Although we only spent a month in Kentucky this place really grew on us, of all the places we've been it reminded me the most of home. We had family visit us there and checked some things off the bucket list. We visited Mammoth cave and took a night tour with lanterns as our only light source. It really made it seem authentic and made you experience it the same way the first people who discovered the cave did. We saw a music legend Charlie Daniels at a legendary venue The Grand Ole Opry. Jenny's dad took us on a tour of Ft. Campbell where he was stationed before going to Vietnam. We visited our good friend Jim Beam's home to see how his wonderful product is made and went to the coolest farm/orchard I've ever been to. We will miss Bowling Green but unfortunately it gets too cold here in the winter for us, so it's off to Florida we go.
Summer is winding to a close and we are moving on to warmer climates. Our time in Volo was fun and we did some amazing things in Chicago. Fish Lake Beach was an awesome campground and it was great visiting my coworker of many years whom I had never met in person. All in all it was a busy summer and although we enjoyed the stay, there are just too many people near Chicago for my liking. The campground we stayed at was really neat but the there were a few things we didn't like. The water was well water and smelled like rotten eggs. After a couple of different filters and about a month of stinky water we finally had to start chlorinating just so we could take showers. The campground did have a lot of amenities. A private lake with a beautiful sandy beach, paddle boats, miniature golf, an arcade and swimming pool/hot tub were just a few. We met some great neighbors and tried some interesting activities that were new to us. Chicago is definitely a cool city and something I'm glad we got to see. Downtown is really impressive and gives you a sense of awe looking up at those towering buildings all around you. Jenny was the only one who had the nerve to stand on the outlook in the Sears tower 104 stories up. The Wisconsin Dells were a blast. I would compare it to the Las Vegas of the midwest for kids, there are tons of things to spend money on. It was a good place to visit but we had to get out of there before we started pawning stuff. I want to thank my friend Bob for recommending this campground. If you are ever in northern Illinois I recommend this as well. We have been here about a month now and it has been a blast. They have events almost daily with a dance/party virtually every weekend. Lakefront campground with fishing, paddle boats, an arcade and nice big pool. The kids have made a great friend here named Caleb (Bob's grandson) and they have been having sleepovers and tons of fun in general. We had a great barbecue and we've seen many interesting things in the area. We are planning a trip into Chicago soon and I'm sure that will be pretty awesome. We're also planning a trip to the Wisconsin Dells to the biggest water park in the country! Well hopefully we just got past the scariest part of our trip but I guess we'll see... We came very close to our journey ending in the last couple of days. We have been staying at a beautiful park with a river running through it that apparently spills over it's banks and floods occasionally. The Friday morning before we were planning to leave for Illinois we were awoken to the sounds of tornado sirens. Oh great another thunderstorm (one of many, many storms over the past weeks) we better get out of our trailer and head to a safer place we thought. So we woke the kids grabbed the dogs and headed for my sister-in-laws. After a few hours the rain had subsided so I decided to head back to the trailer to grab a few things like my phone charger and some other stuff we forgot in the rush of leaving that morning. When I pulled into the park this is the sight that greeted me. By the time I got back to the park and saw what was happening, it was too late. The fire department was not letting anyone else in and the fate of our home was left to chance. I left to give the bad news to Jenny, after dinner we returned to find the water had risen another 6-8 feet. We went to bed that night with the certainty that our trip was over and that we would be heading home with our heads hung low. We spent the night at Melanny's talking about insurance claims and replacing our belongings. We returned in the morning to survey the damage, unfortunately my attempt to reach the trailer by boat was too dangerous due to the current, so we had to wait another agonizing day for the water to recede some more. On the second day we were able to wade in and the water was dropping rapidly. To our utter amazement the trailer was not flooded. There were many others who were not so lucky...probably 3-4 trailers and several vehicles were a total loss. We happened to be parked on the highest spot in the park, had we been in any other site we would have lost our house on wheels.
It was a long day in the mud trying to get everything cleaned up and ready to pull our trailer out of the park but we were so happy we still had a trailer it was a fun day all in all. If/when we return to Iowa we will not be staying at this park. There is nothing more exciting than being near family after a long stretch on the road. We had plans to spend May and June in Iowa visiting my sister. The kids were anxious to see their cousins and spend time together. As we passed the Iowa state sign I snapped a picture to text my sister, announcing our arrival. The usual euphoria ensued and we found ourselves all gathered together in the RV drinking wine and catching up. We were excited to meet my sister's new boyfriend, Daren, who she had been seeing since last year. He fit into the group like a dream and the next couple months found all of us inseparable. If we weren't hanging out at my sister Melanny's place, then we were gathered at the RV park in Story City having a camp-out. There was a Renaissance Festival, geo-caching up and down the Iowa countryside, an epic water balloon war, floating tubes down the Skunk River, catching enormous minnows, movie nights, and Bridges of Madison County. The fun didn't stop. Whenever you're having too much fun there is always someone there to dampen your good time and rain on your parade. In this case the rain was entirely to literal. Because it rained and rained. Mother's Day found us holed up in a stairwell at my sister's place as the tornado sirens went off. Luckily it was short lived and we returned to our festivities after the warning sirens ceased. Something Iowans may be used to, but I am not. I quickly came to realize that as a native to Utah I had no idea what a rainstorm really was. I used to scoff at movies that made it look like a shower faucet had been turned on in the sky. I found out that those scenes were way more accurate than I ever believed possible. The foreboding clouds would sneak up on our pleasant afternoon and we would be drenched with a downpour that made us feel like a quarterback who just won the Superbowl. I have never been one to carry an umbrella. I love standing in the rain. The energy in the air is invigorating and I think so few people take the time to really enjoy the magnificence and power of a really good thunderstorm. A small piece of advice. When in Iowa do as the Iowa'ans do and get yourself a good umbrella. The best part of staying in the same area for a few months at a time is having the opportunity to really feel like a local. Finding the little niche things that you like about an area, especially when it comes to food. Some of our favorites were surprisingly from the local Casey's convenience stores which offers fabulous taco pizza and scotcharoos (think rice crispy treats but peanut butter with chocolate topping).
Having a sister who lives there was definitely advantageous as we gorged ourselves on fabulous Thai food and other local cuisine like Hickory Park BBQ. Daren gets the best midnight snack award with gyros outside the local bar made fresh street-side, yum. The strangest by far was Oddfellows, owned by a friend of Daren, which served your burger up on a pair of doughnuts or slathered with peanut butter. When you're six and ten leaving home to travel miles away from family and friends seems like a devastating proposition. For the boys embracing a nomadic lifestyle also meant a few unexpected perks along the way. Like meeting kids they've developed friendships with online. We made a point to travel through Ft. Worth with the sole intention of stopping to see Tre in his home town. We made arrangements to meet him and his dad at a local park. We finally arrived after being sent on a bit of a goose chase by our trusted friend Siri. None of us knew that the city was holding a festival in the park. The whole area was fenced off so they could set up for the event. Tre's Dad had a mature look about him and I was a bit surprised when he suggested walking through the opening in the foreboding fence anyway. He had that cool attitude of someone who likes to challenge the rules. That "what are they going to do" mentality. So our little troop marched all the way through the park and up to the playground. No one interfered with our procession so we figured we were in the clear. The kids ran off to play and we settled in to the benches. Not long after settling in we were approached by security for the event. I went into my usual "oh really, I didn't realize" mode of explanation. Tre's Dad had a much different approach, however, and I sheepishly have to admit that I respected his candor. To my utter astonishment he told security we saw the signs and decided to see if we could get away with it anyway. Obviously the security guards are not going to have you arrested for this infraction, but I guess it never occurred to be to be so blatantly forthright. What occurred next was a long escort to our entry point, so that security could close up the breach. I teased the kids on the way out. Telling them to hurry up before they decided to lock us in for good. Now it was our group of six standing around our vehicles in a grove of trees. No more playground to entertain the kids. Luckily being mobile has it's advantages. We carry a tote full of the kids water guns and happened to have a two gallon water jug with a spigot. All the kids were Call of Duty fans so for the next thirty minutes to an hour they entertained themselves with an all out water gun war. Tre's Dad even got in on the action. It was a great adventure and one the boys will not forget. Saying goodbye is never easy. I imagine saying goodbye in Rockport to six year old Evan and ten year old Tanner was second only to leaving the only home they knew in Hooper, Ut. Rockport was our first home away from home and the boys had settled into the new routine with all the agility and ease that young boys do. Making a new friend almost immediately, Ethan became a fast and well welcomed fixture in the boys' room. Laughing, fighting, and playing through the days in the back of the RV. I was relieved they had found a good friend and had someone to play with. It helped with the brotherly rivalry some and reminded me of old times coming home to the house and finding various extra boys playing in their rooms. Ethan's Mom, Kim, would take turns as referee for our little tribe. She had her fridge stocked with kids' snacks. Which made her RV a very popular hang out. The boys ran around demolishing their yard with Nerf bullets and had to be told to pick them up on more than one occasion. She baked us cookies more than once and even made a point to send us off with some on the day we left. We made sure to snap a picture of the three amigos in all of there glory! In addition to their new found friend in Ethan, we came an unlikely pair of ruff and tumble youngsters on a trip to Goose Island State Park one day. The boys were climbing up and down the twisted, scraggly limbs of the old oak trees in the park. Stephen and I immediately recognized a playful adventure and followed our boys to join in a bit of tree climbing ourselves. The two youngster's parents were having an adult conversation with some sort of additional third party, so that left us playing with all four boys in our new found tree. Well to be honest I was more of a spectator really, but I considered myself a very good cheerleader. I was very impressed by the the other boys' climbing prowess and soon discovered that they were named Samuel and Jonathan. Tanner and Evan were more skeptical about their climbing abilities than the other boys, fantasizing about falling flat on their face and such. Samuel and Jonathan quickly became my cheer-leading partners and demonstrators as they showed our boys how easy the sport of tree climbing could be. Tanner finally made it up the steep limb he had been inching along and I think they made a little progress in defying their fears of gravity. Stephen, in the end, got involved. Climbing up to sit on a limb himself and serve as forklift moving the boys from one limb to the other. I don't usually take photographs that have various strange kids or adults in them if I can avoid it, but for some reason I snapped a few shots of the boys in the trees as a fond memory. After our boys had tired we took the liberty of playing Tarzan on some of the hanging vines, which are surprisingly thick and were able to hold our weight. Then we left Samuel and Jonathan behind to explore more of the park. At the end of a long day we pulled into our RV park to discover Samuel and Jonathan playing right out front! The boys were elated, so we were required to make a full stop while the boys went back to investigate. Samuel and Johnathan turned out to be the children of a very interesting couple named Michael and Susanne. Susanne was from Germany, Michael was from Switzerland, and they had met through some mutual friends in California. Michael left a software job to open up a RV park in the United States. Wilderness Oaks was the second park they had purchased in the area. I regret not having been able to spend more time with them as they were at their other park location for most of our stay. We did get various play dates and visits in when they came into town to deal with various park business. Near the end of their stay they came to the park full time but were traveling for part of it with family. We did manage to have one BBQ and numerous talks with them. Truly an unlikely event worth remembering. Our send off from the park was very memorable as they also gave the boys some treats for the road. We plan to try to make it back to the park if we can. Rockport was definitely our first true home away from home. Our time in Rockport is nearing an end. We will be leaving hear on April 20th to head north toward Hartford, IA. I have really enjoyed this little community. Oysters are definitely abundant here. They use the shells in the concrete and walking paths which makes them seem more organic. We have discovered several walking or biking trails to escape into for the afternoon. We even discovered a fenced leash-less dog park for Mitsy and Sadie to run a-muck. The local vegetation consists of thick, twisted oak trees that have vines growing around them. Stephen took the opportunity to play Tarzan while swinging from one. He also took advantage of the mistletoe, which I never really thought about as actually existing in nature before. Holly is also abundant here and it felt like Christmas all winter long. Charlotte Plummer's, a little restaurant overlooking the ocean and the oyster boats at Fulton Harbor, is one of my preferred spots to have lunch on an afternoon. Stephen and I were the only ones brave enough to try an oyster on a half shell (this means raw). Think gritty snot that someone squeezed a lemon onto to cover up the taste. One was enough. After that I couldn't even eat them deep fried. The nights can be balmy and often the temperature gets warmer later into the night. (I didn't even realize that this was possible.) And when the sea fog rolls in I always envision myself as the main character in a Stephen King film. Even though it is a bit eerie, I absolutely love the sea fog. It has a presence that resonates with me and it is something I won't forget.
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Author'sStephen Buck (35) Archives
November 2014
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