October 29, 2012

View of the day-The Wapsipinicon Mill in Independence, Iowa this morning...we didn't do a tour, however.

We got up to a frozen hose...and the hydrant handle was frozen open, too.  It got down to 23ºF during the night and the water never had a chance...good thing we had gotten the tank filled when we stopped in Sac City, so the holding tank was full for showers.

Back to Sunday.  We left Wakonda and started for Dyersville, we weren't sure where we would be spending the night...apparently there isn't a real good place to find RV parks.  Marilyn spent most of the drive trying to find a campground online, finally after dark, we found one in Independence and it was by asking someone at the local gas station.

This morning after closing up the camper, we drove around town and managed to find a restaurant that served real eggs.  After breakfast we hooked up and started for...well...someplace to park the camper for the week.  We knew there would be no place in Dyersville...we parked in the Pamida parking lot the last time we had the camper...so we had to find something that wasn't to far from the action.

Before we had to find our new camping spot, we had to make a side trip to Lamont and Bossen Implements, where Al had to pick up about 14 cases of farm toys.  We were there for the better part of an hour as Al and Katey went through the list of things that Al had purchased and was there to pick up...Marilyn made sure there was plenty of room to pack them under the camper, then we were on our way again.

Marilyn had found a campground at Earlville, which was 9 miles west of Dyersville, so we pulled in and found a spot to park.  The campground was quite scenic...big trees with a pond nearby.  The thing about "scenic" is that it usually means uneven ground...there was not one site that had a flat spot...so we tried to find the best one of the bunch.

We got the camper parked, blocked the tires so it wouldn't roll down the hill into the pond, then used the "auto level" feature to get it set just right...we didn't know the front jacks could go that far out.  It looked pretty precarious and we were a bit nervous about staying there, so we went on a road trip to see what else we could find.  Apparently we weren't the worst off...there was a motor home that had the front wheels about 6 inches off the ground, so it would be level.

Al remembered seeing a campground east of Dyersville on the way to Dubuque, so we drove out to see if he was remembering correctly.  He was.  It was only 6 miles from Dyersville, in Farley, so we pulled in to see if it was still open and we could park for the week...it was a bit pricey at $30 a night, but at least it was flat, with cement pads and a good road in and out.

We figured we should check Dyersville, so Marilyn went into the city hall and got a couple of phone numbers for possible places to try.  One was the town park...no one answered the phone and we couldn't see any posts in the obvious places, so we were pretty sure that one was out.

The second place was 4 miles north of town in a county park.  It was kind of narrow, winding roads, up and down little valleys...and narrow bridges...not really meant for a big camper.  So that one was out and it was settled...Farley would be our home for the week. 

Now we had to go back to Earlville to get the camper off the cliff it was parked on.  It didn't take long to hook up and make the move, so we were set up in the new campground just as the sun was setting.  We went in to Dyersville to have supper at Pizza Hut, then came back to the camper to call it a night.

So if any blog readers are harvesting near the Dyersville area, email us (kunthzharvesting@gmail.com) so we can check out the corn harvest close up...