Charles City, Iowa-R Campground

APRIL 24-MAY 01, 2016

This week returned to Iowa to visit one of my very best childhood friends, Tracy and her family. It was a little out of our path but worth it nonetheless.

We spent most of the time just hanging out together in the evenings after everyone was off from work. We enjoyed seeing all of their animals and participating in some of the chase of the two week old calf.

The weather turned cold then cold and rainy so our outdoor activities were quite limited which is very disappointing because Charles City has a hike/bike path that we can get on at the campground and it runs alongside the Charles River through some very pretty parks. Greg was able to take a walk one day but I never got to ride the loop around as I hoped.

We stayed in the same campground as before, R Campground which is actually quite pretty in the back and on the river.

And one night the weather was okay enough for us to hang out there.

(Jordan is trying to lure Brooke out of the car with candy)

This year, we checked out the Floyd County Historical Museum.  I was so surprised how much was in this place!  The outside did not seem that large but we kept finding more and more to look at.  

The kids loved all the tractors especially because they could climb up on them!

(This is a Hart-Parr 20-40 built around 1914)

And I thought this reconstruction of Legel's Drug Store was pretty cool.  It is "one of the largest and most complete drug store collections in the world."

On the weekend we went to the World's Largest Garage Sale (at least that's the name of it) and wandered around looking for some deals. We found some books, videos and a couple of RV goods. Perfect for a cold and rainy day!

Then we went to Chuck E Cheese to play some games.

We had a great time with out friends and as always the time goes by waaaaayyyyy too fast! Looking forward to when we see them again.

But for now, we are heading to the Badlands!

Papillion/Omaha, Nebraska (State #34)-Walnut Creek Recreation Area

APRIL 17-24, 2016

This week we stayed at Walnut Creek Recreation Area in Papillion, Nebraska on the outskirts of Omaha. It was a small but pretty campground. Sites were only $17 per night but there were no water or sewer hook-ups. But since we carry a lot of hose after a similar situation our first year, we had no problems with getting water refilled at a spigot a site over.  The sites were spaced well and had pretty green grass and trees. The view from our site was pretty nice too. 

And the playground was directly across from us.

We did not do as many outings this week as the past few weeks but that's okay because I had some errands to do and was happy to have a little break. But the bad news is that somewhere between Kansas and Nebraska one of the leaf springs on the trailer broke and damaged a tire and broke the brake line. AND since the part available was a 5 leaf spring instead of the 4 leaf spring we had, it meant changing out all 4. 

I am so glad that we did not have another blowout. And we are so lucky that Greg is able to make these repairs himself because having to put our home in the shop creates a whole other layer of difficulty. The downside though is that it meant that EVERY evening after work, he had to work on repairing the RV. Of course, the first leaf spring to change was the most difficult and each one after that was easier but replacing the brake wire wasn't simple and he ended up needing to replace the whole brake assembly. Fortunately, he completed most of the work by Thursday so that he only had one more small thing to do on Friday, which was his birthday! So we were able to make it out to dinner but the poor guy worked so hard this week!

So here's what we checked out around town:

Our first outing was to Rotella's Bakery for a tour.  It smelled so delicious!

We donned beautiful red hair nets ;) and headed in. It was just as you imagine a tour to be with all of the ovens and conveyor belts. The tour was done in reverse order which I thought unusual but still fun nonetheless. At the end, we were each given a loaf of bread and a big bag of breadsticks. Then we bought a few more bread items in their retail store, so we got all of this bread for $3! And at the end of the week, we still have more than enough bread! Ha ha

Our second and VERY fun trip was to the little town of Murdock.

There, the kids attended “school”. The Murdock Historical Society converted an old 1906 high school gymnasium into the 1890s schoolhouse. The school offers a 3-hour or 5-hour school day so that children can experience what it was like to attend school in that time period. In preparation, the children are to learn the pledge of allegiance (from 1890s), memorize a poem to recite (which we did not do due to time constraints), and dress and bring a lunch appropriate for that time period.

They are also expected to behave as children would have back then-Do not speak unless called upon and stand when speaking.

Jacob was a little leary as usual but Jordan just loved it. They read with the teacher, worked on spelling and math, recited a poem, played recess games and worked on their handwriting with a dip pen.

It was great! It would have been better had their been other students that day but we are so grateful that they would accommodate our small “group”and it was only $5 per student!

Our final outing was to the Henry Doorly Omaha Zoo as a family. We had heard that this zoo was amazing and so we were stoked to see what the hype was about. The first section we went to was the desert dome. It was quite impressive indeed. Everything felt so close up and open. They have done an incredible job! 

And beneath the desert area was a section called Kingdoms of the Night which is the world's largest nocturnal exhibit. The swamp section was really cool. You walked along a boardwalk through gar, alligators, nutria and beaver. Everything was right there!

Sadly, though, my excitement mostly disappeared after that. This “World's Best Zoo” is undergoing a major renovation. It WILL be totally awesome but it wasn't when we visited. MANY of the big animals were not on display and no one informed us that we would't see any animals when we purchased tickets for the Skyfari gondolas and the train. So I was a little put off by that especially after we already paid full price for tickets.

Overall, we still had a very good time.  We giggled a lot watching the very playful orangutans and enjoyed seeing the animals that we did.  

Once the renovations are completed, it will be top notch. So I guess Nebraska makes it on our list of places we have to return to!!

Charles City, IA is our next stop!

Hutchinson/Lawrence, Kansas (State #33)-Clinton State Park

APRIL 10-17, 2016

(Disclaimer:  I don't know why the font is so crazy in this one but after trying to figure it out I decided to just let it go and move on!)

I must admit that I never cared whether or not we went to Kansas. Not sure why really but probably because everyone has said there is not much there. So I am happy to report that we found plenty to do and saw some very nice areas.

Our first stop in Kansas was the Strataca Salt Mine in Hutchinson. This mine produces salt primarily for de-icing roads (Morton Salt is in the same area but they mine salt differently).

We have been on one mine tour before and this was sooo much better (although we did like the other one too). We went down 600 ft in a DARK elevator to the mine museum. There we did some self-guided learning by reading displays, checking out old equipment and watching videos. 

Then we took a tram tour and a train tour. It was very interesting and informative!

We stayed overnight at the Kansas State Fairgrounds. For $20 we had 50 amp electrical with sewer hookups! Of course we had to check out the Kansas Barbecue at Hog Wild. The brisket was great but I didn't love the sausage.

The next morning, we went to the Cosmosphere (free with museum membership). According to wikipedia, it “houses the largest combined collection of US and Russian spaceflight artifacts in the world.” We learned a lot about the V1 and V2 buzz bombs from Hitler's time, the space race between the soviets and the US and saw many other interesting items.

They have a SR-71 blackbird suspended from the ceiling in their lobby and it is low enough to touch!!

This rocket-sled was pretty interesting. The US used It to test G-forces. In 1957, a chimpanzee was tested at 1326 mph!  And yes, he survived.

We even got to touch portions of the orginal German wall.

The museum was nice but I will say that the kids did not enjoy it much. It wasn't quite interactive enough for them. The good news though is that it appears from their website that there are plans in place to update it for that.

We then drove to Manhattan, Kansas through the pretty hills to the Flint Hills Discovery Center (also free with our museum pass). We watched a video on the Flint Hills Ecosystem then checked out their great interactive exhibits. In addition to learning about the Flint Hills, the kids tried their hand at Auctioneering and designing cattle brands.

Their favorite part however, was a traveling exhibit about how things are made. We did wax molding, made spoons by injection molding,

ran pennies through a rolling mill,

assembled a car

and learned about vacuum forming.

They also had rolling videos on coin making and wagon making. VERY cool!!

After Manhattan, we headed to Lawrence, KS where we would set up camp at Clinton State Park for the rest of the week.

In Bonner Springs, the kids and I visited the Moon Marble Company. We watched a live demonstration on marble making. It was pretty amazing how just dots of glass added to the outside could become swirls and beautiful designs on the inside.

These were so pretty!

In Lawrence, we visited the Reuter Organ Company for a tour. Next year, this company will celebrate its 100th anniversary! Our tour guide was great and showed us so much of the factory. We learned how they make their own metal, shape their pipes, design their organs and do all of the woodworking. We also learned a little more about the shapes and components of the pipes needed to create their sounds. 

We also go to go into the “voicing” room where they test all of the sounds out. I had no idea there are over 2000 pipes in a pipe organ (since each instrument needs 61 pipes)!  The one negative about this tour though was that much of it was just an explanation of what they rather than seeing them actually do it.

Next, we made the short drive to Topeka to visit the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. It is located in Monroe Elementary School where Linda Brown attended school. We viewed many of the videos and displays, completed the Junior Ranger Booklet for our badge then played a little while in the recreated Kindergarten room.

On the weekend, we drove to Kansas City. We checked out a few areas of town and then we had to eat at the famous Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que. We had the Z-man which Zagat rated as the best sandwich in Kansas in it's 50 states, 50 sandwiches list.

Greg loved it. Jacob and I preferred the sandwich at Hog Wild, although this one was pretty good.

From there, we took a tour at Boulevard Brewery. It was a free tour as long as you got there at 10 am to grab some tickets. The tour guide was great, informative and humorous. At the end, you get tokens for 4 small beers to try them out. I do not like beer so I thought they were beyond GROSS but Greg said they were pretty good. His favorite was the unfiltered wheat.

We also found a cute little hamburger place called Fritz where your food is delivered by a train.  The kids loved it!  The train travels on a track overhead with your bin of food.  When it reaches your table a bar extends to knock the bin on a tray which is then lowered to your table.

My post would not be complete without reviewing the campground (Clinton State Park). It's April, so not really in season for Kansas yet but I suspect it's a pretty fun place during the summer. The whole park is quite large with over 400 RV sites. Our site was right by a great little playground. It's on the lake but its' view was mostly obstructed by trees. 

We were surprised at the number of Annual residents throughout the park, which we haven't typically seen in state parks. There were no full hook-up sites so we were off to the shower houses which seemed to be few for the number of sites. It was fine though and had plenty of hot water.

From here, we are heading to Nebraska.