Running Southwest

We survived our visit with the grandchildren... now it is time for them to get back to school.

Heading southwest we chose to visit a few more Corp of Engineering (C.o.E.) campgrounds. Our first stop was C.o.E. was at Highland 

Ridge, Spring Valley, Wisconsin. The campground was not near a lake, like they usually are. It was very quiet, even on Labor Day weekend. As you can see, it was very shaded... and not so good for WiFi. 
With very little WiFi we spent some time outside by a fire, and walking around the loop. I took a longer hike one day that took me down part of the horse trail. This campground has an interaction center that visitors can rent for functions.

We did take a drive one afternoon to seek out cheese... it is Wisconsin...right? Not far from the campground is the Cady Cheese Shop.

They had a large variety of cheeses, so we picked up roasted garlic jack cheese, bacon and onion Colby, and cranberry chipotle jack. The nacho cheese silo is only a joke, I am not sure what they contain. One thing I am learning about places that sell cheese around here... they sell ice cream too... something to do with milk I think.

These little guys were very noisy hitting the roof, this particular one worked its way into the truck. As if these guys weren't enough... the squirrels were throwing their leftovers at us too. Before we headed out to our next stop in Iowa, I had to sweep the slide roofs off to get them closed without bring junk coming in from the outside.

We made it out of Wisconsin, through Minnesota, to Iowa for our next stop. 

Our next stop was a private campground, R Campground. 

Looking a the campground map I was beginning to wonder if I made the right choice, but once we got there I was relieved, the park was bigger than the non-scale map. 

Most of the sites have a view of the river, some have a view of the river and pond. As you can see, we were not threatened by any trees.

You would not know there is a campground if it weren't for the sign, that's because the park is behind a little mini-mart liquor store.

The days were nice enough to take walks around the park, and one morning I took a longer walk through the area.

This bridge over the Cedar River is part of a walking path through town. I was able to access the path from the campground... I'm loose again for awhile. The path took me to one of the town's main streets in the area, and from there it took me past a river park. The length of the walk was probably close to three or four miles.

The riverfront park was fun to walk, with several sculptures to catch one's eye, like these partially buried bicycles. Another morning I took a walk past their high school and practice field... which are several blocks apart. 

Its kind of funny where we ended up. On our way up to Wisconsin we spent a week at Sugar Bottom C.o.E. campground. During my time to plan our trip to Arizona, I unintentionally chose a C.o.E. campground on the same lake as Sugar Bottom.

The other side of the lake was a tad different from Sugar Bottom, which did not have trees at our site.

One nice thing this time... we had a

welcome party... and I thought ground hogs only told us winter was over or not. This little guy loved the area around the tree that hung over our site. This was a nice park, and our site was within walking distance of the lake and dam.

Remember the trees I just mentioned... they were not our friend... they were the devil in disguise.

These little bombs were in abundance, and it didn't make a difference what the weather was. After the first night of acorn bombardment by the trees, I needed to come up with some kind of remedy for any decent night sleep. My remedy:

I created the "acorn suppression device". I took some insulation material and gutter batting to create a buffer from the falling acorn bombs... it worked pretty good, the noise was deadened so that we could sleep.

Boy, I tell you, these Iowans are football fans. This campground is in Iowa City, home of the Hawkeyes. This place filled up for the weekend college games, and was empty the next day after the game.

Carol and I went for a walk one day and big brother was in the sky:

This is one of those fans with a seat and parachute. 

When Carol and I were staying at Sugar Bottom we drove over to this side of the lake to see the dam, not realizing that I had made reservations at the campground... which we did not visit when we visited the dam.

Here was a first for us:

This is a Costco with inside parking. There was a fair amount of inside stuff, as well as some outside. This Costco also has a gas station, but not for us, no diesel.

We did head out on a one day trip while staying here. Last time we were in the area we did not get to the Amana Colonies. It was not what I had envisioned, it was a group of little communities under the name of Amana. The colony was formed by German immigrants back in the late 1800s. There were/are five communities with in the colony, each one was self sufficient. Today the main community of Amana is a lot of the older buildings, filled with businesses. Have no fear, we did spend money in support of the colonies. We hit our usual places... chocolate shop (didn't buy anything), popcorn shop (didn't buy anything), a couple of winery shops($$$), meat market ($$$), and the brew house in town, for lunch.

The menu was different at the brew house, and the beers and cider were very good.

I had a Rueben burger, basically a Rueben sandwich with a hamburger patty... I chose to have it without the pretzel bun. Carol had a Hawaiian style, hamburger patty with ham and pineapple on top... no bun. We both opt'd for the German fries instead... and here's why... they were potato cubes with apple cider vinegar, parmesan, and bacon. Carol had a flight of their beers and ciders, I myself stayed with a hard cider called Cherry Poppins. A couple of refreshments that stood out to me were the Cherry Poppins, a cherry rhubarb hard cider, and Pants Off Dance Off, a pistachio cream ale. One of the other beers we both enjoyed was a raspberry latte stout (for the non-beer drinker, this is a heavy dark beer). 

From lunch we headed over to the meat market; they have their own smokehouse that visitors can view the smoking/curing process.

After trying some of their beers, we did decide to go over to the brewery itself, to pick up several six-packs of our favorites choices. 

Here is why we drink beer:

For those that cannot read it, it says: Beer... because you can't drink bacon.

Here are a couple of oddities in the area, one in a field, the other in some ones yard.

PEACE SIGN

WOODEN NICKEL

It appeared that they carved the peace sign at the top of a dead tree; the wooden nickel is about nine feet in diameter.

After the bombarding of acorns, it was time to prepare to move on to our next, and final, spot in Iowa.

ON THE ROAD... ON THE ROAD... ON THE ROAD

This was our site at Whitebreast C.o.E., at Red Rock Lake, outside of Knoxville, Iowa. The area was nice, and it was quiet. Driving through Knoxville, on our way to the campground we passed the Sprint Car Museum and Hall of Fame, and a BBQ spot.

The next day after we settled in, we headed out to the museum, and for the price, it was a fun day trip. 

The museum and Hall of Fame is next door to the Knoxville Raceway, at the fairgrounds.

The museum has many sprint cars on display, as well as some history on each one. As visitors walk through the museum on the first floor, they see the progression of the sprint cars world. The early sprint cars were not as fast as the more modern cars with their wings atop the car. It was quite interesting to learn that at one time one of the cars was racing with a wing that had a area of 36 sq ft.

Later new rules came out reducing the total area for a wing to 25 sq ft. Think about the tires on your car for a minute, then think about them on steroids... this is what you would probably have:

Imagine running 20 inch wide tires on the rear of your car or truck. 

I found myself with the opportunity to be in the shoes of a sprint car driver, thanks to the museum.

I am not a little guy by any means... and not just weight. The seat is a very rigid seat, with support at the rib area. A lot of the newer cars have more support on the right side of the cockpit area, because of the centrifugal forces pushing the driver to the right during all those left turns.

These cars were best, and now honor the drivers and owners who were involved with them. I was a bit surprised to see that women were driving these cars as well. The museum showcases two such women, Deb Snyder, and Cheryl Glass.

The second floor of the museum is the theatre, Hall of Fame, and a view of the race track.

Back down stairs we can look at a couple of other objects of interest. In several areas they display the dirt from all the dirt tracks around the country.

This is just one of the displays of dirt, broken down by state. I find it amazing how the dirt texture varies track to track, and state to state, and even the same state.

Nice sculpture, right. What do you think it is made from... rock, wood, or metal? this sculpture is made from soap stone. The color variation is natural in the soap stone.

Here is one for the fan of multiple sports...

This is Andy Brown, a sprint car racer (1970)... who was one of the last hockey goalies to play with a mask (1974).

After our walk through the museum, we headed over to another piece of the property... we enter the Rib Shack. We are firm believers of supporting the local food alliance, and the food was very good, with reasonable prices. From lunch we headed back to the campground.

We got back to the campground to find out that we had lost  electricity while we were gone. I took a drive back up to the main gate, and spoke with the park attendant and learned that the campground had a catastrophic electrical short in the high voltage lines to the portion of the campground we were in. We were ok, in the sense of power, we have a generator. When the ranger came around, we were given options of either moving to the area that still had power, or waiting it out, which meant no power until after the weekend. That wait meant Thursday evening to Monday morning.

Lets get back to nature while we are still at Whitebreast. 

When Carol and I first noticed them, I swore they were some of the biggest mosquitos we had seen yet. For you folks that were raised in the Midwest... stop laughing. Us children of California have never seen these insects. These bugs are called Midges, and i the case of these insects, they are non-biting. Some say they are the longest living flies.

Carol and I slept on it for a night,  listened to the rain the next morning, and decided to see if we could find somewhere else, instead of toughing out on generator. I went online and checked to see if there was space available at our next stop... and there was... so off we went. See you at the next stop.