Altoona, IA - The Auntie Adventure

Here’s a frightening sight for any RV’er. It’s a large tow truck from Hanifen, a tow company in Des Moines. Who wants to see one of these in front of their RV? Certainly, not me.

But let me start at the beginning. The adventure of the day is traveling with Cathy, my sister-in-law, and Gary’s aunt Darlene to visit another aunt, Marylee, in Boone, Ia. about 1 hour away. Darlene and I are to meet at Cathy’s and go from there. Between Cathy’s home and ours is a 12’ 1” bridge, pretty low for us in 12’ 7” RV’s. There are signs on either side of the bridge giving you enough time to turn off onto the entrance ramp to the highway over it. However, there is a slight rise between the sign and the entrance ramp which make it hard to see this entrance ramp.

As I approached this bridge in my Jeep, I saw a line of 10 cars waiting to get through a single lane of traffic. In front of this line of cars and to the left were brinking red and blue lights and off to the right, perpendicular to the road was a 45’ RV on an upward slant into a driveway. Looks like the driver of the RV had seen the low bridge sign, had not seen the entrance ramp and had turned into the first driveway that he or she could, an uphill slant. That’s when it scraped its rear end and was hung up between the driveway and the road, blocking one lane of traffic. Ouch.

And, that’s where Hanifen came in. If you’re in central Iowa and have something big that needs towing, you call Hanifen.

If there's something weird

and it don't look good

Who you gonna call?

Ghostbusters!

It looks as someone is having a bad day and called Hanifen.

I got to Cathy’s house and we all toodled off up to Aunt Marylee’s farm. The trip was full of chatter about family and was lots of fun and the visit with Marylee was also. They are both in their 80’s, lively and full of laughter with stories about growing up in a house with 11 kids and 3 bedrooms. Who stole whose ‘hairpins’ and sweaters? Seems that they both accused the other of this. And, have I heard this story before? Sure, but it was still funny.

Then it was time for lunch and Marylee showed us that she still knew how to feed the farm hands.

Maid-rites, fresh corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes straight from her garden, fruit salad, potato salad, cranberry lemonade and, if that all was not enough, she then brought out these homemade tarts: peach, apple, rhubarb and cherry. Of course, none of us could choose what flavor to have so she cut them in half and we all got two favors. Did anyone say ala mode?

Wowsa, wowsa, looks like a small salad for dinner tonight. She also had a large baggie of beans she had just picked and a plastic container of 9 tomatoes for each of us. Oh, the joys of Iowa in the summer. And that was the Auntie Adventure. Just like I said - making mountains out of molehills.

Marylee just got done painting a small shed on her farm.

Then it was time to head down the driveway towards home.

On another topic, have you seen the story about 2 New Yorkers living in a 325 sq ft micro-apartment in the Museum of New York? They think that 24 hours in this exceptionally small space is an amazing feat and have specially designed furniture to make this ‘small’ space livable. But I’m thinking this smacks of elitism. Why do they think that 325 sq ft is so amazing? Don’t they realize that there are many people who cannot afford any more than 325 sq ft? Do they not realize that there are many people who chose to live in smaller homes? Don’t they know anyting about full-timing in an RV? Do they need to get out of New York and see the rest of the world?