing in a harvested cornfield.

The town of Chester has a sign saying they're home to a Miss Nebraska - she was the winner in 2017 and competed in the Miss America pageant that same year. 

Chester also calls itself "The Small Town with the Big Heart" because of a very odd story.  On Christmas Eve, 1985, local folks found the dead body of a young boy by the side of the road, wearing only his pajamas.  There was no clue about his identity and eventually the local folks gave him the name of Matthew and buried him in a grave that they decorated and maintained.  Two years later, a tip from a babysitter who read an article about the body led police to an Amish father.  He said he'd been driving down the road with his son Danny asleep on the back seat.  When he tried to wake him up he realized the boy had died.  Having only an 8th-grade education and living the limited life some Amish live (though this one drove a car so I'm skeptical), he couldn't figure out what to do with the body and left it by the road, after saying prayers over the body.  There wasn't any evidence of cause of death presented at the father's court hearing, so the judge allowed him to plead guilty to 2 gross misdemeanors and he was sentenced to 1½ years in jail.  The townspeople changed the name at the gravesite to Danny.  Weird story.

And then: Kansas Welcomes You!  I have to say this state does a pretty good job of making newcomers feel appreciated.  Not least of which is that the roads are much better than in Nebraska.

The trailer attached to a semi lost a load of ice attached to its undercarriage just as it passed me.  Scared both me and Dexter, because it was a really big load of ice, made a lot of noise, and pieces went scattering all around while we didn't have any idea what had happened.

I drove through the town of Concordia and I remembered having been there before.  In fact, I remembered having taken a rest break in the parking lot of a Methodist church we passed.  This is the town that's got the National Orphan Train Museum.

Concordia has a dog park (I don't remember this from before), so we stopped for Dext to run and to have some lunch.

Back on the road I remembered that I'd forgotten to get out some cash for the toll roads ahead and pulled to the side of the interstate.  Almost immediately a state trooper pulled up behind me to see what the problem was.  He was able to tell me that Google lied: the upcoming I-135 was not a toll road, and I wouldn't even hit the toll road until I'd gotten south of Wichita, 2 hours away.  I have no idea where Google got this idea, because I've researched it thoroughly online and found zippo support for I-135 being a toll road.  Anyway, having gotten this information, I didn't want to keep sitting here while I found cash which I wouldn't need for a long time, in case the trooper decided to tell me I shouldn't be hanging out on the side of an interstate.  So we got back on the road.

There was still some snow around despite the warm sun, probably because the temperature was still very cold (and the wind chill even colder).

I passed a sign telling me to turn right for Rock City Park, and I suddenly realized I knew what that was.  We'd stopped there during our month in Kansas, and Gracie and Dexter and I had walked around.  That's the place with the huge round boulders, much bigger than people, scattered around.

I passed a huge factory for Johns Manville, the company best known for roofing and insulation materials.

I'd forgotten that Kansas has working oil wells in the middle of cornfields.  The corn wasn't there this time of year, but the oil wells were still pumping.

We stopped at another rest area where they had a historical marker I found interesting.

There was a lot of sun to fog the photo.
What mostly interested me was the info about the Meadowlarks.

Speaking of birds, I saw quite a few hawks today, mostly sitting on fenceposts, because they're the highest point around.

We did pick up the toll road south of Wichita, and at the toll plaza I got an automated ticket, then turned it in right outside Wellington.  They charged me $1.75 for about 27 miles worth of driving.  In a way not worth it, but I've driven the no-toll alternative, and though there's nothing wrong with it, it's a lot more time-consuming.

By the time I'd stopped at a gas station and a grocery store, checked in at the campground, dumped my waste tanks, moved to a more level site, and walked Dexter, it was 4:15.  So I'd had a long day.  The good news - the really good news - was that my grey water had thawed out already and I got that tank emptied just fine.  I'd checked in for 2 nights, in case I needed more time in 50°+ weather for it to thaw.  So it was a great relief to take that worry off my list.

Iowa - Day 15 - west and south, Waterloo to Council Bluffs

Gretna/West Omaha KOA, Gretna

Tuesday, 15 November 2022

today's route

I spent most of the day driving through parts of Iowa I'd planned to see, but I'd planned to see them at a much slower pace.  My plan had been intended to compensate for the snow I'd expected to find on the roads and take short hops for several days.  First I'd intended to leave Waterloo tomorrow, drive through Ames and see the campus of Iowa State University, and then go on to a state campground.  The next day I'd planned to drive to nearby Dolliver State Campground that was said to have unusual geographic features.  From there I'd go to a state campground just outside of Sioux City, so I could drive around the city a bit.  Then head south to Council Bluffs and east from there.  

Instead the current weather report said I'd likely leave the snow when I got to the western part of the state, which was good news, and I planned to drive slowly where there was snow, despite Google telling me I had a nearly 5-hour drive planned.  

When I left the campground at 8:00 (I wanted to wait till the roads had warmed up a bit), there was about an inch of snow on the ground.  But the roads were clear, thank goodness, though I still took my time over bridges.  There was a long one over the Iowa River.

I had plenty of time to listen to the radio and was lucky enough to get NPR for at least the first part of the drive.  I heard about a program for elementary-aged kids called Feel Your Best Self.  It's a program used in schools using puppets to help kids work through their feelings and figure out a way to express them constructively (I think that's it).  There's a companion program for families to try at home, and it sounds very useful.

In the On Point segment, I heard about an article in The Verge titled "Welcome to Hell, Elon."  It's about how Elon Musk may still not have figured out just what situation he's gotten himself into with his purchase of Twitter, and it sounded interesting enough that I looked it up.  The article is better than it sounded, and I learned a lot about social media I'd never even thought of.  For instance, the only real asset of each of those companies is the users; the product is content moderation; the revenue source - advertisers - won't pay unless they're assured of safety for their brand.  And Musk is in an unusual position because not only is Twitter world-wide, but so is Tesla, which makes one of them a potential hostage to the other.  If you'd like to read it, here's the link.   https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems

Just as predicted, it stopped snowing west of I-35.  I'd been driving through sometimes blowing snow for quite a way, so it was a relief to get better visibility.  Especially because I hadn't been able to see any of the Iowa countryside I was driving through and had wanted to see.  With snow covering everything, it looked like I was seeing a white ocean with islands of trees.

I saw the remains that were just getting cleared away of what had apparently been a really bad one-car wreck.  The area around it hadn't been plowed, of course, and I could see what the road I was on would look like without snow plows.  It reminded me of those signs I saw in rest areas in Montana talking about snow plow operators being heroes.  I agree.

I saw a water tower that had those oblong things that are on cell towers hanging from it.  I guess the water tower was the highest point in the area, and the local residents wanted technology.

We took a break at the city park in Knierim, a town so small you'd have trouble finding it on that road map above, even if it were blown up large enough.  By this time there was almost no snow in sight, which surprised me.

I've noticed before, and again today, that several farmhouses have their own solar panel grid set on a separate framework.  Maybe they'd planted so many trees around their houses to break the wind that they couldn't get enough sunlight and had to build these frameworks separately to position them where there was sun.

Somebody on the radio said that minimalism is a response to the fact that we live in chaotic times.  Maybe so, though I'm not sure minimalism is a current trend.  On the other hand, there sure are a lot of people living full-time in their RVs these days.

I turned to head south on US-70 and saw a sign telling me to turn right for Sac City, where I'd find the "world's largest popcorn ball."  Not sure I'm so enamored of popcorn balls I'd make a separate trip, but if I find myself back in the neighborhood it definitely would deserve a notice.

The weather report on the radio told me the snow would be sticking around all over the east and central parts of the state, but not in the west.  And I wasn't seeing any in the west.  My route plan turned out to be a lucky choice.

But I didn't have to see either snow or landscape to smell.  They use manure on cropfields out here too.  Maybe chicken manure - I saw several large chicken farms.

Many of the farms are terraced, and I realized I hadn't seen terraced fields in the eastern part of the state - only out here in the western part.

I crossed the West Nishnabotna River, and then the East Nishnabotna River three times, and then the East Branch of the West Nishnabotna River.

The farther south I went the more snow I saw on the ground.  It seemed odd that there was plenty of snow down south and almost none up north.

By the time I hit I-80 it was snowing again (which may explain why I was seeing it on the ground), but it didn't seem to be sticking.

An Iowa license plate said GMATRKY.  I still haven't figured out what that means.  Some kind of turkey?

And then we were back in Nebraska, passed through Omaha, and were back at the Gretna KOA where we'd stayed twice last month.

Iowa - Days 10 - 14 - in campground and to Waterloo

Waterloo KOA, Waterloo

Thursday, 10 through Monday, 14 November 2022

I went into town twice during this period but otherwise stayed in the campground.

This campground must try to sell itself as a tropical holiday resort in the summer, because it's decorated with thatched roofs on the cabins and tiki carvings scattered around and bamboo facings on the outer walls of the buildings.  It's got about 150 campsites, and the campground had closed all but 9 of them.  It was weird to have all this room and none of it being used - like a ghost town.

But a very healthy population of very healthy Canada geese lived here on the lake.  I never saw them near the campsites but they left evidence that they'd been there.  In fact, I couldn't find anywhere in the whole campground where I could walk Dexter and not worry about what he was trying to put in his mouth.  I kept wishing I could use that sour apple spray I'd bought, but I was wearing mittens every time I set foot out the door because it was so cold and windy, and I couldn't see any way I could operate that spray in time to do any good.  But all that goose poop made this place really unattractive to me.

On our last walk one night, I tripped over an uneven section of pavement and fell right on my glasses.  I hit my cheekbone on the pavement, broke off the earpiece of my glasses, got a large scrape on my right knee and a smaller one on my right palm and jammed my left thumb.  I guess I should be thankful that these injuries could have been much worse if I hadn't been wearing so many clothes.  But I felt disoriented and may have gotten a mild concussion.

Luckily I had a second pair of glasses with me, because otherwise I'd have been in real trouble.  Still, various parts of my body felt stiff and sore at intervals over the next few days, even the ones I hadn't thought had been injured.  My shoulders, for instance, must have taken a lot of shock absorption and they told me all about it for days, as did my upper arms from taking my weight when I fell.  But it could have been much worse.

One day here, Dext and I walked all around the little lake - maybe 3/4 of a mile around.  There was an official walking path there, complete with a bench and a dispenser of doggy poop bags half-way around.  Nobody else was crazy enough to be out when we were - the sun was shining but the wind was really blowing so the wind chill must have been lower than any sensible person would welcome.  But we needed the exercise and it was nice to have sunshine.

One day I finished the last posts for Nebraska, which was late but at least it's earlier than I have been lately.  And I got started on my posts for Iowa.

One day I took the kittens in to a vet's office for their 2-month-old checkup.  He told me they could now tell me definitely that the kittens were both males (seems odd it could take so long to know for sure) and gave them a distemper shot (or one of those vaccinations cats have to have) and changed Jimmy's medicines.  This is the 3rd vet I've seen and I'm getting the clear message that vets don't always agree on the right way to do things.  They've all told me different things about Jimmy's eye and his congestion.

When I got back to the KOA, I bought propane and apologized to the young woman for dragging her out of the office into the wind.  Today's temp wasn't supposed to go higher than 35° and with the wind so strong, the "feels like" temp was down to 5°.  Amazing what an effect wind can have.  Anyway, she said that's typical here because they'd built this KOA in a little cove on a hill that routinely caught the wind.  Probably really nice in summer but not so much now.

I made campground reservations for part of the time I expected to be in Texas - I go to Austin to see my doctor after I leave Dallas where my eye doctor is, and I have driving directions for all the upcoming trips I expect to take.

Bucky tries to steal food from everybody.  If I try to eat when they do, I'm constantly interrupting my meal to yell at him.  He can't get to Dext because he's always finished before anyone else.  But Jimmy is a slow eater and Bucky tries to force him over to give him access.  Lily's used to being the only cat in the house - I guess it was that way for her first 11 years too - so her habits are a bigger problem.  She's usually an intermittent eater, especially with dry food.  She'll eat a few bites and then walk away; come back in a little bit, eat a few more bites and then walk away.  And repeat and repeat - this will go on for hours.  Except now it can't.  Not with Mr. Vulture on the prowl.  Often he doesn't bother to wait for her to finish but sits right next to her while she's eating, or sticks his head in her bowl without waiting for her to leave.  So I have to jump up and swat him away and grab the bowl and put it up - until Lily comes back a few minutes later and says she wants her food back.  At which point she'll eat a few mouthfuls and walk away.  It's driving me nuts.

I heard on the radio that people were still saying covid wasn't any more deadly than the flu.  The answer is that 35,000 people die each year from the flu, and there are still 300+ people dying every day from covid.  Three hundred times 365 days/year gets us to 109,500 deaths per year from covid.  So no, covid and flu aren't even in the same ballpark of deadliness.

One day we had a little thunder and then a little rain, but not much of either.  Another day it was supposed to snow but didn't - we just had wind.  On still another day it started snowing while it was still dark - by 7:00 when it got light, I realized it had been snowing long enough for the road to be completely covered.  It was fun to watch Bucky sitting on my bed watching the snow come down.  Lily did that too, though she used a different window.  By 10:00 it had been snowing continuously, but it must have been warm enough because the road cleared itself.  In fact, by later in the day, much of the snow had dissipated.

I went back into Waterloo a second time for errands - groceries, gasoline, liquor, PetsMart (for kitten food - this was the main reason for the trip), and a park for Dexter to walk in.  I also stumbled across a recycling drop-off on our way back, so I got to lighten the load a bit.

When I got back to the campground, I tried to empty my waste tanks and had two real problems.  For the black water tank, either I was too cold or the hoses were too cold, but I didn't make good connections at either end of the hose and ended up getting some of the detritus spread around a small area of my campsite.  But I got the connections put together right and got that tank emptied and than ran into another problem: the grey water tank was apparently frozen - nothing at all came out.  I've got heaters attached to both tanks and I'd turned the heaters on several weeks ago, but I guess the one for the grey water tank wasn't working.

So here were my 2 real problems.  First, I still had a little black water discharge on the ground.  Normally, I'd've hooked my hose up to the water connection and just diluted it and cleared it away - which is what I've been told to do.  But I didn't want to do that here because there was still snow on the ground, and the forecast was for more to come overnight and tomorrow, so I figured any water I sprayed around would turn into a sheet of ice.

Second, just because nothing came out of my grey water tank didn't mean there wasn't anything in there.  And I knew there was still room for more, but I couldn't continue to dump in more water without having to deal with it at some point.

What's more, there was a solid prediction for at least an inch of snow tomorrow, so nothing was going to warm up any time soon.

So I went up to the office and explained the yucky mistake I'd made and asked what they wanted me to do about cleaning it up.  And they looked blank and said they didn't know - one of them said she'd been there 5 years and she'd never confronted this before.  (And I thought, she just didn't know about it, because I know I'm not the only one this has happened to and this wasn't my first time making this mistake.  But I didn't say that.)  I told them about my grey water problem and said I was seriously thinking of leaving a day early and driving south somewhere warm enough where my tank would thaw out so I could dump it.  I said if I was still there tomorrow to just let me know what they wanted me to do but that I might be leaving early.

And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that was exactly what I needed to do.  I went back to the RV, fed the critters their supper, and got on the internet.  I never turn on the computer after about 5:00 because of what they say about the blue light keeping us awake or something.  But tonight I did.  First I looked for KOAs that were close to here but farther south.  And then I looked up the weather forecasts at those locations to find one that looked like it'd be warm enough for long enough to thaw out what must be a block of ice under my RV.  And then I looked up campsite availability at those places, and then I came up with driving directions to get me there, and then I took Dexter out for one last walk before bed.

I didn't know what else to do to thaw myself out, and I figured the day of site rental I was forfeiting here would compensate them for any mess that was still left after the predicted snowfall cleaned it out.

Iowa - Day 9 - Mason City and Waterloo

Waterloo KOA, Waterloo

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

This is a video I took of the kittens last night.  They regard my bed as a nice padded playground.

We left the campground just before 8:00 today.

today's route

I had two main goals for today's drive: to see Mason City and to get down to Waterloo, where we'll be staying for 6 days.

Leaving last night's campground, Dext and I saw a male deer running away from us across an empty field, and then a doe that ran across the road in front of us.  Either Iowa has more deer than Nebraska does, or they're just showing themselves more here.

We turned west at West Union and from then on saw continuous cropfields at one stage or another.  Cows now and then.  Intermittent farmhouses.  Unfortunately, it was another overcast day.  I don't know if Iowa has a lot of them or if it's just this time of year.

Near the town of Fredericksburg (in Iowa, not Virginia or Texas), I saw a large flock of black geese grazing by the road.  I'm guessing they were a domestic flock because they were near a driveway.

Today was tough driving because not only were the roads bumpy, but there was a very strong wind, making it really hard for me to stay on the road.

I heard an interview on the radio with Robert Draper, author of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind.  It sounds like a well-researched, fascinating look into how we've ended up where we are today.  Here's a review, if you're interested.   https://www.theguardian.com/weapons-of-mass-delusion

Apparently farmers in this area use manure on their cropfields.  My nose told me so.  The smell was bad.

Near Nora Springs, I saw a large flock of sheep in a feed lot.  I didn't know farmers put sheep in feed lots.

At Mason City I discovered I'd shut Bucky up in the bathroom when we left the campground.  He'd ridden that whole way stuck there, and if he said anything about it, I didn't hear it.  I learned my lesson to always identify specifically where all the critters were before we started, and not just make assumptions.

My first goal in town was Central Park, so Dext could walk.  I had to do some driving around to find a place to park, but we did it.  The park is a full block, lots of trees and grass, and a large veterans memorial.

Each of the stones that listed the names of those who died in service had quotes at the top.  Here are some of them.

Adlai Stevenson died in 1965,
which makes this quote even more interesting.

And nearby was a statue I'd never seen one like before.

It's titled "Stand for the Flag."

You can see in the background that there's a large building that I'm not sure what it is, next to a pedestrian mall.  I think they're in the Prairie style of architecture, a style created by Frank Lloyd Wright.  These are the building and the pedestrian mall:

And across the street from these buildings, looking in their direction, is a statue of Wright himself.

It's titled "American Architect."

Behind it is another war memorial that had a different feature than I remember seeing before.

I didn't take a photo of the whole thing, just the base.
I don't know why it says "Pleasant Hill, LA." on it.
I've enlarged the names that are on the plinth above that.

I'm guessing these names are for local boys,
because only one of them seems to have died in Mason City. 
All the others died in other battles or "In Rebel Prison."

I came to Mason City because this was the childhood home of Meredith Willson, famous for The Music Man, one of my favorite musicals.  Willson based River City on Mason City, which does indeed have a river running through it: the Winnebago River.  I drove around town a bit - nice town, lots of public art - but didn't see anything that reminded me of the movie setting.  Apparently that's because they keep all that inside a building, away from casual non-paying eyes.

They charge $10 for adults (no senior discount) and for that you get a whole lot of Music Man stuff.  I guess if I had the time, it might be worth the money because I do love the movie, but today was definitely not the day.

In Mary Tyler Moore's autobiography, she tells about the time she starred with Robert Preston in a movie, and during a break she asked him if he still remembered any of the "Trouble in River City" routine.  She said he jumped up instantly and did the entire routine, including the spoken words, the singing and the entire choreography.  (I would love to have seen that - a virtuoso performance for a small audience.)  But since he'd played the role nightly on Broadway even before the movie, it's not so surprising he could remember it.  

I didn't know this, but he got the part in the movie because Meredith Willson said he'd void his contract if the studio didn't choose Preston for the part; Warner Bros. had wanted Jimmy Cagney, Cary Grant or Frank Sinatra instead.  All good actors, all with strengths, but I honestly can't see anybody but Robert Preston doing that role.

Back on the road, we headed mostly south toward Waterloo.  For some of this way I was on the Avenue of the Saints.  I don't know if you remember - I didn't - but I was on this same road in Minnesota, and I think in Missouri too.  It's 563 miles long and connects St. Louis, MO, with St. Paul, MN (thus, Avenue of the Saints).

Near Charles City, I came to a sign telling me to turn right to visit the Carrie Chapman Catt Historical Site.  She was the well-known peace activist and women's suffrage advocate, and this site is the home where she grew up in the late 1800s.  It still sits at its original site and has been preserved as a historic site.

I passed small towns like Nashua (in Iowa, not New Hampshire), Janesville (in Iowa, not Wisconsin), and Cedar Falls, which seems to be almost on top of Waterloo.

Iowa - Day 8 - Dubuque, Pike's Peak, Effigy Mounds

Volga River State Park, West Union

Tuesday, 8 November 2022

I woke up during the night at 1:30, tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep, then got up at 2:30.  This is the same thing that happened the night before, and I'm tired of it.  Tired by it too.  Some of it may be that my body's not on regular time yet, as opposed to Daylight Savings Time, which ended on Sunday.  Whatever it is, it's a real nuisance.

Today's election day, and since I'm so late in posting this I hope everybody went to vote who hadn't already voted early.  And I hope my absentee ballot passed muster with the bizarre Texas laws that allegedly protect the citizenry from election fraud, but in fact just knock out otherwise perfectly valid votes.  I really wanted my vote to count this election, though I'm not sure how much good it did, since I believe a woman has a right to say what happens to her own body, even in reproductive matters, and many Republicans in this Republican state don't agree.  In this election, for the very first time in all my years of voting, I was a single-issue voter.  I looked up candidates to determine where they stood on that issue and voted for those who supported my views.  Strange concept for me since in the past I've always tried to determine which candidate was responsible enough to govern reasonably.

Having so much time available, thanks to not sleeping in, I edited some of the photos from the Hoover museum, though I still have 130 to go.

today's route

We left last night's campground just before 8:00 this morning.  I saw a deer while we were still in the campground, and driving out Dext and I saw 2 more jump a 4½' tall fence and race off.

Iowa has a town named Monticello.  And I passed lots of farms that looked like the classic ones we've all seen in paintings and photos of Iowa farmyards.  Very attractive.

I wanted to come to Dubuque because of a bit in a very old song by The Association.  I drove through the campus of the University of Dubuque, which reminded me a lot of Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, where I spent my first 2 years of college.  As it happens, Univ. of Dubuque is a Presbyterian school and Southwestern is a Methodist school, so maybe that's why they remind me of each other.

I saw a gold-domed building not far away but the route I'd chosen didn't take me past it and I was afraid of getting lost.  I've learned that's the Dubuque County Courthouse, and the gold leaf on that dome has caused a lot of local controversy.  But it's pretty.

I drove around a bit in the neighborhood of St. Luke's Methodist Church on Main Street.  It was very old fashioned and, to my eyes, very attractive overall.  Dubuque has about 60,000 residents.

From Dubuque I took country roads with a great deal of trepidation, Google not being reliable about these roads in my opinion.  To lessen the chance of getting lost, I spent some time with that program Google's got that lets me see the street view, so I could see what's actually written on the highway signs instead of the names Google claims they have.  And that worked except for once, but I wasn't lost for long.

I drove through the tiny town of Balltown, where an establishment called Breitbach's had a sign saying it's Iowa's oldest operating restaurant/bar, in continuous operation since 1852.  Millard Fillmore, then US president, issued the liquor license.  The original building burned down twice, but the restaurant kept operating in a building across the street while they were rebuilding.

I passed signs for the turn to the Cassville Car Ferry that crosses the Mississippi River.  I was surprised about that because I've seen bridges built to connect Iowa with Illinois and Wisconsin all the way north.  But I guess some people feel as I do about bridges and some just enjoy ferries (as I do).  Hard to tell online, but it looks like in non-tourist season, the ferry runs only on weekends.

I'm sure I saw a round barn and realized I'm back near that part of the country where I used to see a lot of them

The small town of Guttenberg, which bills itself as a "Historic Rivertown," is actually pretty old.  It was once the site of encampments for the Sac and Fox tribes, and after they left German settlers moved in in 1832.  The town probably doesn't put this fact in its publicity, but Guttenberg is far above the Iowa average for earthquakes and 85% above the national average.  I'm surprised there's still much of the town left, if those are their chances.

I've seen several sand & gravel quarries today, surrounded by farms.  I've also see quite a few pro-Trump and anti-Biden signs.

We made it to Pike's Peak Overlook and state park by 10:30.  It was named for Zebulon Pike, who came through this area in 1805 to decide if it was suitable for a fort.  But much earlier, it was visited by 2 Europeans, who paddled down the Wisconsin River to this location, where the Wisconsin joins the Mississippi.

mouth of the Wisconsin River

the Mississippi River

Pere Marquette and Louis Joliet were here in 1673.

There's a little bit of historic explanation of their expedition, helping to put it in context and explain its significance, at this website.   https://wisconsinhistory.org/Marquette-and-Joliet

I had a hard time taking these photos because that observation deck had me out over thin air.  And it was a shame the day was overcast.

I was able to take 2 more photos at an informational kiosk before my camera ran out of battery.

There were several trails, some of which led to waterfalls, and I'm sure Dext would have enjoyed checking them out.  But the wind was blowing, and with the sun not out, the temperature didn't have much chance of getting up to the low 50s that were forecast.  So I took us back to the RV, where I turned on the generator so I could at least partly recharge my camera.

Out of the park, we were back on the Iowa Great River Road, and headed north to the tiny town of Marquette, where I saw a casino and a paddlewheeler. and a baby blue bridge over the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin.

From there it wasn't far to the visitor center for the Effigy Mounds National Monument.  I'm sad to report that they forgot to post current hours online, and when I got there I found that the visitor center is now open only on weekends, which Tuesday isn't.  I was disappointed because I hadn't planned on hiking to any of the effigy mounds and hoped just to learn about them at the visitor center.  With this setback, I didn't get to do either.  It was still too cold and raw for me to want to go for a hike to the mounds - a shame because they say they have bear effigies - a whole pack of them - and bird-shaped mounds.  I still remember seeing the Serpent Mound in Ohio and wished I could see some of these here.  But that'll have to wait for another visit.

As I've been driving around, I've seen several towns with signs by the road that designate them as "Home Base Iowa Community," but I haven't seen anything to explain what that means.  I don't know how many states have this, but in Iowa this group seems to be making a concerted effort to find appropriate jobs for veterans and their spouses.  A worthy cause, I'm sure.

I turned on US-18 and found myself on the River Bluffs Scenic Highway.  I'm not sure exactly what river these bluffs are supposed to be on, though.  Just getting on this road was a challenge because Google once again refused to tell me the actual name of the road I was turning on and instead just said to go this distance and then turn right and then turn right and then turn left.  Except half those directions were wrong.  Very frustrating.  But I managed to make it through town and on the right road just to spite them.

I heard on the radio that absentee ballots in Iowa were down 40% compared to 2018, the last midterm election.  This was being attributed to a new, much shorter window of time for folks to request, complete, and mail their ballots.  You know how extra time just gives those old fraudsters a chance to do their thing.

I passed a sign telling me I was missing a tractor museum, and I found it online.  It seems to be open only during tourist season, and it's dedicated to the Froelich tractor, the first gasoline tractor to propel itself both forward and backward.  In 1892, this was hot stuff, and this became the precursor to the John Deere Tractor Co.  I'd like to visit if I can make it back here in the summer.

The town of Monona bills itself as the "Garden City of Iowa."  Sorry I can't confirm, but this isn't the best time of year for gardens.

I passed the Prairie Farms cheese plant.

Postville claims to be "Hometown to the World."  

I started seeing horse-and-buggy warning signs on the highway.

At the town of West Union, I saw a sign that asked "Why do birds fly south in the fall?" and answered "Because it's too far to walk."  Not having had children, let alone grandchildren, I have to admit this was one I'd forgotten since my dopey childhood.

The campground wasn't too many miles down the road, and we were once again the only ones there.

Iowa - Day 7 - Herbert Hoover, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids

Wapsipinicon State Park, Anamosa

Monday, 7 November 2022

Last night Bucky got trapped behind the kitchen drawers.  I have no idea how because I don't leave them hanging open far enough for him to get in, except when I'm getting something out of them.  I thought I'd always been able to fish him out quickly when he'd get in, but obviously I missed one time.  It was hard to find him because he wouldn't answer when I'd call his name (and I'm sure he knows his name).  Just occasionally I'd hear a faint meow.  It took ages for me to figure out where he was, and then almost as long to figure out how to get him out.  I really didn't want to empty out a drawer and pull it out of the framework, and after a lot of coaxing he figured out how to get his head, and then his body out from behind it.  What a pest.

Early this morning when we were walking, Dext and I saw trailers for 4 boats parked near the boat ramp.  They'd gone out in the pitch dark, which seems crazy to me, but I guess they know the territory.  When we took another walk just before leaving this morning, I saw one skiff come back with a black lab sitting in it, so I guess these guys are all out hunting, not fishing as I'd assumed.

Because I'd planned to stop at the Hoover museum, I figured we'd better leave early again, so we were on the road by 7:30 once more.

today's route

On the road

After leaving last night's campground, I found myself back on the Great River Road.  The towns along the way all seemed to be relatively small river towns.  Iowa's got towns named Montpelier and Buffalo.

I heard on the radio that 70% of Iowa's fire departments are volunteer.

At Davenport, I'd found a dog park online, and when I turned to go there I stumbled on a recycling drop-off that let me leave most of my stuff.  Always a good feeling.

I drove around town a bit after Dext had a good time sniffing new smells and running after new dogs, and I saw a very large Ferris wheel near the Mississippi River.  It's 105' high and is a permanent addition to the town, as of 2014.  

Davenport has a number of registered historic neighborhoods, and I drove around the Hamburg District because it was easiest for me to find.  It turned out to be on a very steep hill - Ripley Street, for instance, must have been at a 60° angle and I was pretty nervous we'd flip onto our back before we got up a block - but we made it.  The district looked like what it probably was - a working class neighborhood that had been around for maybe 100 years or so.

I'm pleased to report that the kitties are doing well while we're driving, even without being confined to the carrying case.

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum

The Hoover museum turned out to consist of several buildings spread out over a lot of ground without signs to tell the visitor what was where.  Including parking.  I learned later the parking for RVs was quite a distance away from the museum, way down the street at the Visitor Center near a re-creation of the town Hoover grew up in.  There were signs everywhere at the museum saying no RV parking, though they didn't say where we were supposed to go.  But in a plus for having a small RV, I managed to fit in a regular parking space in front of the museum by backing in and hanging the rear of the RV over a grass median.

The fee for seniors was $5, which seemed reasonable to me, so I went.  I've been curious about Hoover for a long time, wondering how he'd let the Depression happen.  I know a presidential library wants to present its subject in a flattering light, but I think they've made a good case for the idea that Hoover not only tried to prevent it but also did everything he could think of to mitigate it once it had come.  Here's what I saw.

Introduction

(my photo of the world map was too fuzzy to put in here)

Childhood

This quilt was made in 1898, though
apparently not by Mrs. Hoover,
shown upper left.

College

Lou, who became
his wife

Early engineering career

23-year-old Hoover
trying to look 34

A career of public service

"The difference between dictatorship and democracy:
dictators organize from the top down, democracies
from the bottom up."  I think this belief is a key to
his policies during the Depression.

text with the photo below right

one of Mrs. Hoover's contributions - see Belgian Lace below

one of the flour sacks

Hoover's WWI efforts in the US

Hoover is modifying his philosophy, but
it's not clear if he's convincing others.

"Hooverizing"

cartoon inset in photo at right

see cartoon
enlarged at left

1920s

Transfer of power: Wilson to Harding

1920 Harding elected

US Secretary of Commerce

detail enlarged below right -
1927 cartoon titled "Traffic Problem in
Washington, D.C."
A former Secy. of Commerce told Hoover
that the job wouldn't require more than
2 hours of work a day.

Hoover was an engineer, so
standardizing things came naturally.

I never knew this about
Aimee Semple McPherson.

The 1927 flood of the Mississippi River at its peak
covered an area 150 miles wide, stretching 1,000 miles
from Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico.  Almost 12,500,000
acres including sugar cane and cotton were inundated.

1928 campaign

a break with tradition 

"Nothing short of Heaven"

Presidency as Hoover had originally planned

1929 cartoon

Then the Great Depression

This and the next 5 show how
hard Hoover tried, beginning
in 1925, to get bankers
to look at reality.

a breadline

1930

detail enlarged below

1930 cartoon

1931

1932

Not the kind of bonus you might think.

Note that this is the same MacArthur who was later
fired by Pres. Truman for exactly this same thing:
overriding direct orders from his Commander In Chief. 
In Hoover's case, MacArthur's actions likely
influenced some votes in the 1932 elections.

1932 campaign

FDR, politician

This episode, continued in next exhibit, doesn't show
FDR in the humanitarian light he preferred.

Created by Peter Arno for March 4, 1933, edition
but not used due to February assassination 
attempt in Florida of FDR.

The wilderness years

Back to public service

Philosophy

I know this is fuzzy but it's interesting,
if you can decipher it.

Death

Titled "Death and Burial" -
I couldn't lighten the title without
making the text unreadable.

And finally there's this:

I spent more than an hour in the museum, and then the critters and I had lunch and I walked Dext around the grounds.

I thought this was an interesting selection of allowed activities.

Back on the road

It took less than a half hour to get to Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa.  It has a very busy, vibrant campus with an air that I found attractive.  I remembered that in Field of Dreams, the little girl says people would come to Iowa City and find it boring.  Maybe so, but it looked to me like there was a lot of life going on there.

The Iowa River runs through town and on beyond, and once we were out of the city, I stopped by the river to make some phone calls, trying to get reservations for camping and for doctor appointments.

Iowa has terrible roads.  I think they learned how to build roads from Nebraska.  Or maybe Ohio.

On NPR's Here & Now, I heard an interview with sociologist Arlie Hochschild about the research she did for her book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.  It sounds like a fascinating and much-needed look into the reason for attitudes that have left many people - both in the middle and on the left - scratching their heads trying to figure out the basis.  It may be something many of us need to take a look at.

I drove through Cedar Rapids, somewhat impeded by bridge construction over the Cedar River (duh).  The road closures kept me from even passing by both the African American Museum of Iowa (on one side of the river) and the National Czech and Slovak Museum (on the other side).  But we did pass the National Czech Cemetery.  I'd say it's pretty clear who settled this area.

From Cedar Rapids it was only another 30 miles or so to tonight's campground.  That was a weird place.  We were the only ones in the whole campground tonight, except the small group that patronized the bar at the next door golf club until it closed.

I tried almost every campsite in a vain attempt to locate one that was level.  I finally ended up settling for what they call a "buddy site" that they expect to be occupied by 2 campers who know each other.  The sign said I needed to pay for both sites when I paid for mine.  I wrote them a note explaining why I didn't.  They charged $12/night - well, that's what I paid since all I could get was an electrical plug-in, no water, no trash cans, no dump station, and of course no showers.  But it was quiet, and electricity was the main thing I wanted.