16 Jun 2025 - Arrived at Stop# 20 Big Woods Lake Campground in Cedar Falls IA

 

We motored out of Cliffside Campground in Racine WI this morning just before 0900 hrs after a short stop at the dump station to empty our sewer tanks. Cliffside was not full hookup but the good news is the majority of those leaving the campground did so yesterday, so we had no waiting this morning.  

There was little traffic driving through Milwaukee as we timed our departure appropriately.  We then headed west towards Madison WI and continued west through Dubuque IA. As we crossed the Mississippi River bridge we were greeted by the "Welcome to Iowa sign".  Home!

As we traveled we were notified we had visitors in our driveway then in our house.  Our son Dan had recruited a co-worker to come over and have a look at our furnace.  If you did not catch that before, I had a water alarm going off early in the morning a couple days ago.  Dan figured out it was coming from my furnace which is surely not normal!  They diagnosed the issue and determined the pan that the air conditioner A-coil sits in had a hole in it. So the condensate was leaking into the furnace and then onto the floor, rather than through the PVC pipe into the drain.  Bottom line is the furnace and air conditioner were installed in 2007 so they are very old and need replaced.  We will be attempting the coordination on this while on we are the road...  Not the best but it is what it is.  Thankful to have Dan in town but we hate to bother him as he has many irons in the fire.

We hit rain a couple times on the way over here, really severe in Iowa.  The skies were ominous as we entered Waterloo, but we were close to our destination at that point. I think we skirted the worst of it but we still got dumped upon!  Luckily we did not see any of the 50 mph winds they are forecasting

The rain was just letting up as we rolled into Big Woods Lake Campground in Cedar Falls IA, stop# 20 for us on this trip.  We logged 294 miles and 5 hrs 16 minutes travel time today.  Cedar Falls is where Doreen was born (actually in Waterloo) and raised.  I moved here right after my Freshman year of high school when my dad was promoted to Captain in the Iowa State Patrol.  Lefty was in-charge of this quarter of the state.  

I delay-enlisted in the United States Air Force on 18 December 1972 during my senior year of high school, and left for Air Force basic training days after graduation on 8 June 1973. I came back here after my technical training school, married my high school sweetheart and we took off for Maine.  The rest is history LOL. Our grandson Lucas who's high school graduation we attended a couple weeks ago enlists in the United States Army tomorrow and immediately departs for the airport in Grand Rapids MI where he will fly to Ft Sill OK for his basic training,  His enlistment is being live-streamed on Facebook here so we will tune into that tomorrow morning, 1100 hrs EDT, 1000 hrs CDT    https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092254287830   If the link does not work, search Lansing MEPS, 6th Battalion U.S. Military Entrance Processing Station.   We wish him the best as he departs on this adventure!

We planned our stop here in Cedar Falls on our way to Arnold's Park Iowa where a classmate has hired a band to play an event there.  He has an area reserved for us to watch the band play so it should be fun.  A couple of our classmates, girlfriends of Doreen's, will join us there and will sleep in our RV.  We will have a great time.  We are hoping to reconnect with some classmates here during our short stay.  We will also drive around and look at the houses we used to live in and the areas we used to hang out. 

Our campsite here is the same one we stayed in during our 50th class reunion a couple years ago.  This is a nice park with level, full hook-up sites well spaced.  As of now we have no neighbors.  

Tomorrow we need to visit the local HyVee food store to replenish the fridge and pantry and then we will do some sightseeing here in town.