We are back on the road again! We’ll be traveling for almost six weeks, with Colorado as our primary destination where we will make a loop around the state and visit all four of the National Parks located there!

In the off-season, we treated RoVer Too to a couple of nice upgrades. In April, we traveled to Athens, IL and left RoVer for a few days to have a new roof installed. We made the decision to invest in some peace-of-mind with a FlexArmor roofing system which is much stronger and is sprayed on, so there are no caulk joints which is where leaks are most likely to occur. When the installers removed our old roof, they found four areas where water was penetrating which would have become a huge issue at some point. Wonderful preventive maintenance!

In June, it was time to put new tires on RoVer. With a trailer, it’s not really about miles, but about time…since they spend so much time parked. It’s recommended that you get new tires every four to five years, and we are coming up on four years, so we headed to Discount Tire (which we highly recommend, by the way!). We also upgraded our spare tire cover…the old one was pretty faded, and this one was just perfect for us…GO BILLS!

We did take a very short camping trip in late June, as a shakedown to make sure everything was good with RoVer before we headed out on this long trip. It was just a few hours away, near Grand Rapids, MI. Fortunately, all went well, and I was able to enjoy some beautiful Chihuly glass in a special exhibit at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park…here are a few photos from that trip.

July was a busy month, between planning for this trip and a very big event – Connor and Emily got married on July 16th! It was a simple ceremony at City Hall, with a party the next day…just a perfect weekend!

We went to get RoVer from storage on Saturday August 1^st which was a VERY rainy day in Chicago. We tried to time our trip to miss the heaviest rain, but managed to get there just as the rain got worse. There were rivers of water running around the trailer and it was just a wet, soggy mess. Fortunately, the rain let up as the day went on and we were able to get things loaded and ready for our Sunday departure…and Sunday’s weather was perfect!

On our journey West on I-80 through Iowa, we made a slight detour to the World’s Largest Truckstop. We had seen it on an Eastbound trip a couple years ago, but decided to check it out a bit more closely. Unbelievable. Just massive, with everything a trucker could possibly need – barber, dentist, chiropractor, laundry, movie theater, and more! Plus tons of shopping and restaurants. We wandered through, amazed at the sheer size, and enjoyed a Frosty at Wendy’s before hitting the road again.

Our destination for the first leg of our trip was Iowa City, Iowa and a campground run by the Army Corps of Engineers (COE); it was our first time staying at one of these, and what a bargain – full hookups for just $30 a night and because we have a Senior National Parks pass, we got a 50% discount – so $30 total for two nights. And it was a really nice campground…but, a little scary being in the shadow of the Coralville Dam…if the dam failed, we would not have made it out alive! Fortunately, the COE did their job and the dam worked!

On Monday afternoon, we drove into town and checked out the campus of the University of Iowa (which is pretty much the only thing in Iowa City) – they have some beautiful old buildings, including what was once the state capitol. Interestingly, Iowa City is a UNESCO City of Literature thanks to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and several top writing programs at the U of Iowa. More than forty Pulitzer-prize winning authors have ties to the University. There is only one other city in the world with this UNESCO designation – Edinburgh, Scotland. Impressive!

It was time to continue our journey on Tuesday, heading West through Iowa to our campground just past Des Moines.

Overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday brought an unbelievable amount of rain…thunder and lightning throughout the night and non-stop heavy rain for hours. Ugh. About two inches total. It finally let up around 1pm and we drove into Des Moines to visit Salisbury House and Gardens. The home was built in the 1920s by the Weeks family who made their fortune in the cosmetics industry. They modeled it after King’s House in Salisbury, England, and salvaged many of the architectural elements from various buildings in Salisbury, England. It’s an impressive building full of interesting artwork and amazing details throughout!

Thursday morning, we hit the nearby “Covered Bridges Scenic Byway” – made famous by the novel and movie, “The Bridges of Madison County”. We took an unpaved road to the Roseman Bridge which was built in 1883 and was a primary filming site for the movie, and then headed to the Cedar Covered Bridge which is the only remaining bridge that you can still drive through, although it is a replica, not original. Originally, there were 19 bridges, six of which are still around.

Our afternoon was spent in Des Moines; we visited the state capitol which was completed in 1886 and is the only capitol building with five domes. 29 types of marble were used in the building. The entire interior is incredible, especially the law library, and the building is known as one of the most ornate statehouses in the country.

From there, we stopped at the Robert D. Ray Asian Garden, named for a past governor. The central feature is a beautiful pagoda, and the garden sits along the Des Moines River.

We had dinner in Des Moines and returned to our very warm camper around 7pm…at some point during the afternoon, the breaker on the campground electric box had gone bad and our power went out. Mark did some troubleshooting and found that our surge protector got fried in the process. One of the KOA employees came and fixed the breaker, and a campground neighbor had an extra surge protector that he was nice enough to loan us for the night.

Friday morning, as Mark worked on packing things up, I headed to the office to speak with the General Manager – we felt that some sort of compensation was in order, since their breaker went bad and fried our $100 surge protector that we now needed to urgently replace before we could continue our trip. At first, he seemed to be blaming us for the issues, but apparently realized that wasn’t really the case, and ultimately, refunded us $100 from our camping fees. He handled it well and we were very satisfied!

We left Des Moines and continued West, planning to stop at a Camping World near Omaha for a replacement, but while Mark was driving, I was researching some other options, and ultimately we found a great one at a Menards Home Improvement store in Omaha. Made a quick stop there and bought a new surge protector that will be our permanent backup (we’ll order a higher-quality one on Amazon to pick up in Colorado, but will also keep this one with us all the time, just in case we have future electrical issues!).

Friday afternoon, we arrived in Seward, NE, not too far from the state capital of Lincoln. It’s a very new KOA, and quite large, just off I-80.

We decided to explore Lincoln, NE on Saturday, starting our day at an absolutely beautiful Sunken Garden. I was so impressed by the variety and quality of the plantings…so much color and clearly very well taken care of. A wedding was just ending as we arrived – gorgeous setting! We visited a nearby rose garden, as well.

After lunch, we headed to the Nebraska State Capitol building. At 400 feet, it’s the second tallest capitol building in the nation (Louisiana is taller). Completed in 1932, it’s full of mosaics on the floor and the ceiling, along with many murals. Interestingly, Nebraska is the only unicameral state legislature in the US – they only have a Senate, no House or Assembly.

Our next stop was a bit different…the Museum of American Speed. After reading lots of very positive reviews, we decided to check it out and it was really cool! The first floor focused on all types of race cars from all eras. On the second floor, there was a massive display of every kind of toy car, bike, wagon…just an unbelievable collection of vintage things with wheels! There were more of these on the third floor, as well, and for me, the toys were the highlight of the museum. I’ve never seen such a massive collection!

Sunday was another travel day; we continued across Nebraska which is a VERY wide state. About 450 miles wide, in fact. We made it another 200 miles, to our campground in North Platte. This will be our final stop before we arrive in Colorado.

On Monday, we went to see what North Platte is probably most known for – Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard, the world’s largest railroad classification yard. We took the elevator to the observation deck of the “Golden Spike Tower”. It was fascinating to look out over the massive operation that handles 10,000 rail cars every day on 18 receiving tracks and 16 departure tracks. There are another 166 tracks used to ‘sort’ the cars to join trains headed for destinations all across the country. There’s also a massive repair shop that services over 9,000 locomotives each month. It’s not something I ever thought about, but to see it in action is so interesting.

As we drove through North Platte, we spotted a couple of photo-worthy places…

We spent the afternoon crossing a project off our list…adding a tile backsplash in RoVer’s bathroom. We tried this once before, but the tile we used was very thin, and didn’t hold up well in the heat…it started peeling off and we decided to remove it. We bought a thicker peel-and-stick travertine-look tile (but not too thick or heavy, since we don’t want to add weight to the trailer) that we think will hold up a bit better (fingers crossed!). It turned out really nice…

And tomorrow, we will be back on I-80 for about 250 miles to our next campground…in Colorado!