After the rainbow view from the brewery. Blue skies, but did not last. More rain later that night.
Mon. 7/21/25 Day 8, Visit with Cheryl and Tom Wiedmann, Magnolia, MN
Up at 8am, 71 degrees and overcast. Sight seeing throughout the day including a visit to Pipestone National Monument so I could get my Passport book stamped. Turns out I already had it stamped from 2018. Senior moment.
The highlight tho was going to the local Historical Museum in Luverne. Doris used to do a LOT of volunteering with selling on ebay for the them and organizing the newspapers from years gone by. Her partner in crime at the museum, Betty Mann, was there and doing very well at 94. She misses Doris a lot. Betty was the collector of nutcrackers and now they are in display in the museum. Over 6000 of them (hers were 4000). She also has a humongous collection of little decorator shoes (I don’t know the professional name for those items) and she is trying to find someone who would help sell them and donate the money to the museum.
We drove to Cheryl and Tom's home and got a tour of their farm/garden. Amazing. Dottie, their boarder collie dog is still doing her thing. She helps with gathering the chickens to go back to the coop and other chores. She is very intelligent.
We said our goodbyes tonight after dinner. Promised to stay in touch.
Eldon, Cheryl, Clara and Tom
Baby butternut squash.
A solar-powered place, fully off the grid.
So when Betty donated her nutcrackers to the museum, the city of Luverne went all in. Now there are dozens of full sized ones on corners all over the city, people come from all over the world to see the collection, it is crazy.
So who knew that there used to be a Luverne Car Company? This one, from 1909 was fully restored though the robin's egg blue is not original - they came in brown and black.
This brown one from about 1914 is fully original. These might be the only two surviving Luverne Cars in the world. They transitioned from cars to firetrucks and did very well.
Mom's friend Betty and the force of nature behind the museum (and in front of it too).
Just a small part of the nutcracker collection.
Dinner Monday night - burgers and pizza.
Tues. 7/22/25, Day 9, 71 degrees, hazy, a little humid. Hazy. Up at 7:30am, left Magnolia, MN at 9:30.
Headed to our next HH, Wild Rose Meadow in Postville, IA. Arrived at 5:30pm, 81 degrees & sunny. We traversed Minnesota, West to East avoiding Interstate highways, just county roads and state highways. Towns would have been a days ride apart but not now. What is still present are fields and fields of corn!
Being so close to the Spam Museum, in Austin, MN we had to stop. They had a few new flavors so I got a few.
Along the way we stopped at the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Harpers Ferry, IA. Got my Passport book stamped and Moreno was given a Bark Ranger medallion to add to his collection.
Today’s drive was a bit more exciting because we saw a crop duster flying over the corn fields. So very close to us. The Mississippi River was also in our sights. One day we might do a cruise on a paddleboat.
We’ll put some photos with captions so you can share the day with us.
Eldon and Moreno ready to go.
Just corn in the morning but at night it was a firefly light show, with bats swirling and hunting above. Very cool.
So we knew about the Buffalo Ridge wind turbine project in Magnolia, but literally all along southern Minnesota were hundreds (thousands) of these giant turbines. And some farmers also cashed in on corn and went full solar, lot less work and honestly, too much corn.
This guy buzzed around us hitting this field with ... something? We held our breath until well away. Sure looked like fun flying though.
SPAM Museum in Austin MN.
Bridge from Marquette IA over to Illinois across the Mississippi River.
Our new camping spot tonight. Awesome people, spent 14 months in a bus with their 3 kids touring the US, then settled down here in east central Iowa, about halfway between their two parents. The horses (2) arrive next week. We bought some varieties of flour.
Moreno is very happy to be on solid earth, especially grassy earth. He was upside down a lot. Here he is enjoying the sunset and also later more of the fireflies. He keeps looking at the blinking lights ... not sure what he is thinking but certainly is. Tomorrow is Des Moines and a hotel. That will be weird.
Wed. 7/23/25, Day 10, Postville IA to Des Moines IA
Up at 7:30am, cloudy grey skies. Wet grass. 76 degrees.
Left HH at 9:15am, clear skies and warmer temperature.
We had a lot of thunder and lightning starting at 1:30am until about 7am. The Hostess said the weather report said it was 4 inches of rain but her rain gauge showed 3 inches.
Of course, Moreno hid under the bed in his tunnel. Heavy breathing and heart thumping. Poor guy. I’ll put on his Thunder vest for the drive today. I already gave him some Trazadone this morning to help.
The hostess sells various home made items which she’ll delivered very to us. Honey, flours of various combinations. These are to make breads, not to vase and decorate as I first thought😍. Eldon bought some … naturally.
Harvest Host : Wild Rose Meadow in Postville, IA.
Next stop: Field of Dreams where the movie was filmed. That was fantastic!!! Photos can speak more than words. See the movie. People come from all over the world just to run the bases. Now that Shoeless Joe is off the MLB banned list, he might show up here with his Hall of Fame cap on. They let you play on the field too. Couple of guys were playing second and first base and encourage me to hit a coupe for them to field. Clara pitched and Eldon hit a hustle double off his first at bat. If you get a chance to go to this place, you should. It was a very sentimental stop. Of course you need to have seen the movie. Field of Dreams.
We came across signage about Herbert Hoover National Historic Sight. So off we detoured to check it out. Got there at 4:30p and they close at 5p. So much more to see.
Another quick stop to get a Passport Book stamp at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. His birthplace.
Arrived to Holiday Inn at 7pm. Mostly cloudy, 86 degrees. More rain forecast. Parking at the Holiday Inn. With the caravan movers (those weird mud-covered things behind the wheels) we are able to park backwards making us theft resistant.
Thurs. 7/24/25, Day 11. Cloudy 71 degrees. Des Moines IA
Slept in until about 9am. Another night of thunderstorms. Again Moreno found a new “safe place” by lying on the floor mat in the bathroom. It was dark and shielded the thunderstorms sounds at about 3am.
We went ahead and checked in the E’s Club team at the National Senior Games volleyball facility, and then visited with Larry Jordan who is the Jim Reeves biographer and guru. We gave him the JR items that mom had been collecting all her life. We brought two boxes of mom’s memorabilia to give to him - autographed records, photos, personal letters from Jim, etc. He was very happy to receive them and we are sure he will give them a good home. He has written the definitive 600-page biography about Jim Reeves, mom is interviewed extensively throughout.
Larry Jordan, the Jim Reeves Guru.
A neat sculpture in West Des Moines, IA
Friday 7/25/25-Sunday 7/27/25, Days 12, 13,14 National Senior Games - Mens 70+ volleyball
78 degrees, cloudy and Humid in Des Moines, IA
Not much blogging got done until now (Wed. 7/30) since it’s just playing volleyball. We’ll post some photos and you will see the Gold Medal winners in the 70+ division of Men’s Volleyball 70+ age bracket. Even Moreno was given a medal since he was such a supportive fan.
We were in the playing venue all 3 days so the air conditioning helped us tolerate the weather.
E’s Club went undefeated and won the Gold Medal in their 70+ division.
Some of the guys stayed on to compete in the sand tournaments and they too were Gold winners. Congratulations!
Before the matches. Still friends.
After the matches. Gold Medal winners, undefeated. Note the fan!
Moreno did not miss a point nor refuse a good-luck head rub.
The fans who supported the team!!!
The brain trust at work. Mike Miller did a great job managing everyone.
While there and having an open afternoon we went to visit the birthplace of the Duke. Winterset, IA
Moreno is ready for another hot asphalt day. Notice his Gold Medal.
Monday 7/28/25-Tuesday 7/29/25, Days 15, 16
Up at 8:30am, 76 degrees in Urbandale, IA at the Holiday Inn. Did our packing and when we tried to move the Alto using the trailer movers, we found that there was No Power!!! We had not had any sunshine for 3 days so the batteries had been depleted and the solar power panels could not harvest any power without direct sunshine. So while we did not like the sun’s heat we certainly needed the sunlight to power the Alto.
So Eldon Magivere’d his portable Lithium battery to the trailer and got enough power to turn it around, and get it connected to the car. As he was just done with that the hotel manager came out to admire the trailer and hearing of our difficulties pointed out a power box literally 5 feet away that he would have been glad to turn on for the entire duration of our stay. Instead we had moved the incredibly heavy Dometic freezer unit into the hotel room to keep everything frozen, and we had emptied most of the Alto rig stuff into the room’s mini-rig (at the expense of beer) and a cooler. Now we know to 1) look around and 2) ask!!
Finally at 11:45am with 82 degrees temperature that felt like 92 and humid we finally hit the road. We drove on HRY 17 north to Blue Earth. That is the town where the Jolly Green Giant lives and there is a museum and a giant statue. Really neat!
Jolly Green Giant was huge. Clara for scale.
They also have lots of mini-green giants scattered about the town and a scavenger hunt game to find them all. WE found this one at an ice cream stop.
We went past this but the town does not have any Winebagos. Weird.
We arrived at Steve and Lynn Japs’ place in Plymouth MN (near Minneapolis) about 6 pm, in time for a garden tour (Lynn’s) before dinner.
She also likes garden art and garden turtles.
Tuesday evening Lynn (and Steve, hah) arranged a get together of U of MN friends (50+ years).
David, Mike and Gretchen. Gretchen was a volleyball player (bad knees is her excuse now), Mike still plays soccer, and David was a gymnastics guy.
Gary and Steve and Eldon - not afraid of color.
Mary (aka Hugs) made it thanks to David.
Some fun shots at Lynn and Steve’s BBQ. Everyone had fun. Burgers, pasta salad, veggie salad, and Eldon’s beans.
That night ended with a bang as North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota got hit with a “derecho” essentially a squall line of 50+ mph winds, lightening and 2 inches of rain in an hour. Then all is done. Moreno spent the night in the bathroom (again). Basically we have had maybe 3 nights without a thunderstorm, and some of those nights were made up for during the day. Tough trip for our thunder-allergic dog.
Wednesday 7/30/25, Day 17. Up around 9am and left at 10:15am, 74 degrees, hazy. Plymouth MH to Volga SD
Again we had a little drama with the Power management. Even though we had plugged into Steve’s electricity it looks like the connections got wet from the derecho we had and shorted the power. So we were not able to start the car and also not able to drop the roof on the Alto. Eldon plugged in the little generator to jump start the car and Steve reset his plug so the electricity to the Alto was now working. More Drama.
The story of our life. Never leave home without a battery charger.
We made a quick stop at the St. Paul Science Museum so I could get my Passport stamped for the Mississippi River National Scenic River. Very impressive and free museum. Worthy of a day, easy.
Eldon’s Anoka Senior High School group had collected a lot of dinosaur bones from Wyoming and they are housed there too but no time today. Next trip. This T-Rex was NOT one of their finds.
Most of the day was hazy and by the time we arrived to our HH, Schadè Vinyeards and Winery, in Volga, SD, at 4pm it was hazy and mildly raining. 73 degrees so at least it was cool.
We were greeted by a very friendly and massive dog, Fred, who got along with Moreno. They were both pretty mellow guys.
Fred is the greeter. Awesome and mellow dog at the Schadè Vineyard and Winery.
We did some wine tasting and bought a few bottles of course. We also bought a pizza and some cheese.
The rain is gone and we are trying to catch up with the Blog and emails. Eldon I think has gone to bed but will probably get up before “going to bed”. He has been doing most of the driving even though I offer to drive. He enjoys the drive and can sight see at the same time, while I sleep a lot.
So there you have it. Now it’s time to put some photos and captions and send it out.
Thanks for tagging along with us.
Thursday 7/31/25, Day 18. HH in Volga, SD
Up at 7:30am, 58 degrees and Sunny. We had a great experience at the Shadè Vinyards. Of course there was more lightening during the night.
Tough morning at the “office”. His two assistants were waiting for orders.
Moreno and Fred (their dog) got along even to the point that Moreno was trying to hump Fred but Fred didn’t want any of it. Funny to us.
I want you to have our baby!!!!
The venue is used also for Weddings and this is an archway which I’m sure is featured in the Wedding photos.
The family photo!
Once packed and ready to leave at 9:45am we hit the road. Another HH awaits us in Scenic, SD.
Along the way we stopped at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in Jackson County, South Dakota. I got my Passbook stamped and spent a little bit of time reading things. Very impressive and certainly deserved more time than we allowed. We did the Badlands NP last year during our Keystone trip, even camping there.
Those were scary days. I liked the writing on this carving.
We arrived to our camp at 3:45pm, 76 degrees, Cloudy and windy so minimal solar power generation. This site is called SOBO’S Campground and it is run by Veterans and offers discounts for them. It’s VERY clean and has power, water, showers, and dump options. Also a sand VB net set up, very good quality. A person can dry camp for free or for $60 donation (we did - cloudy) you can have full options. The spot we had was like overlooking the world and prairie.
Once we arrived at SOBOS campground we were able to set up the Starlink and I was able to work on the Blog.
Clara’s Office:):)
Friday 8/1/25, Day 19. HH in Scenic, SD
Up at 7:30am, 66 degrees. Feels like 60 and strong winds with strong gusts.
Moreno was sleeping under the bed because during the night another thunderstorm with lightning happened, little rain but a lot of lightening
.
These are at the SOBOS HH Campsite as we were leaving. It’s definitely a great cause to support and very unique.
On our way out we stopped at The Grain Bin which is the HH “bar and grill”. The money all goes to the great cause to helping Vets. The beer goes to a good cause too, I suppose.Pabst Blue Ribbon for breakfast - oh well, on holiday.
We finally hit the road at 10:40am, 74 degrees, windy, gusts of up to 22 mph. Clear skies and sunny. Sunny is actually good to help charge the solar panels.
Lunch stop at a funky “grill” place in SD. A dive. But the cheeseburgers were fabulously tasty and the fries were even better.
Moreno befriended this wood pig that was outside greeting us. He's here because the place is famous for smoked beef, pull pork, etc.
Eldon ordered our lunch and while waiting, of course imbibed.
Apparently famous all over the U.S.
You only see these in South Dakota.
We finally make it to our HH destination in Casper, WY. This is the Gruner Brothers Brewing.
Eldon backed in like a pro!!!! We arrived at 4:45pm, dark, grey overcast.
This was one that we had actually been to once before. We recognized it as soon as we could see it from the road. Then we went in and sure enough it was the same. And maybe even the same group of musicians doing some Irish jamming music. It was great. We see there is another band at a stage getting their stuff ready so when we finish doing our chores (Blog,emails, etc) we’ll head back to the Alto where Moreno is lying under the bed. Thunder and lightning and rain too welcomed us. Does the weather ever end?
Once we settled in the Alto we took Moreno for a walk and we went inside to the deck and had dinner. The Band is different and playing County. They were pretty good. Eldon bought their CD. Eldon took a couple of videos but unfortunately we cannot add it to the Blog.
Good beer, good music. Best Harvest Host in Casper.
Once we took Moreno for his evening walk we went up to the deck and had dinner and enjoyed the rest of the evening. 75 degrees and cloudy but not thundering. Of course, that did not last.
Our neighbors in the Airstream were from Colorado and very nice. We said good night and off to bed. When the thunder started, Moreno went into his tunnel.
Saturday, 8/2/25. Day 20, HH in Casper, WY
Got up at 8am, 60 degrees, Sunny. Headed to Yellowstone, WY and got the thunder and lightning around 9pm. Again Moreno went under the bed. Poor guy. We arrived to our KOA Yellowstone Park/Mountainside Journey campground spot. We arrived at 5:10pm, 76 degrees, partly sunny. We had to drive through the Teton and Yellowstone parks to get to the KOA. We will spend more time in them during the next 4 days.
Along the way we did make a really neat stop at the National Museum of Military History in Dubois, WY. Dr. Joe needs to visit this place. Eldon can write about it. OK - it started in 2011 when a local rancher bought an M4 Sherman (WW2) tank to run in the Dubois 4th of July parade. 2012 saw him get another so that one would actually run. Now he has 400+, built a 150,000+ sq ft building to display them, and has another couple hundred still outside. It is an incredible experience, extremely well done.
M46 Patton tank guards the building entrance.
The outdoor pavilion with dozens of "extra" tanks, half-tracks, and other vehicles.
A couple of tanks and an ambulance guard the driveway entrance.
USMC diorama of the winter retreat from the Chosin Reservoir in 1950 during the Korean War.
Over the top at Inchon, the surprise landing that broke the stalemate in Korea.
Some of the beautiful geology west of Dubois in the Wind River Range. Red beds are Triassic in age (dawn of the dinosaurs) and lots of other species recovering following the great Permian extinction event where 95% of life on the planet went dead due to the global climate fiasco following record global sea levels and oxygen levels. The CO2 went into forming most of the world's coal from nearly global swamps. Time of the 6-ft dragonfly. During the Triassic, all of that excess Oxygen went into rust (red beds) and eventually the planet stabilized.
Sunday 8/3/25, Day 21 until Wednesday 8/6/25. Now in Yellowstone National Park We planned to spend 4 nights at our KOA campspot and tour the area. We'll put some captions to the photos to tell the story.
Now into the Jurassic (park) where the oxygen levels returned to livable levels and the dinosaurs really took off.
Teton Range in the background behind Purple loosestrife flowers that were a common sight.
This moron was within 10 feet of this Elk.
