Corn, Corn, Corn, more Corn, and....Dust

We left Stillwater, MN, yesterday morning at about 11:00 am after seeing Donnas brother, Bill, and his wife, Linda one last time for this visit.  They dropped by our rv park with boxes of pastries from one of the best markets in the area, Kowalski's.  We sampled sticky buns, lime drop cookies and biscotti, as well as scones and coffee cake.  What a send off!  After they left, we dried the tears and hitched up our drawers and hit the road.

A short section of freeway southeast of St. Paul got us to Hwy 52, which sent us south to Iowa.

The road went through about a million square miles of corn fields. The destination was Decorah, Iowa, a small midwestern town with a private college called Luther College, which has affiliations with the Lutheran Church.  The official school year starts on Tuesday after Labor Day, so there is going to be a lot of activity this weekend! As we got close to Decorah, we turned off Hwy 52 on 6 miles of side roads that were not necessarily Nessie friendly...the last mile or so was a one lane dirt/dust road that made us wonder what we were doing.  The people at Hutchinson Family Farm and Campground were waiting for us, however, with a friendly welcome and a wonderful place to park along the edges of a pasture that borders the Little Iowa River.  They run a small operation that caters to family and river activities.  In fact, a large group of families moved in next door and set up a "compound". We talked to them this morning and learned that they live a few hours away and are enjoying a long weekend together fishing and canoeing.

We took a short walk last night about dark, and enjoyed a firefly show.  The locals tell me that the heat has not been kind to fireflies, but now that it is supposed to cool off, they should be coming out in greater numbers.  In the field that we're parked in, the fireflies were thick in some areas, but not in others, so I'm interested in trying to find out what attracts them. The neighbors told us that if you squash a firefly and rub the juice on your hands or face, they will glow for 30 seconds or so.  Not going to try that....

This morning we took a drive into downtown Decorah. One of the first things we came across was a drive in that looked interesting....

Maybe we'll get there for lunch.  Downtown Decorah is pretty typical of midwestern towns, with a dash of college stirred in.  That got us to Java John's Coffee Shop so that we can use their wifi, as ATT is not user friendly in northeast Iowa. We will be mostly silent for the next four days until we can get back to "civilization", or as we get into Java John's. I suspect that we'll be going from air conditioner to air conditioner for the next few days, as it is very warm and "sticky" for us west-coasters.

Here's a shot of the main street.  We're contemplating a short walk until it gets too hot, then it's back to Nessie and the cool air.  The campground is providing 30 amp electricity, but it's not quite enough to operate all the ac units.  We're limping along on two at the moment, and cycling them every so often to minimize low voltage problems.

Until later...