Adventures are few and far between here in Altoona. Not that Altoona and Iowa don’t have adventures, it’s just that Gary and I are so busy getting ready to get out on the road. September 1 comes mighty fast this summer - much faster than in previous summers (ha, ha). We are still trying to clean up from the sale of our home and furniture and getting the RV ready to move that we’re behind the 8 ball here. The past and the future are the priorities, not the present. Yeah, yeah, I know - we’ve got to stop and smell the roses every now and then. And, we do. We attended the Iowa State Fair. We’ve also visited with our neighbors, Jo and John, in our townhome development who have also moved. Finally, we attended a pool party at our old townhome development.
Jo and John have moved to a Senior Living Center, called Scottish Rite in Des Moines, which John’s father designed and for which John, who is also an architect, designed the continuing care area. We went for lunch with them and had a marvelous time. Scottish Rite is not only on a hill but is also 13 stories tall. So, the views are tremendous.
This is the view of downtown Des Moines from the ‘penthouse’ on the 13th floor. I could sit on the deck and look at this view forever.
We also got an e-mail from our old townhome development (they must have forgotten to take us off the e-mail list) announcing a pool party for everyone. We called up and asked if we could come. When we sold our townhome, we had very little time to actually move so we didn’t have much time to go around to say good-bye to all our friends there. We just vanished. Here was our chance.
When we walked in, Dottie and Pauline, who were getting the room ready, dropped their jaws, smiled and welcomed us. They also felt that we had vanished. What a great time we all had and I got to take pictures of all of them for our memories.
Russ and his wife, Gene, have also moved out to a senior living apartment.
Meanwhile, we’ve been getting all of our dentist, doctor, optometrist visits out of the way until next year. Gary’s been spending time working on the ‘basement’ compartments to organize them and to see if he can find any more space. When we moved into this RV, in the parking lot of the dealer, he just put everything in as fast as he could. Now is the first time he’s had some time to organize. On the other hand, does this look like he’s organized?
He keeps saying something like having to break some eggs to make an omelet. On the other hand, several people have stopped by to offer him money for the things he has in his yard sale.
In the meantime I’m working on our travel plans. Gary teases me about wanting to have reservations for many of the places we go but, in the end, he’s happy that we have place to be at the end of the day. Of course, I also plan boondocking but, at least, I know what boondocking site we’re supposed to be at the end of the day, whether it’s BLM land or something from Escapee’s Day’s End or a Walmart lot, I like to know what we’re aiming for.
We try to walk about 4 miles a day and, often we find ourselves tooling around the campground. If we take every road at least once, we can get in about 2 miles. So, double that and we’re all set. The entry to the campground looks like a ranch out west, with a fence and an archway above.
There is a horse on either side of the gate to welcome us. This one looks like it’s had a bit more espresso this morning than I had.
The campground owners also have the regular kind of horses which she races at the local track. ‘No ‘darn’ good is somewhat how she describes their record this year.
We get beautiful views of the sunsets out of our front windshield at night.
And, that’s the way it goes. We’ve both got a case of hitch itch but have things to do before we can leave Iowa. One of them is getting a new roof on my brother’s home - but that’s another story.
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