I’s condensing 2 days into one blog here. But they are short. We drove up to Fort Dodge yesterday to see Jack. We all went out to Village Inn for breakfast, where we saw this cool sign.
Jack’s a great brother. I don’t know where he gets all his energy. He’s always got a project going and then finds time to do a garden, mow several neighbors’ lawns regularly, work on his neighbor's porch while working on his and then exercise a lot. We hate to say good-bye to him since he’s so much fun but he has an iPad now and we talk with him lots on the phone.
On the way home, I wanted some pictures of the quintessential Iowa countryside during harvest season. The corn fields are a sea of gold, the windmills tower above them and the farmers are out harvesting.
We saw this farmer out with his combine. I took several pictures of his combining down the rows and then went to the car which Gary had parked at the side of the road. The guy then stopped, got out and began to walk towards the car. I hastily got out to talk with him. He wanted to know why I was taking pictures of him. Ooh. I calmed him and just told him that I wanted some pictures of Iowa before we left for the south. Whew. But - what in the world was he worried about?
Hey, did you see that cool eclipse the other night? We sure did. The TV stations mentioned it several times so we were all prepped. We went out several times during it and I took pictures each time. Funny - we didn’t see many others out watching. 2 of our neighbors were out when we were but not many others. Cathy, Gary’s sister said the same thing: that she and Tom were out but that not many of their neighbors were. What a show they missed.
We began our day today with a great breakfast with Cathy, Gary’s sister, at a new restaurant in Ankeny. Sort of like a bistro with cool jazz in the background. Unlimited coffee, very nice cinnamon rolls, and good choices for breakfast. We had the scrambled eggs on flatbread the first time we stopped here but had the scramble skillet this time. (I hear from others that the cinnamon bread French toast is absolutely scrumptious.) But the best part was the conversation. We sat there for about 2 hours covering many topics and could have spent more. But, all of us had others things to do and had so split up. We love to travel but we hate to leave and this was one of those times. We won’t see our Iowa relatives and friends until next September when we get back.
We had some errands to run - one of them was to get some money. Certainly comes in handy. We also needed some groceries. Then we went to the Des Moines library to finish a new update on our computers. We began this update on my brother’s system. He has cable so also gets unlimited wi-fi and is it ever fast. We have a Jetpak through Verizon and, though it works well most times, it is not comparable to wi-fi coming from Mediacom cable. Unfortunately we only got about 2/3 done at Jack’s and had a bit more to do.
The library - closed. We then headed to Ankeny and - their wi-fi was so slow (or they clamped down on downloads) and we decided to wait until we got to Mesa where we will have some time to finish it.
As we were driving back to the campground along the Interstate, Gary saw a white rock heading our way and here’s the result. Just what we need right before we take off. But, we called the insurance company, they gave us a name and he was right out to fix it.
We had dinner with Shirley and Jerry at the Brick Street Restaurant in Bondurant. I’ve mentioned this spot before: we 4 ate breakfast once and Gary and I stopped for ice cream cones once. Very nice addition to Bondurant and we’ve found it full every time we’ve been there. Of course this time the attraction was the breaded tenderloin sandwiches that they specialize in. Gotta have a breaded tenderloin before we leave Iowa since there are precious few places outside of Iowa which serve them. I had the sweet potato fries with the sandwich. Interesting, they take a perfectly good nutritious vegetable and fry it up. Hmmm.
Shirley and Jerry are also full-time RV’ers and leave about 3 days after we do. They are headed to Missouri where they will visit their 1 year-old grandson, Ethan. Oh, yeah, they’ll also visit their son and daughter-in-law. Can’t forget them. Then they head further south - avoiding the winter like we do.
Back to the RV to begin the process of leaving. We want an early start so wanted to get as much done today as possible.
Now, just a few pictures from our favorite Iowa campground.
Pretty cool campground and we like our stays here. Must be why we’ve already reserved our time for next summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment