We were delayed leaving Griffs this morning as I had an appointment at the local RAM dealership for some service work. We are having an intermittent issue where when you shift into park the computer does not recognize it as being in park and therefore will not let you shut off the vehicle. They worked on it a few days ago and replace a shifter cable and bushing that we badly worn. They thought they had it but the problem appeared again, so they ordered a module on the transmission and it arrived early this morning. They got me right in when the tech arrived at 0800 hrs. While waiting I cruised their web site and noticed they supposedly had a new one with the features and options I would pick. Tell me this price does not make you choke a bit!
The route today was east on I-80 from Des Moines and then I-280 around Moline and on east on I-80 to Sheffield IL. As we crossed over the Mississippi, Doreen photographed the Illinois sign.
We stopped west of Iowa City for a potty break and , of course, the truck screwed up again. Dang it. Luckily you can rattle the shifter a bit and the error goes away. So we are working that in our spare time with the service manager back home.
Coming off I-80 and turning down the county road to the campground the dust was incredible. I think the farmers were working the fields and the wind was blowing it around.
We rolled into Hickory Grove Campground at 1405 hrs after driving 217 miles today. We have been here before and the lady who is the owner is really nice. We checked in quickly and made our way to our site for the next three nights.
This is a nice mom-pop campground with a lot of seasonal folks here. Lots of trees/shade but we requested the same site we had last time with a clear view of the southern sky for satellite. Verizon is very strong here and AT&T is adequate,
We have not been down there yet on this visit, but bordering on the south of the campground is the Hennepin Canal. The Hennepin and its sister canal, the I & M (Illinois & Mississippi), tied the Illinois, Des Plaines and Mississippi river systems into a transportation network connecting Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. The I & M was completed nearly 60 years earlier and helped make Chicago one of the nation's greatest cities. Construction of the Hennepin finally got underway in 1890 and the canal was completed in 1907, reducing the distance from Chicago to Rock Island by 419 miles.
We are here for three nights, Tomorrow we are driving about 50 miles back west to the Quad Cities to have lunch with a high school bud Ken Jackson and his spouse Kyle (Paarman) Jackson. I think Kyle and I were together in school there in DeWitt from K-Freshman year. Ken moved to DeWitt the summer of 1969 between the 8th grade and Freshman year, best I can recall. They were from Pittsburg KS and I think his dad helped build the Chemplex plant and Alcoa in Clinton. I may not have that right. Anyway, he moved into the neighborhood in DeWitt and we hung around together. We had similar interests in electronics, shooting, hunting, fishing, etc so we went to the junk yard where the telephone company had "decommissioned" a whole bunch of telephones, and we dragged them home and made them work! One of many projects we experimented with. Anyway it will be great to see them again. Last time was when we camped near Dubuque.So here are a couple random pictures I did not include yesterday. We have searched all over Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc etc and cannot find this outstanding spice. Lawry's seasoned salt with black pepper! My daughter Michelle can get it in Milwaukee so she brought us five. That should last a while!
This is a picture of our Iowa state capitol with it's gold dome. It is said that our capitol is one of the most beautiful in the country. Anyway, Doreen snapped a picture of it Sunday morning as we drove down to Daniel's baseball game.
That's it for today.
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