Pearls Before Cows

 

I found a county campground right between Davenport and Muscatine Iowa where I could actually stay for several days. I felt very fortunate because it is so hard to get into these county, state, national campgrounds, especially on a weekend, which this was. There are four, count them four lakes with many trails around them. The only problem was that last summer they had drained all of the lakes to do lakeshore restoration. All I saw were big muddy holes. They were going to start filling the lakes on Monday, the day I was leaving. Timing is everything.

I had planned on going to the Figge Art Museum in Davenport for a little more upscale culture. Then I saw, just down the road in Muscatine, the National Pearl Button Museum. How could I pass that up?

Muscatine was the Pearl Button Capital of the World back in the day. In 1905, Muscatine produced 1.5 billion buttons annually. This boom lasted only 75 years before the plastic button took over. The fact that the fresh water mussels had been pretty much decimated also was a factor. In the late 1800's, there were 300 mussel species native to North America. More than half of these species are now threatened or endangered.

Several different species of river mussels
Those chains are dragged along the bottom of the river and the mussels grab on to them.
One of several ways to harvest mussels

A Pearl Button salesman's jacket

After visiting this museum, I now know how to pull mussels out of the river, make them open their shells, punch holes in the shells and finish/polish the buttons. Too bad this is not a skill that I will get a lot of use out of.

I'm not so sure I want to stay too long in Muscatine

I joined an organization called Harvest Hosts. They contract with individual businesses to let Rvers stay on their property. Think wineries, breweries and farms. In exchange, we are supposed to buy a small amount of merchandise from these hosts.

I stayed a night at Hansen's Dairy in Hudson, Iowa. They are a single source dairy in that they raise the cows and have a creamery right on site. Every afternoon, they take you on a tour showing you the inner workings of a dairy farm. This was no small potatoes operation either. They have 300 cows of which 150 are being milked (twice a day at 4:00 am and pm) and the other 150 are babies or pregnant. I got to milk a cow, feed a calf, make butter by hand and, wait for it......feed and pet kangaroos. Evidently one of the owners went to Australia, fell in love with Kangaroos and decided the farm needed them.

This sign was along the side of a one million gallon manure pit

The old man of the mob

I'm feeding Roo-dolph here - all the kangaroos had names starting with Roo
I think he is threeyears old

This is one year old Roo-dy

This is Aztec, the calf I got to feed.  She is less than a month old. 
 Don't let that sweet face fool you - she was a hellion when it came to her bottle

The milking station, they milk 16 cows at a time

Gazing off into the distance

On my last leg home, as I was merging onto I35, all of a sudden there was a ding, ding, ding and my truck told me  'Engine Power Reduced'. The truck wasn't kidding, I couldn't go above 30 mph. I pull over to the side of the road and look in my manual. They tell me the engine is overheating, which was not the case. I checked my phone for Chevrolet dealers and luckily there was one just two miles down the road. I limped along the shoulder at about 10 mph and got to the dealer. I'm very proud of myself because as we all know, car dealers fill their lots with tons and tons of cars. My 36' camper and I threaded our way through all those cars and got to the service area. They ran some codes and it turns out that my turbo had locked open. I was about two hours away from home. They told me that I could make it, if I got the message again, pull over to the shoulder, turn off the truck and let it reset itself. Then I could drive on. It was a stressful two hours but I made it back to the Motherland without incident. Just another very expensive thing that will need to be fixed.

What Did You Have ForBreakfast OR Spiritual Health, Brawny Machines And A Little Dash Of Bix

I was raised on Kellogg cereal. Is there any other type of cereal? Looking at the map, I see Battle Creek, ancestral home of Kellogg's. How cool would it be to do a factory tour? I must say, I'm rather disappointed that there are no factory tours to be had. I did find something called Kellogg's Discovery Center which was interesting in it's own way. Back in the olden days (1800s) people thought fresh air and sunshine would make you sick. Fresh vegetables would kill you. In NYC, a guy on a street corner ate three tomatoes. People thought he was trying to commit suicide. Dr. Kellogg was all about health and exercise. He created a sanitarium where he could put his ideas into practice. He invented many machines that are still in use today in many gyms.

Discovery Center parking lot - evidently this was Not the hottest ticket in town

Some of Dr. Kellogg's inventions

Some of the machines we could try for ourselves. 

This foot vibrator was very relaxing although I could feel it all the way up to my fillings

One day, one of his patients at the sanitarium came to him and said “Dr. Kellogg, you owe me $10. I was eating this dry hard toast that you gave me and I broke my false teeth”. Dr. Kellogg immediately started working on an alternative to the toast and came up corn flakes. Ta-da!!!!

Dr. Kellogg also was a 7^th Day Adventist and Battle Creek is where this religion came to be. I spent maybe a half hour in the Discovery Center and then I got a tour of the Historical Adventist Village which took about an hour and a half. I was really curious about what the religion was about and asked my personal tour guide to give me a quick run-down on their basic beliefs. They believe in good health practices, the trinity and when you die, you just go on mouldering in the grave until the second coming when all true believers will rise up out of the grave. I must have asked a lot of questions about the Adventists because my tour guide gave me a book all about the Adventists which should answer any other questions I might have.

Spent a few days in Indiana at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I spent time last year here, but I stayed in the Indiana Dunes State Park where there were hookups. This time I'm in the National Lakeshore where there are no hookups at all. That would be fine because I am pretty self-sufficient, but it has been raining for the last couple of days and my solar is having a hard time keeping up. Miko and I just sort of vegged out – did a couple of hikes, found some ice cream but basically just putzed around.

Sometimes lily pads aren't all that pretty

My next big challenge was getting from Indiana around Chicago. I absolutely will not drive through Chicago which means I always end up going the long way around . I was hoping to stay at Starved Rock State Park where I had stayed at previously. The problem was that it was Sunday of a three day weekend and all the weekend warriors had taken every available camping spot. I ended up in the Quad Cities – Davenport, Rock Island, Moline and maybe East Moline? I had decided to stay at the Illiniwek Forest Preserve and as I drove up – it was packed. Not with campers but with a Renaissance Festival – jousting, flute playing, much hilarity. Illiniwek was a lovely park. On one side was the mighty Mississippi and on the other side was a huge bluff with some beautiful hiking/mountain biking trails. Miko and I would go hiking every morning up on these trails for a couple of hours.

Miko in a gnarly tree trunk

Moline is the home of John Deere. I, again wanted to do a factory tour, but you had to reserve a spot 48 hours in advance which was not going to happen, given my tendency to not commit to a plan. I did the second best thing though which was to go visit the John Deere Pavilion. I learned how John Deere got his start – he was a failed blacksmith who came to this Midwest area from Vermont to try to find work to pay off his creditors. New England soil is hard and rocky while Midwest soil is rich and damp. Farmers in the Midwest would have to stop every few feet to clean the muddy mess off of their iron plows. Mr. Deere fashioned a polished steel blade that cut like butter through the dirt and thus, the John Deere company was born.

While that was interesting, the great thing about the Pavilion was that there was so many interactive displays. I got to go into a simulator and operate a back hoe. I couldn't quite get the hang of driving a bulldozer. I built gears that twirled. I hand cranked videos (although some little kid butted in and wanted to play also – I guess I was in the children's area, but still....). I also got to climb into a few cabs of various John Deere machines.

If you squint real hard, you can see me driving me a big honkin'   machine.  So big it doesn't fit all the way in the picture

Davenport is also the birthplace of Bix Beiderbecke , a famous jazz cornetist. He came up in the late twenties/early thirties. I knew nothing about him except his name, but some of my friends in the music biz thought he was the bee's knees. I really dislike the type of jazz where everybody seems to be playing a different melody at the same time, but Bix seemed to be more of the big band type of jazz which is way cool.

Pretty prolific guy

They wanted you to feel like you were actually listening to Bix as he played at Hudson Lake

I also tried to go on a chocolate factory tour, but even though the building's operating hours stated they were open, all was dark – so no factory tour. I guess factory tours were not to be for me.

Wisconsin has a bar on every corner - Davenport has a chiropractic office on every corner

I spent four days in the Quad Cities. I am learning to slow down. I am learning that I don't have to be doing something touristy every single moment. I still have a long way to go, on this slowing down stuff, but I think I am beginning to get a glimmer of how this works. My time on the road is winding down - I'm sad that I have to go back.  My time was way too short but I'm also thrilled to head home and reconnect with all that is near and dear to me. 

The End of The Tour

It is Friday – I have to leave Starved Rock because the dreaded weekenders are coming in and weekenders tend to plan ahead, unlike me, and reserve state park sites. The park is full and again, I am siteless. I plan on going up to Maquoketa State Park which is where I spent a night back a couple of years ago. Back then, it was early April and I was the only one in the park – it was a little spooky. I thought I would spend some time hiking some of the trails there. Again, the weekenders have foiled my plans. No room at the inn. I end up spending a night in a little city park in Maquoketa. It was an ok place and I figured on Saturday I could motor over to the State Park and do some hiking.

I have been pretty lucky weather wise – there have only been a couple of days with rain. I was pretty far south and east when the bad weather came through Texas and Mississippi. Then I move north and was farther north than the bad weather that came through Oklahoma and Kansas. I have lead a pretty charmed weather life this trip. Well, Saturday, the skies opened up. I decided that I would move on, since it was raining so hard, hiking would have been sort of miserable. I drove 2 ½ hours north, through the driving rain and wind gusts that blew me around the road a bit. Yes, I've finally made it to Pike's Peak – who woulda thought. Actually, I've landed in Pike's Peak State Park in McGregor, Iowa. Zebulon Pike of Pike's Peak fame was here in this area way before he was putting his name on some peak out west.   I don't know if it was the crummy weather or the fact that this park is way over on the very edge of Iowa, but there are very few weekenders here. There are just a few trailers, a couple of tent campers and some mini trailers. I really felt sorry for the tent campers – it could not have been all that pleasant with the nasty wind and rain.

 

Every time I looked, there was another one of these RV pup tents showing up

This is really a nice park – it is perched on the bluffs overlooking where the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers collide.

 

Wisconsin River is directly ahead


 

 

Same Place - different day - fog, fog, fog

 

Off in the distance you can hear a mournful train whistle and the views are wonderful. And even better – my site is nice and level and I have great HD OTA TV!!! I must admit – I did some binge watching – an old James Bond movie, lots of shows from the sixties like Outer Limits. I almost feel guilty for spending so much time watching these old shows. Key word: almost.

I found a website that has the Ultimate Waterfall Tour of Iowa. So, I decided I should do a portion of it. Cause waterfalls are my thing nowadays. First up was Bridal Falls Waterfall which was in the Pike's Peak Park. Can we say underwhelming? Made me rethink this whole Ultimate Waterfall Tour.



See?  Underwhelming
 

But I persevered and went on to Beulah Springs Waterfall. It was a lovely waterfall. I couldn't really take any good pictures because some young thing was taking her senior pictures and I really felt like I might be intruding.

 

A much nicer waterfall - actually coming out of a hole in the hillside

She was wearing rubber boots under that pretty dress.  It was freezing out. 

 

 

I spent another couple of days at Pike's Peak. Every morning, Miko and I would walk down to the  river and see how the day was going to shape up. I don't know why I found it so fascinating, seeing all the different feels of the river. It was also nice to just hang out and not do too much of anything.

We did go to Effigy Mounds National Monument which I went to a couple of years ago. Bunch of mounds that First Nation people had created. I only went back because I am obsessed with this Junior Ranger thing. We did walk a few of the trails that we hadn't done the first time we were here, so there was some new stuff.

Next stop.......Home – I'm going home.

State Park Extravaganza

I think Reelfoot Lake State Park, located in Tiptonville Tennessee, is my most favorite place to stay this trip. I had the best site in the whole park, overlooking the lake, nobody near me. It was peaceful, it was beautiful.

The rangers at Reelfoot had a huge bag of unprocessed pecan nuts in the office. They used this bag to feed the squirrels. I have never heard of anybody who thought squirrels were something to keep around. These squirrels were all yellow-bellied – no, they were – they all had golden colored bellies. They were extremely tame – I was worried that Miko would get one because they would come almost up to you.

I ran into some people, Pat and Bob, a couple of sites away from me. They had Tennessee license plates, but turns out that they were originally from Minnesota. I'm beginning to wonder if Minnesotans put out some sort of pheromone that causes them to be drawn to other Minnesotans. All I know is that I'm running into these Minnesotans everyplace. Pat and I decided to go hiking together. I had picked out a couple of trails I wanted to explore and she was game, so off we went. Well, let's just say that between the two of us, chattering away, we could not find the trail heads that we were looking for. So, we settled for a lesser trail and wandered down that one.

 

I made a run into town – needed to find some groceries and some wine. The only liquor store on town, East End Liquors, has the distinction of being the oldest and smallest liquor store in Tennessee according to Bobby Joe, the proprietor. It was about the size of my front room in the RV. I probably sat and chatted with Bobby Joe for about an hour about Lake County where Tiptonville is located (smallest and poorest county in Tennessee – ninth poorest county in the US) and he told me some of the old stories of the place. He sent me down the road to see the widest spot in the Mississippi before Missouri dumped sand to change the flow of the river to get back at Tennessee. Is this true? Who knows.

 

Bobby Joe and East End Liquors

After a few pleasant days in Reelfoot, I left Tennessee and headed a couple of hours up the road to Trail of Tears State Park, right outside of Cape Girardeau Missouri. During a particular tragic period of American history, when the Five Nations were forcibly removed from their homes and marched from the east to reservations in Oklahoma, this particular spot was one of three places where they crossed the Mississippi.

 

I was in the Mississippi Campground, probably named for the fact that it was almost right on top of the Mississippi River.  I say almost because right in-between the  Mississippi and the campground was a heavily used railroad track.  Some very long, loud, whistle-blowing, RV shaking trains would come by.  There were only one or two that came by after midnight which was fortunate.  My site itself was only electric hookups - all the full hookups were already taken but my site was huge and I thought the best of the bunch.

 

I think I was at this state park at the most perfect time for leaves.  It was gorgeous.  Miko and I did several hikes to overlooks and around lakes. 

 

The Mighty Mississippi

 

 



The right side of the trail

The left side of the trail

And straight ahead

Weather coming in over the Mississippi

One more color picture

During our second hike of the day, something strange happened. Usually Miko is out in front of me, leading the way. Toward the end of our two mile hike, all of a sudden she started lagging behind. Then she went over to the side of the trail and lay down. I coaxed her on a few more feet and then she lay down and curled up in a little ball and wouldn't move. The only thing I could do is pick all thirty-five pounds of her up and carry her the rest of the way which wasn't all that far, maybe the length of a football field, but it was up hill. Then when I finally got to the parking lot, huffin' and puffin', I set her down and she was all tail wagging, jumping up and down. I think I got played.

Moving on northwards, we moved from southern Missouri to northern Missouri to Wakonda State Park. There are two campgrounds, one with just electric and one with full hookups. The full hookup sites were amazing. They backed up to a lake and there were two pads, one for the RV and one for your car. I stayed here two days, did some organizing, some cleaning, some dancing outside cause there was nobody around.

My site was wider than the lot my house sits on in St. Paul

We tried to do a little hiking here but the trails were a little uninspiring. Flat, open, farm field on one side, brush and tiny lake on the other. We did see some wildlife though – one snake, turtles and tons of grasshoppers which Miko takes great joy in catching and eating

Well, at least it was a nice day

Continuing north, next stop is the George Wyth State Park in Waterloo Iowa. It was a hard drive – rained the whole way. Can you imagine my excitement though, when, as I drove through Waterloo on the freeway I saw signs for the John Deere Museum? But, wait - it gets even better – I then saw a sign for The Grout Museum. Wowzer – a whole museum dedicated to grout. I was a little disappointed to find out that it was just a museum complex named after a guy named Grout. Bummer. I think I will have to pass on both of these museums because I have a pretty hard core time commitment with Minnesota. Maybe next time Waterloo.

I'm planning on driving up to Treasure Island Casino tomorrow – empty my tanks, drain everything and get ready to winterize. I have an appointment with my RV maintenance people in mid November to fix everything that went wrong on this trip. It will probably be my last time going in to them with a long list – my two year warranty is up in February. I think I will look into getting an extended warranty because it seems there is always something going wrong.  I've been very fortunate that everything that has gone wrong has not been life-threatening or show-stopping.  I've been able to keep on truckin'

 

List:

My window coverings (shade holders) have fallen off the wall for both the back window and the dinette window. The back window has been fixed (or so they said) twice before. They use these tiny little screws which don't hold anything

Outside back panel where I inadvertently scraped up against a U-Haul truck.

Wheel well splash guard which I inadvertently pulled off when an electrical post jumped in the way

A wooden trim board above the dinette has come undone

My driver's side front leveling jack boings when going up or down

A door jamb is loose – screw won't hold it down anymore

Rubber trim around the front door is loose and flapping – needs to be replaced

The water is still siphoning out of my fresh water tank

Under the mattress for the bed is a very thin piece of plywood which supports the mattress. After much study, I have found that when a body lies in the bed, there is nothing supporting the center of this plywood and it sags about three-four inches. This means that it is a constant battle to try to stay on a particular side of the bed.

 

Escape From The Great White North

The plan was to become a nomad for three months. On one hand I was excited about going out and exploring the great unknown. It was going to be a challenge, being on my own for that long of a period of time without my normal support system. I was really looking forward to seeing if I could do this and thrive. To see if my dream, which I have had for the last twenty years, was all that I had imagined. The great unknown. It means leaving Tony and the nice comfortable, pleasant home life that we have built. I have left for upwards of three weeks at a time, but this was going to be a whole three months. I am sure that our relationship will survive, but at what cost? All questions that will be answered, I guess. I figure if this trip doesn't work out, if I become lonely or find that the open road is not for me, I can always head back home. I am truly grateful that Tony understands my wanderlust and supports me.

The idea was to leave after the New Year. In Minnesota, since the New Year, it has been frigid. I mean, the high has been -4F. I just couldn't get it together and make myself go and load up the RiV in that type of weather. After looking at the extended forecast and realizing that this was going to be the Minnesota winter, I decided that I just needed to bite the bullet and go. January 8 looked like it would be a little warmer – maybe 14 degrees. I'll aim for that. To my dismay, the chance of precipitation kept increasing also. Not only snow, but winds up to fifty miles an hour. Looking at the weather maps, I thought there was a little bit of a window and I could head out.

As I loaded the RiV, snowflakes started coming down. I hurried up and got on the road around ten. My GPS was taking me on some back roads which I actually liked because I could drive slower and get used to driving the big machine and towing my car. I finally got on the freeway and headed south. I had to pass through the I90 corridor. I consider the I90 corridor to be the Bermuda Triangle of the North. They have the worse weather, tornados, blizzards – you always take your life in your hands when you pass through that area of Minnesota. Today was no exception. The winds started picking up and as there is nothing but wide open prairie, the snow started blowing across the freeway leading to occasional white out conditions. When there weren't the white out conditions, the snow was blowing across the road and it looked almost like we were plowing through an ocean of snow. That was actually sort of pretty. It was not slippery, but the winds were picking up. If I stopped for gas or at a rest area, the wind and snow would catch up with me and I would have to outrun it again. I did this mostly at the speed of 50 – 55 mph. Anymore speed and you would be blown across the road.

I made it to Osceola Iowa to the Lakeside Casino RV park. I liked it better when it was called Terrible's Casino, but evidently they thought Terrible's might not be consumer friendly or something. It is too cold to hook up to the water, but I have electricity so I can keep warm without using my generator. It is supposed to be single digits. Around 8:00, the winds caught up with me. There were a few moments when I was a little worried about the RV. It was rocking and rolling – I haven't been in a windstorm like that in the RV before. I sure am glad I wasn't on the road. It would have been disastrous.

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

Spooky Times

April 8

My son's birthday today.  Happy Birthday Aaron!!!!

Changing states, moving on north. Beautiful day for driving but windy. Really hate the wind when I'm driving something as tall as this vehicle. Drove through flat, flat Illinois into flat, flat Iowa.  I found a park called Maquoketa Cave State Park. Evidently the big draw here are the bat caves. Before you tour the bat caves you have to attend a lecture on white nose syndrome - a communicable disease that bats get. It is deadly for bats. Not to worry, the bat caves were closed because evidently the bats are still hibernating. I would have liked to see the bats, the caves notsomuch.

I drove into this campground and there was not a single soul around. No campers, no rangers, nobody. It was sort of spooky being all alone. The park itself is lovely, lots of pine trees, it smelled great. The ground was soft and springy from all the pine needles. I found a suitable place and parked.  I then noticed I was in Site #13. Eerier and eerier. Miko and I went hiking - this is a nice time of year, nothing is blooming so you can see quite a ways through the woods. I finally found one guy working in the park, gathering up leaves in the park with a big front loader. I flagged him down and asked him where I could find a ranger. Lo and behold, this was Mr. Ranger.  I told him I was camping because I thought it would be good if at least one person knew I was down in the campground.

When Miko and I did our sunset walk, the owls were hooting away and adding more to the spooky atmosphere. It was an extremely quiet night - good sleeping weather.

Miko basking in the sun:

The deserted campground:

Iowa woods - nothing green here:

Day 1 Wisconsin to Iowa

All systems go. Left River Falls at 10:40 and headed out. It had just started to sleet so I felt particularly fortunate that I was leavin' town. Headed south through Zumbrota and Red Wing – travel on little country roads. I rather liked it, I could go slow, I could figure out how to keep this huge rig in one lane without any semi distractions. It was a good primer on driving.

By 1:00, I entered my third state (Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa) Stopped at my favorite gas station right across the Iowa border in Lime Springs. As I'm filling up with gas ($150 – ouch), I notice one of my dually tires is really low. I tried to put air in it, but the air putter inner wouldn't fit on my valve. They sent me to see Brian in downtown Lime Springs (population 501). It took him about a half hour to figure out how to jury rig something that would work. When I asked him what I owed him, he said nada. I happened to have some absolutely incredible chocolate covered fruit – strawberries, pineapple and apple ( thanks Lou and Davey) and I gave him one. He was happy and I was happy watching him eat it.

This tire thing took a big chunk out of my day so I didn't get as far down the road as I was hoping. I ended up at Pleasant Creek State Park, just a little bit north of Cedar Rapids. Just electrical hookups but a great deal at $11 for the night. There are only two other campers here, it is pretty isolated but pretty. And most importantly – there is NO SNOW!!!! Took the dog for a long walk. The wind is blowing about thirty miles an hour – you have to lean into it to stay in place. I'm glad I'm not driving in it.

My daughter in law gave me Mace for Xmas, a very thoughtful present actually. I think I will read up on how to use it tonight. Just in case, ya know.

Tomorrow – St. Louis

View out my front window