Johns Trippin'

After our precious RV park, we drove to a family's house to stay in their drive way for a few nights. This house was a Boonedockers Welcome  home located in the small town of  Blair, Nebraska. The owners of the home were real nice and supplied free water and electricity and it was free to stay in their driveway. We unpacked and it felt a little awkward setting up in their driveway. Steve and Donna were right next to a school so on the weekend we played over there. There were a few days till Halloween and we were making our own costumes that year. I was making a bird-person from a videogame called The Legend of Zelda. I had to do a LOT of sewing for the wings and shirt and head. It didn't turn out half bad but didn't look completely like the one from the game. After that we went to a Trunk-or-Treat. We walked around and got a good enough amount of candy to satisfy our sugary needs until Halloween. Our state food for Iowa was Blue Bunny ice cream, so we drove over to their h...

We made a tourist stop at the Union Pacific's Bailey Yard in North Platte, NE to see the largest railroad classification yard in the world. It is 2850 acres big and has 315 miles of track. The Golden Spike Tower was closed when we arrived, but we could hear the eerie "train chimes" made by all the squeaky trains. On the way to York, Nebraska, we had 20-30 mile per hour winds. I was so thankful when we finally pulled into our parking spot at our Harvest Host: Diamond B. Horse Motel. Our host helped us with getting us electricity and water and then we got ready for bed. In the morning, Diane let us feed and pet their 5 horses, 1 donkey (named Jenny), 3 cats, 2 dogs and an old americana chicken. She was really nice and talked to us about the farm. They had had lots of unique guests like the Budweiser Clydesdale team and plenty of stories over the years including a cat stowaway in an RV that headed across multiple states. She also said that between the wind, the heat, the col...

En route to Loveland, CO, we had two very beautiful detours. The first was Pike's Peak. We didn't want to drive the RV to the top of Pike's Peak, so we looked for a parking lot that was big enough for it. We found one right at the base of the mountain at a tourist trap called North Pole Santa's Workshop. We stopped there, but there were signs threatening towing all over the parking lot. They also had someone walking around the lot monitoring all parkers. We went inside and let all the kids pick out something. We went back to the RV and we unhooked the Jeep. The prominent towing signs made us nervous. I drove around for plan B; I found a big overflow parking lot for Pike's Peak right away just a little bit further up the road! Perfect! Everyone got into the Jeep. Up and up we went. Michael drove up the 19 miles to the top and I am very glad it wasn't me doing the driving! I got irritable, dizzy and had a headache. Everyone else seemed just fine. The elevation at ...