June Iowa

Biesele van delivery service

The Juicy Van experience last year led us to Apollo RV and their relocation specials. In particular: free motorhome rental for 16 days and 2500 miles starting in Forest City, IA and ending in Denver, CO (our choice) or Las Vegas, or San Francisco or Los Angeles. It's their way of getting new units from the manufacturer to Apollo's locations.

Wednesday: Ames, IA

Flew from SGU to Denver. The connection from Denver was delayed due to weather. And the connecting flight was full -- it was the first UA flight from DEN to DSM for almost a day that wasn't cancelled due to weather. The car rental agent in Des Moines said that over 100 rental cars had been hail damaged the day before. Susan asked for an upgrade and the agent gladly agreed. When we went out to the car it was the only one in the agencies lot. Drove up to Ames IA for a short night's sleep.

Thursday - Sunday: Newton, IA

Thursday

Up early and on the road to Forest City. Apollo has quite an operation there, looks like the office was a rv park, but now was devoted solely to delivering RV's for relocation. The people said they were delivering 75 new RV's the that day. Two bus loads of customers drove up while we were there.

The ads and reservation had both stated that the units would be between 19 and 23 ft long, and which unit would be determined when you picked the unit up. Ours was a 31 ft Mini Wini, Ford V10 chassis, 7 miles on the odometer here.

Rear bedroom, one slide (from the other side of the door to the drivers seat), with the table and couch. Head behind the door to the left and a good sized shower across from it. And a generator.

And that's not all of them.

Swapped the free upgrade for Mazda cross over in Des Moines, and then drove to Newton KOA (very nice). The smoke alarm went off in middle of night, Susan had a hard time waking me up. I walked around and everything was cool to the touch. Susan Googled for smoke alarms in new motor homes; it was cool that night and the furnace had been running. .

Friday 

Des Moines: We toured the Iowa state capitol. The highlight was the  three story law library done in hand carved wood! Interesting building, and free guided tours.

Then we drove back up to to Ames to seethe  Iowa State University Grant Woods murals. And a bonus mural in the post office,

Just north of Ames is Story City which has a carousel, so we drove up.

Saturday

We woke up to a rainy day. The lady next to us on the flight in mentioned that Des Moines has a great farmers market every Saturday morning. We drove downtown, parked and walked to some tents. Not many people, seemed to be setting up for something. Asked two people about the farmers market, They explained the farmers market was a couple of blocks away, we were in the Gay Pride Day celebration. Suz then explained that she wanted to see the fruits and.. she was going to say vegetables, but caught herself. We all had a good laugh after on them pointed at the other and said "the fruit is right there."

Des Moines also has a carousel, not a historic carousel, but still a very nice one.

Did I mention it rained?

Sunday

Tired of Des Moines so we decided to check out Newton. First find was the Newton Arts festival. Maybe 50 artists, some painters, some sculptors, one guy working in felt, several in glass:

And one working in metal welding, his setup involved some serious heavy lifting. The piece in the background is one of his, stainless steel and copper welded together and then polished. The picture doesn't do it justice.

After the art show we went downtown to take some pictures of murals. One of the murals was over the marquee of the theatre and when the owner saw Susan taking pictures he came out and offered a tour. He and his wife raised pot bellied pigs; and used one of them in marketing the theatre. The pig wasn't there when we were there though.

Monday: Chief Yellow Smoke State Park, IA

We left Newton in the morning, dropped the rental off at the Des Moines airport and went back north to see the Boone and Scenic Valley railroad. It was only an extra $5 to ride in the caboose, and we had it to ourselves. Ride was through the farm fields  and then over a river. Fun ride.

We hadn't reserved a camp for the night, we just headed west from Boone headed toward the Missouri River and the Loess hills. Late afternoon googling showed a nearby county park Yellow Smoke outside of Denison Iowa. The park was had several campgrounds, one down by the lake which had many campers, and an upper camp away from the lake, which we had to ourselves. There was not any place to turn the motorhome around, so we had to back out the way we came in; fortunately the unit had a backup camera.

Tuesday: South Sioux City, NE

Tuesday was spent driving on the Loess Hills scenic byway. Loess is ground rock flour that was left by the Missouri river after the ice ages, it is finer than sand and the prevailing winds have built a line of hills east of the Missouri flood plain. It is very fertile and historicaly it was prairie and scrub. Grazing and fire suppression have altered the flora to trees.

Our plan for the night was Stone State park in Sioux City. But after creeping up to it (watching over head branches -- another thing not covered by insurance) the campsites were dark and muddy. Go more googling led to us to Scenic Campground in South Sioux City, NE, a city park across the river from a paddle wheel casino and a Nebraska Welcome center in an old tugboat. We toured the tug the next morning. In the same park was a Lewis and Clark interpretive center. Well worth the several hours we spent there (includes and art museum.

Wednesday: Farm Island State Park, IA

For Wednesday night we had reservations at the KOA in Kennebec, SD. rWe had lunch in Yankton SD, then headed toward Kennebec, soon after leaving the Missouri the weather changed to thunderstorms and wind. By the time we got to Kennebec there were thunderstorm watches so we didn't stop but headed north towards Pierre. The weather improved and we found a convenient state park, Farm Island. It was a pleasant spot, down by the Missouri River (actually Lake Sharp).

In the morning we visited the state capitol with a self guided tour.

Thursday - Friday: Interior, SD

Thursday

Between Pierre and Rapid City is Wall Drug.

The one time we've been to Sturgis I spent half the day looking for Wall Drug.
We went to Rapid City to pick up a rental car. Then drove to Badlands National Park and a KOA just outside of Badlands.

Friday

This was our day for Badlands National Park: Great scenery, breaks with no vegetation and green grasses and shrubs on the flatlands.

Did I mention it rained?

Friday night a tremendous thunderstorm went through. We were camped in some cottonwoods in a rental motorhome whose insurance specifically mentioned hail as an act of god, with a new rental Suburu on which we had declined extra coverage. Radar now was glowing red just south of us, NOAA had weather warnings for "softball sized hail" about 5 miles south of our campground. We thought about packing up and leaving but that would mean leaving our only internet connection and hence our weather information. So we stayed and watched the lightning (almost continuous) and listened to the thunder and rain. Quite a night.

Saturday: Hot Springs, SD

So Saturday morning we loaded up and headed west, away from the weather -- we hoped. Made it to about Wall Drug before the rain started, and between there and Rapid City it poured, and blew. Driving a 31ft van through a 40mpg cross wind is a lot like trying to steer a turn a billboard. Suz was following in the Suburu, she wanted to pull off but didn't want to use the cell phone. Quite an exciting drive.

Visited the Mammoth Site 

Spent the night at the Hot Springs KOA. NOAA had hail ("golfball size) warnings SW South Dakota, so we spent the night checking RadarNow and NOAA. Went right over us this time, but hail never got very big.

Two tablets, one on RadarNow, one phone and one lightning detector glowing red. We did get hail, even some bigger; but no damage.

Did I mention it rained?

Sunday: Wind Cave National Park, SD

We left Hot Springs and took a drive up to Custer State Park. On the way we passed Wind Cave National Park and checked out the campground (among other things). The camp was very nice and not crowded so we got a space and then drove up to Custer. The wild life on the Wildlife Loop was a herd of wild burros. But people were stopping and feeding them, stupid. 

Then back to camp where we went to the ranger talk, the ranger was an author talking about literature and the Great Plains, Willa Cather, others, and the ranger's own writing; unusual for a park talk, but very interesting. 

Monday - Wednesday: Fort Robinson State Park, NE

Monday

Drove back to Rapid City, to visit the School of Mines geology museum.

This was the first of many natural history museums this summer, see next post.

Then we left South Dakota and Drove to Fort Robinson Nebraska, a significant part of our countries mistreatment of the native population, imprisonment and death -- Chief Crazy Horse was killed here while "resisting confinement." And they never mention how many others died there. It felt uneasy to see this treated as a recreational park and tourist attraction; it should be a memorial to those who died here.

Also a paleontology museum was there with a fossils of two mammoths that died in an epic struggle

And an explanation of another epic struggle

Wednesday - Friday: Central City, CO

Wednesday

After leaving Fort Robinson was stopped at Agate Beds National Monument, a site commemorating one settlers honorable treatment of the Lakota.

Then on to Laramie Wyoming for the state capitol

Then through Denver to Central City, the first place Susan and I visited on our first trip together.

We spent three nights at the KOA cleaning the motorhome, relaxing; and seeing our first marijuana store. Didn't even realize it, it was just a room in a liquor store/convenience store. One stop shopping I guess, booze, dope and Twinkies; bet you could have found a condom in there.

Then a drive to the Apollo agency to drop off the motorhome, as were about 25 other units. Then a flight to Las Vegas and a shuttle home.

Next...

next year we'll drop the rv off in Las Vegas and use it to explore Colorado -- less rain there. On more state capitol (or two if we go through Nebraska), some dinosaurs, and more time sitting on the side of the river watching the trees grow.