They’re Family!

 We’re in New Richmond, Wisconsin, in a city rv park that is part of a sports complex. There is a large lake adjacent to the park that is used by seaplanes. We hope to see some in the week we’re here!

Rv parks in this area are few and far between, so we’ve found that this park is the nicest one and closest to our family in Stillwater, Minnesota, about 20 minutes west, across the Saint Croix river. This is a bit of an annual visit, and we look forward to it each year. This year friends from Michigan will join us for a few days, so that will be an added bonus!

This first night we enjoyed pizza and drinks at Carboni’s in Stillwater. Donnas brother, Bill, his daughter and son-in-law, Cara and Bruce, joined us for a great time catching up!

We expect more good times!

Just a Short One

 Just a short 180 mile drive today, due north from Dubuque to the small town of Osseo, Wisconsin. Osseo derives from the Native American word “ossi”, meaning “stony place”, because of the rocky bluffs and stony ground in the area. Osseo, population about 2,000, lies at the junction of two branches of the Buffalo River and immediately alongside Interstate 94.

Our route took us on mostly two lane, quiet roads through more farmland than we could ever imagine!

Dancing through small farming towns, we tracked through Dickeyville and Potosi, Rockwell and Fenimore, following the Blues Highway, US61. Plugtown, Mt Zion, and Rolling Ground gave us some conversational input, and a sign offering guests a stay at the Three Witches Farm and Stable made us wonder…..

The Blues Highway gave way to the Purple Heart Memorial Highway, and eventually that morphed into the Citizen Soldier Highway, Wisconsin 27, which passes through Sparta, Wisconsin, and passed Sasha’s highlight, the Can Rover Come Over Kennel. 

We joined Interstate 94 at Black River Falls, and 30 miles later found ourselves in Stoney Creek RV Resort in Osseo. This is truly a resort destination, with daily activities, two pools, golf cart rentals and two restaurants. We’ve stayed here in the past and find the sites well spaced and easy to get into.

We’re in site 239, with room for Sasha to play ball!

We will enjoy a quiet overnight stay, and slide into New Richmond, Wisconsin tomorrow, our destination for a week.

Can You Smell It?

 Our first full day in Dubuque on this trip was almost a washout. Literally! We got up to a full on thunderstorm that lasted until early afternoon. It was time to do a little housekeeping, so we vacuumed and dusted and such. The rain was beating on the roof so hard that we couldn’t hear the vacuum! Midafternoon the storm took off to bother someone else, so we went into West Dubuque for an early dinner.

The Dubuque Mining Company took care of us very nicely!

Donna ordered a “kinda rueben”, which added pastrami to the burger.

And I went with the traditional mushroom version…

Which was a mouthful!

Sunday morning was much the same as Saturday. Heavy rain early.

But then it quit raining, so we jumped into the truck, looking for something different to do. Winding north through farmland, our first destination was the Balltown Overlook. On the way, we had an up close and personal visit with some extraordinarily beautiful farmland.

At the overlook, just a mile or so from the 100 resident hamlet of Balltown, we stopped to take a deep breath. You can smell corn growing!

Thats the Mississippi River in the far distance.

We soon found a part of the Great River Road that we hadn’t seen before, so off we went!

Near Turkey River, we found a sidelight that sounded interesting. Off we went two miles down a well maintained dirt road.

And we found the Cassville Ferry!

This ferry, which runs seven days a week, is the only available river crossing for miles, and has been used off and on for years. Here’s the story:

The journey takes about 20 minutes to cross a narrow channel in the Mississippi, and we had a chance to talk to some fellow travelers who had come north to escape Floridas summer heat.

Our landing was at a city park in Cassville, Wisconsin. We stopped for a look around.

Cassville is a cute little town with several restaurants and, inevitably, a dozen bars! We were getting hungry, but decided to head back south on the Wisconsin Great River Road, eventually crossing Ole Miss back into Dubuque.

We couldn’t wait any longer to eat, so…

Catfish Charlies restaurant is right on the river, and serves a spectacular variety of dishes, from ribeye steaks to oysters. Donna enjoyed a seafood platter and said it was great. 

N’awlins style Jambalaya was more to my liking, and yes, it was wonderful!

Just about half of those dishes came home with us, so we’ll have some good eats at out next stop tomorrow!

Deja Vu....All Over Again….

 Two hundred miles across Iowa taught us that corn and soybeans can indeed be grown in adjacent fields but the rows of corn are much neater.

Heading east on Interstate 80 toward Davenport, we had to make a stop at The Worlds Largest Truck Stop, the Iowa 80. This facility has anything a truck driver could want: fuel, tires, truck service, a place to rest, a dentist, a chiropractor, restaurants…..you get the picture, even a museum with a huge collection of antique trucks! We dropped in to the vast truck parking area to have lunch and walk Sasha.

I 80 led us into the northern outskirts of the Quad Cities, Davenport, Moline, Bettendorf and Rock Island. From there we turned onto US 61 north and found ourselves in Swiss Valley County Park, just a few miles from Dubuque, Iowa, the city on the Mississippi most famous for its meat processing history. Swiss Valley is an attractive park, both in terms of green lawns for games, to nicely spaced camping sites, to an ice cream truck that cruises through the campground, softly playing that famous melody, dit, dot, dit,dot, dot, dit, dit. We arrived early, to a sparsely populated campground and didn’t realize that it’s a weekend. By 6 pm the campground was full and the sounds of laughing and screaming children was everywhere! 

While it’s great to see families enjoying themselves, the “witching hour” of 9:30 pm arrived, all the young ones went to the evil side and then fell asleep! Good to hear!

Weather prediction is for rain tomorrow, so we’re see what we can do. Cleaning the trailer and doing laundry are on the list, so maybe…..

Middle America!

 The overnight stop at Loves truck stop in Cameron Missouri was ok, but we had to make a mad dash out of there this morning. Neither Donna or I got much sleep last night, what for worrying about a granddaughter that’s about to have a baby, and trying to soothe Sasha during a horrible storm. Sasha hates thunder and could not leave us alone for needing constant reassurance. We woke early this morning to news of another major thunderstorm, so we scrambled and got out of town, crossing into Iowa and outrunning the storm.

The countryside is dominated by by endless acres of corn and soybeans! It’s incredible!

As we cruised through Altoona, on the north side of Des Moines, we spotted a sign for one of our favorite restaurants! We’ve eaten here several times over the last few years, and it’s always been wonderful!

I 35 makes a slight jog in Des Moines before continuing north. We were supposed to bail off east on Interstate 80, but somehow missed that bit of information and stayed on 35.

The signs were perfectly clear, but I’ll blame it all on the gps app! So, another 15 miles north and then south, got us back on I 80, east.

A little town named Kellogg appeared on the horizon, with an rv park called…..Kellogg RV Park….we turned in. This little park is immaculately maintained, and claims a diner that has “the best burgers in Iowa.” Well, maybe…

The park itself is very well kept and is in the middle of a soybean field. Next year corn, they tell me.

Off in the distance a traditional farmhouse surveys the fields.

This is another overnight stay for us, with a short driving day tomorrow. Hopefully it’s a good nights rest!

Get the Dyrt Outta….Wichita

 The couple of days spent in Wichita were humbling….boring….frustrating, and we’re glad to be gone. There must be hundreds of places to visit while in the city, and more hundreds of restaurants and bars to sample, but we were unable to find them! We usually gravitate to Old Town since that area is renovated with good walking/shopping/eating, but in Wichita we couldn’t find a place to park King James downtown without walking a fair distance, a situation that wasn’t a good option considering that two old people don’t like hot weather!

We left Air Capital RV with a never before experienced destination in mind! 254 miles north on interstates 135, 35, 335, 70, 635, 29, and then back to 35 brought us to our destination: Loves truck stop in Cameron Missouri! 

Kansas is beautiful this year, rain has been plentiful and the corn is growing! The I35 corridor took us through cornfields, range land, and woodlots. Quite a variety!

Aside from filling up with discounted fuel, this Loves location offers a few rv overnight parking spots, with full utility hookups. 

Nothing fancy, mind you, but clean, concrete to park on, and a large grass dog park for Sasha! It’s just an overnighter so we haven’t disconnected the truck from the trailer and expect to leave reasonably early tomorrow morning. As we sit here, looking out the window, we’re having great fun commenting on the various cars, trucks, and rvs that are rolling through!

Simple minds….