North to Iowa, the roads were the worst!

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July 3
Today we’ve got a pretty long trip. Straight North out of Columbus to Amana Iowa. Originally we were going to stay near a lake at a Corp of Engineers park but it only had electricity and only 30 amp so only one air conditioner could run. It’s been so hot and miserable that without both air conditioners I think we’d be pretty unhappy so I canceled and we’ll be staying at the Amana colonies with full hook ups and 50 amp. We are staying 5 days to visit our niece, Angie & Dan. We dearly love them and didn’t make it out to see them as originally planned last October. We promised this summer so this will be our farthest point east of the trip from there we will turn west again. We got off fairly early, feeling good with the trailer having a new tire. The road east for 1/2 of it the trip was ok but the other 1/2 east was terrible with concrete highway and terrible potholes and seams that shake you to the core. Forget having a soda in the car, it’s flat in seconds, or running down your shirt from trying to drink as we hit a big bump. There was just no way I could maneuver to miss them as most holes ran the whole width of my lane!! We made about half way there on these back roads and were coming into a small community where I had to make a right turn. Just as I was making the turn the trailer wheels locked up and it was all the truck could do to pull it around the corner. I made it about 1/2 block around the corner and off the side of the road. Thank the lord there was plenty of room to pull off and not block traffic on a fairly busy road. David jumped out and found that all the bumps had snagged the safety chain on the trailer hitch pulling it which locked up the trailer brakes. This is a safety feature should the trailer become disconnected, which it hadn’t. David fixed the issue and we were so relieved that was all it was. David commented he would have to fix the safety chain tonight so it couldn’t do that again! Within about 15 minutes we were back on the road. The trailer seemed fine, but I’m sure we wore some brakes and rubber over that little event!

The backroads to Amana wound around every farm it seemed with a stop and left turn and then a stop and right turn. This seemed to go on for hours and none of this portion of the trip was good road. Just as we got in to Iowa with 20 miles to go the dark clouds we’d been seeing all day to the west opened up. As we drove down the road there was a clear line on the road were the rain was coming down so hard. When we got to that line it was like hitting a wall of water. I had to slow way down as the wipers couldn’t begin to keep up with that volume of rain. By the time we got to the RV park the rain was coming down but not hard like before. The host guided us to our spot on his golf cart, I’m sure he was soaked to the bone by the time we pulled in. It turns out he put us in the wrong spot, #14 instead of #15 which meant all the utilities except sewer were on the wrong side. We sat in the truck waiting for the rain to quit for about 15-20 minutes. We saw no reason to get soaked. It was about 4:30 when we finished getting unhooked and reached out to the office to let them know the host had put us in the wrong spot. The lady said yeah we know and you can move now or in the morning if you want. I didn’t say it but I thought, right, we are going to hook the truck up and disconnect the utilities to move 20 feet to the east! I don’t think so! In hind sight we should have but didn’t but that’s getting ahead of our story!

Once settled we notified our niece we’d arrived. They live in Cedar Rapids, about 20 miles away and this was as close a campground as we could find. Angie and Dan had just got off work and said they’d be down about 6:30 and we could go to the Amana colonies for dinner, 2 miles away. Tradition German restaurants are there and Dan and Angie were game to try a new place.

Angie and Dan arrived and we got all our hugs in right away. They got to meet Red and Dottie for the first time. We took the dogs for a short walk and then we all piled in Dan’s car for our trip to the Millstream Brau Haus. It’s a microbrewery and restaurant here in the Amana Colonies. Dan and David had cheese spatzle and macaroni with wieners and I had brats. Angie had some type of spatzle and we all had desert, creme pie or apple strudel. It was very good. We made it back to the trailer and visited for awhile. We’ve made our plans for the next few days to visit. Angie and Dan left for home and we headed for bed after a short dog walk. I was so tired from a rough day of driving I was dead to the world all night!

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Photos

Getting into the Amana Colonies, Amish country.
Rabbits!!

Our spot at the Amana RV Park!
Clear sky’s for the satellite!