Hopeless RoamAntics: Westward Ho! (6/1-6/10)

Departed St. Louis with a lot of miles to cover to get to our next significant destination of Custer, South Dakota. When we planned our stops several months ago, we followed the general RV rule of 300 miles or 3:00pm...no more than 300 miles of driving in a day and/or arrive to your next campground no later than 3:00pm. This has worked out pretty well so far, but sometimes you are staying overnight in a place that may not be on the "tourist stop" radar.

We also did not desire to have many one night stops on our travels, but distance required a couple of those on our trek out west. After St. Louis we made it to Maysville, MO to the Pony Express RV Park and Campground. It was off the highway a bit and nestled in the Missouri countryside. It was a rustic campground with a small farm animal pen at the entry and a large office/cafe on the property. We had hoped to just pull in and leave our Jeep attached since we were just sleeping and leaving early the next morning. However, the gravel site was very unlevel so we had to unhook and use blocks to level for the night. We are getting better at leveling.

We had read reviews that the little restaurant had good pizza. We were not near much else in the area so we decided to give it a try. The reviews were spot on, the pizza was delicious. We enjoyed feeding the farm animals a couple of times on our walk around the park. It was pleasant little stopover.

We were on the road early the next morning headed toward Lazy H Campground in Akron, IA. This is a burgeoning RV "resort" located about 30 min north of Sioux City, IA. While the location is a bit remote, it is very well designed for large rigs and provides the wide open spaces that you expect in Iowa. We had the place to ourselves during the week and the weekend was completely full.

Our vary spacious site for the week

The view from our front window

An evening sky in Iowa

The property is still under development so there was just a small check-in office, bathrooms and shower houses. No large pavilions or office/clubhouse amenities, but they are planned. The grounds were immaculately landscaped and the lakeview spot we had was lovely.

We found a welcoming group of pickleball peeps right away. The local television station came one morning and was doing a story about the upcoming local pickleball tournament. They also interviewed Mike and I about traveling around and playing pickleball. We did not see the finished spot, but it was kind of a funny thing. While the town of Akron, IA is only about 1,500, there was a grocery, a Mexican restaurant and a hardware store, the basics of what's required.

This was a much needed "down time" spot as we worked our way west. It was hotter and windier in Iowa than we had hoped but we had a few days to do some much needed cleaning, sink repair and maintenance on Ruth.

Mike giving Ruth a good cleaning

I mentioned in my last post that one of our bathrooms sinks had come loose during transit. With the help of the local Hardware Hank owner, whose store has been in this town since 1911, Toolman Mike got it fixed with my limited assistance and it was back in working order.

Good thing we have a robust toolbox

This is not a good situation

We ventured into Sioux City a couple of times, but did not find a lot to do there. The temperatures were in the 90's and super windy so after early morning pickleball, we mostly walked or rode our bikes around the campground and the lake after it cooled off in the evenings. It was just too hot to do much else during the day.

The campground had a food truck on-site for the weekend and we sampled their fare a couple of times. It was very good BBQ and ended up being fortuitous for us as we ran into a mobile RV repair guy getting lunch that provided us with an invaluable tip, more on that in the next post.