We were fortunate to locate a Catholic Church Sunday morning with a 7:00 a.m. Mass, and it was only a mile from our campground. As we were walking in the parking lot to go into the church, an elderly couple started talking to us, asking us about our camper and our travels. So we made friends on our way into church. We’ve found that people are very friendly here in the midwest.

After Mass, we continued our journey, heading a little more east in Kansas, and then turning north into Nebraska. It was here that we experienced our first (and so far only) rain of the trip. It was a soft, gentle rain that lasted about 15 minutes. Then it was back to clear blue skies the rest of the day. We were only in Nebraska for a short time, then clipped the corner of Missouri before heading north into Iowa. When we were in Missouri, we took advantage of an opportunity to get gas in the truck, because the gas prices in Missouri were the cheapest we found. We paid $3.99 a gallon there. The most expensive was around $5.00 early on in our travels.

It was not as hot today. Temperature was generally in the low 80s instead of in the hundreds, so it was a lot more pleasant.

Our drive through Iowa was a long one, as we started at the southern border with Missouri and drove north into Minnesota. It’s not a really “tall” state, but we did drive the entire way from south to north. In Ida Grove, Iowa, we came across some kind of bicycle event. There were hundreds of bicyclists on the road, all taking up one lane of the highway – fortunately the lane going in the opposite direction that we were traveling.

There were also lots of windmills in Iowa, taking advantage of the strong winds on the high plains. From the truck, you could tell it was windy when you saw the trees bending and the soybeans dancing. The windmills were getting a good workout and thus providing a lot of clean energy.

In northern Iowa, we drove through a resort town called Okoboji. We were familiar with the name because our neighbors vacation there every year and we’ve heard so much about Lake Okoboji. Even though we’d never been here before, the place felt very familiar because of hearing so much about it from our neighbors. Okoboji is a great little resort town, and today’s weather was so beautiful that there were lots of people walking around and hundreds of boats out on the lake.

We stayed at a campground that was convenient, but was not especially nice. Not super nice scenery (our site was next to the dumpster). There was a lake nearby but we couldn’t see it from our site. There was no working wifi and not really any other amenities. It was okay, though, as all we needed was a place to stay for the night. Inside our camper, it all looks the same. We got in, ate supper, read a little, and then went to bed, ready to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Are we having fun yet?