After our two days at Lakeview, it was time to move on from Missouri to Iowa – the Boone County Fairgrounds Campground, to be exact. As we rolled north into Iowa we saw some of the most impressive farmland and farms we have seen yet. There were fields of corn and other crops as far as you can see. There were factories, but all seemed to be focused on agriculture.
We went straight to the campground, and arrived around 12:30PM before lunch. Tom had arranged for our favorite kind of campsite – near the bathhouse. But the nice campground host – living in a converted 1960s GM passenger bus and sporting a long white beard – directed us to a better spot. The one we chose had flooded and was still kind of soft. The new site was gravel, not grass, and that section of the campground – while kinda high density during peak periods like during the county fair – was pretty deserted.
Scott asked him for a lunch recommendation, and he asked what we were interested in. Scott replied “Chinese buffet, or hamburgers”. The nice man replied that he wouldn’t recommend Chinese in Boone, but Toby K’s Hideaway was pretty good – they had a stand at the fair, and people seemed to like it. So off we went to Toby K’s.
Toby K’s food was OK, but it was the friendliest place we had found yet, with the best service. When Scott told the proprietor that we were recommended by “the campground host with the white beard at the fairgrounds”, he said “hmmm – long white beard – that doesn’t narrow the field much.” Iowa is that kinda place.
We found out Boone has a “Freedom Rock” (R), yes a registered trademark, and just had to check it out. Apparently it’s also a thing and many towns have Freedom Rocks painted with local or contemporraty themes. The two we saw also had Bubba’s copyright notices on them.
After returning from lunch, Scott napped while Tom looked into places to bike ride. Turns out a bit south – In Madrid, IA, is the High Trestle Trail. While the trail itself is very well maintained and has miles of “tree tunnel” effects, the highlight is the 1/2 mile long, 13 story high bridge built on the trestles of a former rail bridge – Union Pacific had abandoned the bridge but took most of the materials to build a new one elsewhere. The entire trail was poured concrete, and was very impressive. We rode in one direction and back from the Madrid parking lot – a ride of 11.5 miles.
A brief side story about Madrid. Tom’s wife Marie grew up in Chipman, NY, “a 4 corners suburb” of Madrid, NY, and their first apartment after getting married was the old bank, complete with a walk in safe closet, in downtown Madrid. Folks there call it MADrid, like mad. I guess they got tired of everyone confusing MADrid, NY a town of about 1,000 with for Madrid, Spain…
Just before we left the campsite Scott noticed water spewing from the hose connected to the camper. As “outside man” on our OWGRV crew – responsible for connecting utilities each time we stop and stowing them when we leave, this was a crisis that Scott needed to fix. Turns out the expanding hose we use to connect – very easy to deploy and stow – had burst. Time for another Walmart run.
After stowing the bikes in Polo we headed for the nearest Walmart – where we had bought the original expanding hose. Turns out Iowans in October have no need for garden hoses – or so the nice man at Walmart told us (the store was putting out Christmas decorations.) He said we should look in the clearance section. Good luck with that, we thought.
But – turns out that they did have expanding hoses in the clearance section – marked down from around $60 to $30 (both numbers seemed high to Scott.) But we bought one anyway. We also picked up butter which we had run out of. Gotta love “one stop shopping” at Walmart.
We then looked for food near Walmart. Tom noticed a nearby “Asian Buffet”, disregarding the recommendation from our camp host to avoid Asian food in Boone, but it was closed on Monday. The best option appeared to be Pizza Ranch – a local chain that was described as a pizza buffet. Turns out it is more of a Pizza and restricted-choice Golden Corral kinda place, with surprising good salad bar and fried chicken.
We then returned to the campsite. Tom installed the new hose which worked fine, and it was once more blog and bed.