30 Apr 2022 - Road Trip to Dayton IA

 30 Apr 

Crazy weather continues here. We were up many times during the night as ferocious winds roared through off and on all night and the rain continued.. Today more wind and more rain with white caps on the lake.   

This morning, through the marvels of modern technology, we were able to tune in to our grandson Calvin's baseball game held in our old hometown of Norwalk IA and project it on our 52" flat screen TV in the coach!  It is nice to be able to watch the kids in their events even when we are on the road.  Thanks to son Dan for streaming it! (photo credits Dan Schellhase)

Calvin behind the plate!

Future Major Leaguer!!

Lunch and a view out the dining room window and the rain continues.

This afternoon we drove to Dayton Iowa about 25 miles west of here to attend a "Magoo UTV Fun Run". It is a fund-raiser for a local honor flight, Marine Corps League and a Veterans memorial park, in memory of our friend and Air Force comrade, the late MSgt (ret) Dave McGaughy.

Dayton Iowa is an interesting little town, known since 1937 for it's Labor Day rodeo events.  Like many small, rural Iowa towns, Dayton is reliant on agriculture for a lot of it's income.  Population is approximately 770.  

Veteran's Park with a decorated "Freedom Rock", common to each of Iowa's 99 counties

The Iron Saddle Saloon

We arrived at the Iron Saddle Saloon and there were Utility Terrain Vehicles (side-by-sides) parked everywhere.  I believe they said there were well over 200 registered.  The UTV's are apparently allowed on the gravel roads and county roads but not the state highways.  So they were traveling a circuit between towns with stops along the way as part of this memorial ride fund raiser.  

At the saloon we met up with retired Chief Master Sergeant Jim Chaney from Ft Dodge.  He is also a camper and has a toy hauler where he is able to take his UTV along with him when he camps.  His spouse retires at the end of this school year and they plan to head out camping and south in the winter. 

Most of the crowd had dispersed and moved on to the next destination by the time we took this picture

Chief Jim Chaney lookin great!

  

We returned to the campground with more wind and rain.  A couple walks about the campground with Liberty, pork chops in the Instant Pot and we settled in watch the Chicago Cubs get walloped by the Milwaukee Brewers!

No huge plans for tomorrow yet.  Much of the first stop is just continuing to exercise the coach and figure out what we have forgotten.  So far I think I only have three Amazon items being shipped to our high school buddy's house at our next stop!

Thanks for tuning in!

29 Apr 2022 - The Journey Has Begun! Arrived at Little Wall Lake near Jewell IA

 29 Apr 2022

Finally!  The Schellhase 2022 RV adventure has begun!  We got the fifth wheel out of winter storage on 3 Apr and took it to our dealership for an annual inspection and some routine preventive maintenance.   No issues were identified and we had the dealership clean and repack our wheel bearings and replace the bronze bushings and wet bolts in the suspension.  Normally I would do this work myself, but the coach will not fit in our driveway so I have no place to work on it. We picked it up on 8 Apr and brought it to Griff's.  There we restocked it, did a few more maintenance things and waited until the freezing temps passed before we unwinterized the water system.  Then this past week we have been living in it full time so we could figure out what we forgot before leaving on our trip!

This morning at 10:26 hrs we pulled chocks at Griff's RV Campground and drove the short 53 miles to our first destination.  We arrived about an hour later and quickly set up.  We will be here for the next four nights.  We have stayed at Little Wall Lake several times before and it is one of our local favorites.  It is a fairly good sized park.  They have 106 RV sites, 6 primitive tent sites, some modern cabins for rent, and a 249-acre lake with canoes/kayaks for rent.  We take advantage of the beautiful area and walk Liberty around the campground a lot.  Weather-depending, I might see if the fish are biting.  A few pictures from the campground:

A view entering the park.  Our campsite is straight ahead

Our coach on the right with Little Wall Lake in the background

Beautiful view of the lake from our campsite

We have an end spot with a nice grassy area for Liberty!

We don't have any huge plans for this stop.  Tomorrow we may drive over to Dayton IA to meet up with a group doing a memorial trip on 4-wheelers for our good friend, the late MSgt Dave McGaughy who recently succumbed to lung cancer.  We also have good friends Terry and Jerry Greenfield who live just south of here in Story City IA and we will try to reconnect with them.

We will be here until Tuesday 3 May when we will head north to Clear Lake State Park!