Last Night Out

I had heard that there were going to be some strong winds so I wanted to get an early start before they started kicking in. I guess 9:00 is an early start for me nowadays.

Have I mentioned how much I do not like my gps system. She just doesn't understand that a 32 foot RV is perhaps not the best vehicle to go down some of those country roads I was on. I will say though that at least Iowa has shoulders on most of their roads, unlike Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

I was heading for Effigy National Monument which is in northeast Iowa, on the river. Beautiful country, but it sure is hilly. Perhaps hilly is an understatement. I was going to say the nice thing about Iowa is that at the top of hills, they announce the grade percentage as in “8% grade – Trucks use low gear”. I found that it ended up scaring me. I was glad for the signs, but 8% grade is a steep downhill.

Effigy is a bunch of mounds build by ancient Native Americans. I thought that going to Effigy would be good since the week before I was in Georgia looking at their mounds. Georgia's mound builders were called Mississippians and they came from this area in Iowa. We climbed the bluff and walked around looking at the mounds. There was a great view of the Mississippi.

Drove on to a campground in Decorah. It was white knuckle driving. There was a strong cross wind and it felt like it was doing it's best to blow me off of the road. This was even worse than driving those Iowa mountains. Seriously, seriously scary. Now I don't know if it was the wind or a couple of branches that brushed my roof at Effigy, but when I look at my TV antenna, one side , the side that was facing toward the front of the bus is all bent backwards and sticking straight up. Thank goodness I have an appointment next week to fix some of the new rig shakedown problems. The antenna still seems to work but it needs to get fixed.

Pulpit Rock Campground is a county park. Hardly anybody here – I have a place right on the trout stream. I was supposed to have Wi-Fi and actually had it for five minutes before it disappeared.

It is my last night on the road so I had a pizza delivered. This camping stuff ain't too shabby.

 Climbing the bluff you can see the RV down below:

At the top of the bluff, that is a train down there

Miko is color coordinated for this landscape

Pulpit Creek Campground Decorah Iowa