Road Trip One
A Three Day, Two Night Adventure in August of 2014
Before this road trip, all of our tent camping and road tripping experiences had involved friends or family. The three of us had never gone on our own overnight road trip, much less tent camped on our own. I guess somehow Iowa seemed like a safe place to start. I had read about all the neat junk stores in Iowa and we were big fans of American Pickers, whose famous store is in Iowa. John Deere offered free factory tours, plus we could visit the John Deere World Headquarters. I found us two campgrounds and off we went for a two night, three day road trip!
Day 1
After an early morning start, our first stop was the John Deere Engine Works Plant in Waterloo. We arrived in time to eat our lunch in the parking lot before heading inside for the tour. Our tour guide gave everyone safety goggles to wear, but I’m not sure why those were necessary when we never left the tram. Our tram was pulled all over the huge plant by a John Deere Gator. We thought it was funny to see all of the folks riding around on bicycles in the plant, but we didn’t see a lot of people for such a big place. There were many robotic arms busy doing repetitive work, with an operator watching over several arms. It was a fascinating tour!
Marshalltown, Iowa had a junk store I wanted to visit. I don’t remember the name of it anymore, but that was the next stop on our tour of central Iowa. The woman who operated the store was just getting ready to close and invited us to visit her barn at home if we wanted to see more junk…and I did! She gave directions on where to go and we met her at her home. I had always thought it would be so cool to be like the American Pickers and find amazing treasures in someone’s old barn. This lady’s barn was packed full of treasures! Stuff was stacked up high everywhere with little paths between things so you could walk around. I found a little buffet cart to paint, plus a bunch of other neat junk pieces. I probably could’ve spent hours snooping around in her barn, but daylight was running out.
We still had over an hour to get to our campsite from wherever this lady’s farm was located, so we went through a drive-through for supper and hit the road. We arrived at Palisades Kepler State Park after dark. This park has a tiny little curvy road with trees lining the sides and they formed a canopy over the top. Arriving after dark at this place was like driving into a scene from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We set up our tent in site #29 by the light of the headlights. We made it through our first day of our first road trip!
Day 2
I can’t say if that night was good or bad, which must mean it was alright or I’d have some sort of story to tell about it. (I have plenty of other stories of memorable nights in the tent.) We woke up in a beautiful forested campground. One advantage of getting in after dark is the surprise views in the morning! This state park is located along the Cedar River with its’ beautiful limestone cliffs. I’m not sure why this tent photo was taken after having unclipped the rainfly, but it’s the only photo I took of that campsite. We packed up the tent and went for an early morning hike.
People don’t give Iowa enough credit for how beautiful it can be in between the fields of corn. I’m not sure we’ve ever hiked in such an idyllic forest scene as this one. We hiked as far as the observation deck and turned around, which I am guessing was around a mile. The whole trail is two miles, but back then, we only ever hiked a mile at a time. We drove around to check out the rest of the park and then hit the road, stopping for photos of the sign and tree-lined road on our way out.
Back on the road again, it wasn’t long before we came across a sign for the Sutliff Bridge. This was not a planned stop, but what’s a road trip without a few stops at the local hidden gems? The original Sutliff Bridge had been washed out in a bad flood and had been replaced with a replica that was now used as a park.
With two adventures already accomplished for the day, we were ready to drive to LeClaire, Iowa, home of Antique Archaeology, aka American Pickers. I was not sure what to expect from an actual store featured on a TV show. Reviews were mixed between some saying it was a gift shop and others being fascinated to see all of the relics found on different episodes. We quickly became part of the latter group. This place was more like a museum of a TV show and we loved it! The actual shop looked exactly like the show did back then, complete with Indian Motorcycles and other recognizable items. There was also a gift shop selling t-shirts and souvenirs, which were pretty much the only items available for sale to the public. Other items had price tags, but you’d have to be willing to part with a lot of money to have pretty much any of it. It was still a fun experience.
Antique Archaeology was not the only “antique” shop in town. LeClaire is a wonderful little town, full of cute little shops, including several antique stores that we wandered through. None of them compared to the barn we had played American Pickers in the day before, so it was time to keep moving.
I don’t know how I found out that you could visit the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois, but it was well worth the stop. Their campus is beautiful, with a small lake and walking paths mixed into the tree-filled lawns. There’s a one-way loop road that brings you into the parking lot past one part of the campus and back out past another part of the campus.
When you enter the building, the first thing you see below are all of the John Deere tractors and implements: new and old, big and small, yellow and green. You’re able to take an elevator down to the lower level where you can sit on, or in, all of the equipment. What I found the most fascinating was the one entire wall filled with ephemera and small pieces from the company’s history, all arranged in a timeline of the company. I could’ve spent hours looking at all of it! Kudos to the folks who arranged all of that memorabilia in there!
The kids tried out all of the tractors and then we crossed the river back into Iowa, where we stopped at the John Deere Pavilion. Yes, this was a very green road trip! I think Joey was in heaven. The John Deere Pavilion is part science center, where they share their latest technology, and the rest of it is a giant John Deere gift shop. They had every model of toy tractor, plus all of the t-shirts and doodads you could ever want!
Not wanting a repeat of the after dark tent setup, we grabbed our supper to go and headed to Scott County Park, our next campground. For being August, and pleasant weather, the place was mostly empty, other than the RV loop with hookups. I don’t remember if we picked our spot or if one was assigned to us, but I remember driving around for a bit before we finally found our spot in their “Wilderness” campground. Despite arriving at the gate before dark, it was dark by the time we arrived at our campsite. Our site was near the restrooms, which happened to also be near the only other person camped in the “Wilderness” campground. That creeped me out a little so we decided to just sleep in the Durango that night. Thankfully, nothing looked creepy about the dude in the morning, plus we saw a few other campers we had not noticed the night before. Perhaps we could’ve slept in the tent and survived the night. We’ll never know!
GPS Data for this photo says it’s from when we left Palisades Kepler the previous morning, but I thought I’d share it here since I have no tent photo from Scott County Park. Megan was small enough to sleep across the back seat and Joey and I put the front seats back as far as they would go. Not my favorite way to camp, but it worked.
Day 3
Having made it out of Scott County Park alive, I had planned a drive up the Great River Road to begin our journey home. This was perhaps the most scenic part of our road trip, with views of the Mississippi River, mixed with quaint little towns that looked like they were straight out of a Mark Twain novel. I am half German and half Luxembourger so I had to take a photo of the Luxemburg sign to say we had been there…Iowa-style.
Once we reached the Mississippi River, we stopped here and there to have a look at the views and discovered there was a barge and tugboat getting ready to depart Lock and Dam 10 near Guttenberg, Iowa. I had no idea what kind of a production that is, but an older couple filled us in on the details. Apparently, they had been watching this for the last several hours since it had come into the lock and dam. Once it’s in the lock, the water level is changed to the right level for the next leg of its’ journey. I’m sure it was a fascinating process, but I was glad we arrived when we did so we didn’t have long to wait before something happened.
Once the tugboat had pushed its’ barge out, we got back on the road. Megan had never visited Wisconsin, so we took a trip across the Mississippi River at Marquette, Iowa to visit Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Admittedly, that’s a lame way to check off a state, but I had no idea if we’d ever get back there for a legit visit or not.
After our jaunt into Wisconsin, we went right past the sign for Effigy Mounds National Monument, which seems silly now that we’ve spent years visiting any and every National Park Service site we see. It would’ve been a beautiful place to visit, had we known, but we wouldn’t have been able to give it the time it deserves anyway. It’s on the list for a future day trip.
Instead, we visited Niagara Cave! Who knew there could be a cave in the Great Plains of Minnesota? We hadn’t visited a cave in several years so we were excited to take a tour! Niagara Cave is a privately owned cave, which usually means you hear more about the cave’s history than about the geographic features. I don’t remember what types of features we saw since all but one of my photos were blurry, but it was well worth the visit for anyone who enjoys caves.
After our cave tour, it was time to head home…well, almost time to head home. The annual Prairie Village Antique Tractor Pull was happening in Madison, South Dakota so we bypassed home and headed straight there to join the rest of the family. We made it just in time for Joey to compete.
I learned a lot from our first road trip. I probably should’ve scheduled less so we could arrive and survey the camping situation before dark. I didn’t have all of the resources for finding campgrounds as I do now so I think we probably could’ve found something better for our second night. A third night probably would’ve been ideal. Most importantly, we proved we were capable of traveling and camping on our own, even if the tent was only set up one out of the two nights. And last, but not least, Iowa has a lot of hidden gems and natural beauty.
Speaking of natural beauty, I will end with this photo of the Mighty Mississippi River.