Geode and Apple Creek
On Monday, July 22, we headed to Iowa City to spend a couple days in preparation for taking delivery of our new camper. After staying with Kristin's folks for the past couple months, it felt good to be moving on even as we felt sad to be leaving. We so appreciate that we were able spend so much time with them and with Kristin's extended family, who also live in the Twin Cities area. This was an experience we will remember with fondness.
On Tuesday we arrived at the camper dealership to do a walkthrough of our camper, do paperwork, make payment, and to load our first truckload of stuff into it. We then visited our storage unit to get another truckload of stuff, and visited with Oskar at the same time. On Wednesday we went back to the dealership, loaded our second truckload of stuff into our shiny new home, and promptly proceeded to Geode State Park in Iowa. Thus, at Geode, we were faced both with learning how to set up and operate the RV, and also with just plain moving-in and organizing our stuff. I'd had ideas of relaxing at the park, and doing some hiking and exploring - but that's not what happened, as the unpacking, rearranging and storing of our stuff took up a good part of our time there. We had some downtime, but not much.
We initially reserved two weeks at Geode, but decided to cut that to a week and head to the Ann Arbor area to see James and Emma. Unfortunately, we missed the deadline to change our reservation. We decided to leave the park early anyway and eat the fee loss - a newbie mistake for sure!
We are using the RV LIFE Trip Wizard to help with trip planning, and we had selected our second stay to be at Apple Creek Campground & RV Park. Somehow I miscalculated or misinterpreted the drive time from Geode to Apple Creek. We intended to leave Geode on the 31st, but on review of the itinerary discovered that our drive would be at least 6 hours, and include going through Chicago traffic. We know that with the dog, we need to stop every 2-3 hours and stops can be rather long, so we were looking at more like 7-8 hours, which seemed like too much for one day that would include teardown and setup of the camper. Another newbie mistake. We decided to leave Geode on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, and find a WalMart along the way for an overnight stay. As we were leaving Geode, just before we finished dumping the gray and black water tanks, we were slammed with an intense thunderstorm cell and I ended up getting pretty soaked as we left the park. But we made it out.
Our one night Walmart stay was in Ottawa, IL. It was not a bad experience. The weather was ok, and we were near an airport that was busy taking skydivers up - dozens of them - which provided some entertainment for us. We ordered a takeout pizza from a nearby pizza place, and just settled into the space and relaxed.
The learning curve for the camper has been pretty steep. As someone we know says, it's not plug-and-play. Nevertheless, we've successfully set up the camper twice now, and will be tearing it down for the second time in a couple days, and I don't expect any trouble. There are some things we haven't done yet, like filling our fresh water tank and using it, and operating gas and electric heat, but we'll be doing that in the coming days and weeks so that we know how it all works. Our goal is to be able to go "boondocking" - camping without electric and water hookups. We will need to get another solar panel, and maybe an inverter and generator, but we'll probably wait until next spring for that.
Finding places to camp has turned out to be a bit challenging. Our timing isn't really great as we're in the middle of the summer tourist season; finding suitable places with open spots over the weekends isn't easy. That said, we have managed to get reservations made into September, including over Labor Day weekend, and we expect that it will get easier through the school year. We had initially planned on going east to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to get back to the AT, but with the upcoming wedding of my nephew Brett in southwest Wisconsin we changed course and will be circling Lake Michigan instead.
Here at Apple Creek it's been hot, with some rain. The moving-in work is settling down so we've had time to just relax as well as to do some fun stuff. We spent time with James and Emma, both in Ann Arbor and at the Waterloo Discovery Center where we hiked a few miles in 90-degree heat and clouds of mosquitos. We took a short bike ride together, then Kristin returned to the camper while I rode on into Grass lake and explored a bit. We went out for our traditional Friday night outing for beer and burgers at Missy's Little Grass Shack in Grass Lake. We've been having a nice time!
Visiting with Oskar at our storage unit
Our first camper setup at Geode State Park
Toasting our new home
Still some clutter as we get moved in
A family picture
At the lake at Geode State Park
Camping at Walmart in Ottawa, IL
Inside Missy's Little Grass Shack in Grass Lake, MI
Missy's Little Grass Shack in Grass Lake, MI
James and Emma visiting us at Apple Creek
Having lunch at Mama's Mercantile and Eatery
