Made It To Iowa

Monday March 30- We got up and jumped back on the road. Today we would be driving through St. Louis. This is one of those tricky areas to navigate thru. We had traffic but definitely noticed it wasn't as busy as usual, no complaints here. We have made this trip many times so the roads are familiar to us which is a big help. We arrived in Keokuk, Iowa, our home town around 1 o'clock. we pulled in to site #1 and set up. Its warmer than usual and it felt good to know we would be here for longer than 1 night. They still don't have the water on yet but are suppose to do that tomorrow. Since we are coming from out of state we are going to do a 14 day quarantine. Thinking we will probably stay here for 2 weeks before moving up to Palo. They aren't scheduled to turn the water on until April 15th in Palo.  We managed to make a few calls to the family tonight, catching up and filling them in on our plans.


Tuesday March 31- Today did some cleaning and laundry. It felt so good to be in place somewhere. Not having to worry if we could find a place to stay. They also turned the water on today here. They had to shut it off and fix a few things but we finally had water. So that was good news. We are settled, we have plenty of groceries and fuel so we are set and happy. I got out my sewing machine and started on more blocks. When I get started on a project I have a problem with leaving it alone. I like to finish things up. I only have 5 more blocks to put together.

Wednesday April 1- Woke up to this.... Today was sunny out but still a little cool. The sunshine felt good. It did warm up in the afternoon so Jeff went up on the roof to clean it, removing all the mold. I finished up my blocks making, 5 more for a total of 20. Then I laid them out. Not sure this is going to be big enough. I want to use this one on my bed so it has to be big enough to hang over the sides. Hmmm, what to do? I'll have to do some thinking.

Thursday April 2- Well after some thinking I have decided to make 5 more blocks to make the quilt 70 X 70, without any borders. So it will be bigger when I finish with all that. So I got busy with that. I got the blocks made and laid out, then  put the giant applique on it to see what it will look like.  I think I like. Then I got busy sewing the blocks into rows. Then sewed the rows together. I'm loving this project. Tomorrow I will cut out the fabric for the borders and sew it on.

While I was inside sewing, Jeff was outside. He started applying stuff to the slide to shine it up. When we had the rig cleaned and shined in December we knew when we took off the decals we would have to reapply the product on that slide. That is why Jeff purchased some extra just for this. He said it went on really good and it looks really great. I took pictures but it doesn't show the shine as good as I had hoped. Believe me, it's shiny.

I found a pattern for face masks. I think I will be making some of these. They are saying it wouldn't be a bad idea to wear them when you are out among people. This is new, first they said it wasn't necessary but since then they have changed there minds. I know I have plenty of fabric, not sure how much elastic I have.

Friday April 3- Up and it's chilly out there this morning. I didn't care cause I had a project keeping me busy. I got busy on the borders. Since this project has a lot of color I thought it needed a frame before the border. I got those all finished, cut and sewed on. Now a bit of a break before starting the applique process.

After finishing this I went ahead and made a couple face masks. I just wanted to see if I could do it. They are pretty easy to do. We also had some friends pull in today. Ben and Rhonda made it here safely from Florida. They grew up here in Keokuk too. You could tell it was a relief for them as well to be landed. The temperatures dropped like a rock this afternoon. We had a yummy cold weather supper and called it a night.


Saturday April 4- Well I told myself that I was going to take a day off from the quilting. So I got out my coloring books, did some coloring. We watched a couple movies, I made chocolate chip cookies. I also reached out to some family and friends on the phone. When you can't get together with those you love it feels good to just talk with them. I got the kids Easter cards ready to mail out. Then I had a very pleasant surprise as I was sitting watching some T.V. I heard my phone make a noise. I looked and saw that there was a house party going on. This is a new app on my phone, Justin told me to put it on and I did. Well this wasn't him but a friend from high school. So I visited with Jenny for a while when she got a hold of another friend from high school. Then Tammy joined us. I only see them when we have class reunion, that was a very pleasant way to finish up the evening. Technology really is quite wonderful, especially in these times.

Sunday April 5- I couldn't keep away from that quilt so today I pinned the applique on. Then I decided to defrost the freezer, my ice maker isn't producing so its time. This is not my favorite task.

We also watched church service online. I'm glad it's available but still not the same. I also made 4 more masks today. I ran out of elastic so I'm done with that for a while. Jeff decided to order a new guitar today, a Yamaha Dreadnaught Trans Acoustic We also sent for our mail to be sent.


Monday April 6- Up early and wanted to get started on my to do list. I pulled all the screens out and hosed them off, they were pretty dusty. Then I cleaned all the window panes. I also did some more laundry. I love having water. Jeff had ordered some stuff from O'Reilly's and he went to pick it up and drive around town. Since he already paid for the stuff they  they brought it out and sat it on the curb for him. While Jeff was still out the neighbors came by to tell me that the governor is on T.V. and they are closing campgrounds. Yikes, now what do we do? Well we called the state park that we volunteer at here in Iowa to see what was going on. After he did some research he told us we could come up and stay, finishing up our quarantine. Well now we have some things to take care of here before we take off. We had requested are mail to be forwarded here, Jeff had ordered a guitar to be shipped here, and we had just wrote a check for another week. Well we managed to get all that changed. So first thing in the morning we will be heading up to Palo. The rest of the day was spent packing up stuff. We also dropped off our tax stuff to the office I used to work at. Teri is going to get it done today and bring it by. Oh my what a day.

Tuesday April 7- We got on the road today a little before 8. It was a perfect day to travel and we know this part of the trip very well. We arrived around 10 a.m. The road to the campground was barricaded, we managed to roll in and set up. Carl came by and welcomed us from a distance. We set up and settled in.

They do not have the water on here. We put some water in our tank to hold us over. Hopefully it will be on sooner than later. It warmed up a bit and the sun did come out. We walked around the  park so the dogs could get some much needed exercise. We love this park, but boy is it quiet.

Wednesday April 8- Woke up this morning to lots of fog and a giant moon still out.  It looked rather eerie out there. The fog lifted and it cleared up some but that wasn't to last to long. We have big wind coming. We fixed our big meal on the grill at lunch to avoid that weather. We got a short walk and a bike ride in today too. Carl brought the keys and our paperwork to fill out.

 Then I decided to go ahead and get started on the applique'. I have never done that before and this one is huge. I watched videos but most of them were on little bitty applique'. So we will see, I only have to please me.

 I got started and couldn't stop, I spent the rest of the day, on and off sewing. I finished it about 8 o'clock. I was happy with the way it turned out. I worried about it and it wasn't that difficult.


Thursday April 9- This morning when I got up and looked outside I spotted a couple pheasants out there. They were to far away to take pictures with my phone so I got out my camera. They are beautiful birds.

Today the temps kept dropping. Next thing I know I see a few snow flurries out there. Oh boy, I don't like that. My next project was to cut away all that quilted fabric from behind the applique'. Again I have never done that. It felt really weird cutting that fabric after all the work it took to put together. I wanted to be extra careful, not cutting through the snowman. Then I took that fabric I just removed and squared it up. Then I put the small snowman applique' on that and made it into a Christmas couch pillow. So I didn't waste any of that quilted fabric after all. I won't stuff it until closer to Christmas. It's much easier to store this way.

Well what to do next? I had a friend loan me a puzzle to do. I used to love doing them. I got out a big piece of cardboard to put the puzzle on. I will have to hide it under the couch when I'm not sitting right by it because I know Miss Ruby, she will get the pieces. I got the outside frame put together today. Oh yeah and Ruby managed to eat one piece all ready. With the weather getting so cold Carl told us that the water wouldn't be turned on until next week some time. Well that's a problem because even with us conserving it we are running low. Carl filled up a portable water tank and brought it over. Jeff has a pump so he can pump the water into our tank. So that was a load off my mind. Also Jeff got a call from Justin saying his new guitar arrived. Jeff had to go pick it up but Justin just put it outside so he could get it without getting too close. So I guess you can figure out what Jeff spent the evening doing.

Friday April 10- Brrrrrrr it's really cold today. The wind has died down so that's a blessing. Since we had water and there is a bit of sunshine today I went ahead and did a load of laundry. Then I jumped back on to my puzzling. It's very addicting. I spent a lot of the day working on it. I finished it by about 8 o'clock. Ruby did manage to eat another piece. When I finished the puzzle there was a lot more than 2 pieces missing. There was a total of 13 pieces missing. Oh well if they were here I'm sure I could of figured out were they went. It was fun doing. It kept me busy for a day at least. I could get used to doing this puzzle thing.

Saturday April 11- Another chilly day but the sun was out. There are no campers here but we see plenty of day users. Lots of people running, walking there dogs, and riding there bikes. I gave myself a haircut. I also figured out the fabric I have for the back of the quilt isn't big enough. So with the extra fabric I made a panel to expand the backing. Now I have to wash that red fabric before pinning it all together. I don't want that red fabric bleeding onto my snowman. I made a few phone calls today to family. We also called a friend from high school and left a message. As we were getting ready for bed we got a phone back from him. So we had a fun conversation with him before bed.

Sunday April 12- It's Easter everyone!!! It's just so different this year. We will be watching our church online. We will also be staying in. Well Jeff went to pick up groceries this morning. Something new for us. So grateful that this is an option. We are having homemade chicken noodles for our Easter dinner. With all this craziness going on in the world today it's good to know that Jesus is alive and loving us....Happy Easter everyone....

The Corona Virus...Pandemic

Monday March 16- Another busy Monday. It seems I usually get my cleaning, and laundry done. I like to have things caught up before our work week. This week I did a deep cleaning. I think with all the time spent in here I am noticing things that I haven't been doing on a regular basis. So today cleaned all the vents, window sills, pulled out the furniture and vacuumed. Kirrin our volunteer coordinator stopped by to tell us that the park campground will be closing this Friday at 1 o'clock. Wow, this just keeps getting crazier. She also said that we were welcome to stay. We would just be doing extra cleaning jobs. Jeff and Phill had a jam session planned for tonight at the pavilion. We were hoping that people would still show up. They did but they also practiced social distancing. We were surprised by how many showed up. It was a nice evening for it. There was sort of a dark cloud over it knowing what was going to happen here at the park. Here are a few pictures of the night. We even had a really pretty sunset.

Tuesday March 17- Happy St. Patrick's Day! We are working today and anticipating lots of questions from campers. We had a very busy day, we did get lots of questions. We did answer them as best we could. We still managed to get finished in good time. Since finishing my quilt project I have started on a scrapbook for Maddyn. Going to put all her pictures from her vacation. I have been getting quite a lot of that done lately. Then in the afternoon I recieved a phone call from my niece telling me that my sister Diana is really bad. She has had dementia for years. Dina has been her care giver. She takes really good care of her in her home.  So just have a lot of things going on in my mind right now.

Wednesday March 18- I didn't sleep good last night. I kept waking up and checking my phone for any more information on my sister. Then I received a text, when I checked my phone at about 5:30 a.m. I saw a text from my niece asking if I was awake? I called her right then and she gave me the news...my sister Diana had passed away last night. She is now done dealing with that terrible disease of dementia. What a monster of a disease. So the rest of my day was sad. I called my 2 other sisters and my brother. Then I got a hold of the boys and told them. With this virus just getting worse they have cancelled everything. That means no gathering of 10 or more people. That means no services for deaths.

Thursday March 19- Well today will be our last regular working day here at the campground this season. We have noticed that campers are leaving early. They probably found places to go and thought they better take them before they are gone. Since all the campers are leaving tomorrow we went for supper at Phil and Theresa's. They invited us over for hot dogs, chips and smores. We only had 6 people there so we were ok. We enjoyed our gourmet hot dogs and the good company. Then we said our good byes til next year.

Friday March 20- Today's the day...closing day. Boy was it weird seeing this campground empty. I started taking some of our stuff down. We are planning on staying to finish up our time but thought we maybe should be prepared just in case. We are watching and listening to see if things change. People aren't taking this serious so it just keeps spreading. With it being spring break time all the beaches are full...crazy. With all the free time I finished up what I could on Maddyn's scrapbook. I will have to finish it when I get the rest of the pictures. I'm not going anywhere to get them printed off now. We had a very unique critter come to visit us today. It was up on the ladder on the back of the rig. We have never seen one of this things around here before.

Saturday March 21- A quiet day in the park. The campground was closed but the day use area is open from 8-5. We had a few people coming down to see what's going on. Jeff went to Walmart this morning. He got there before they opened and said they were waiting in line. We thought it would be better if one of us goes to the store. He said it was really eerie in there. They still were missing lots of things on the shelves. He got all we needed.  We are lucky that we keep a pretty good supply of food at all times. We have told people before that we grocery shop for a hobby. I'm trying to keep busy so I gave Belle a haircut today. With all the numbers of this virus getting bigger and bigger Jeff is thinking maybe we should get out of here early. The numbers keep going up and we are afraid that we will get locked in here. We still don't know for sure. We are just watching. Since the days are longer than usual and I finished my scrapbook project, I decided to start cutting fabric for my next quilt project. I like to have a project going all the time.

Sunday March 22- Today was a pretty day, sunny and warm. Jeff took the truck this morning to fill it up with fuel. When he came back he told me the service engine soon light came on. Great. So now he is trying to get it in to fix it. We can't leave here pulling a rig with a service engine soon light on. He scheduled an appointment online. There is enough things we will have to work around. The parks that we usually stay at are closed. So we'll have to find other places to stay that are still on our route. We watched church service online. All services have been cancelled. We bathed the dogs and sat outside to enjoy the day. We had some woodpeckers visiting us. Lots of critters coming out since all the people have left.

I also got started putting blocks together. I finished 4 today, only 16 left to do. The virus is still on the upward swing. People aren't listening and doing what they are asking. Not sure when they will understand. I hope sooner than later.

Monday March 23- First thing this morning I found out that the day use is now closed. That means the whole park is closed. We had talked about taking the kayaks out today but now we didn't know if that was a good idea. So we waited to see.  Kirrin came by this morning to explain and answer any questions we have.  We also have a birthday today, our Belle is 12...I just about forgot about it.

I worked some on making more blocks. I finished a total of 10 now with 10 more to make. We have decided today to make a quick escape. After thinking about it we are going to get out of Florida and head north to Iowa. We have an appointment to get the truck in on Wednesday. Then if they can get it fixed we will take off on Thursday. We took a ride down to the river area today, looking at the park. Everything is deserted. Here are a few pics of that. So quiet with no people. This is a beauty of a park and let me tell you it gets used a lot. This is a lonely place right now.

 Tuesday March 24- Well today we went back to work. It was a bit different. They have locked all the shower houses. They kept one of the family bath houses open for the volunteers. So we cleaned that. Then we started cleaning up sites. Jeff had the weed eater and we pulled weeds, cleaning up the sites. I went around and checked all the grills and fire pits, cleaning them out if they needed. It is really hot out there today, in the 90's. After work I made some phone calls. We need to have places to stay on our way home. The parks we usually use are all closed. Jeff had a plan all made but now that's changed. We are afraid if we don't get out of here we will get locked down in this state. When I called the parks I couldn't make any reservations because we have to make sure the truck is fixed before we take off. We think we have a plan. It won't be anything what we usually do. It will be drive, stop, drive, stop. We also talked to Carl in Palo, Iowa about us coming up there. The water isn't turned on yet there so that could be a problem. With all that is going on I forgot that we are a month earlier. He told us that we our welcome to come. We will probably stay in Keokuk a while before going on to Palo. We also finished putting stuff away just in case.

Wednesday March 25- First thing in the morning we took the truck in and I followed Jeff there and brought him home. Then we waited for a call to let us know what and when we can pick it up. They wanted to do a bunch of maintenance work. Jeff told them before he took it that he just wanted the issue fixed. So they got it done and we went back over to pick it up. Did I mention that the traffic was crazy. I don't think anybody is listening to the news. I have a feeling this area is going to be a hot spot. The good news there wasn't any charge for the repair, it was under warranty. On the way home we topped off both fuel tanks. Now we are ready to take off in the morning.

Thursday March 26- We took off north toward Iowa today. Just like that we are out of here. Good bye Jonathan Dickinson, see ya next time. Our first stop was Madison, Florida. We will be staying at Ragan's Family Campground. It was about 350 miles today which is longer than our usual travel day. We had to stop and get fuel, which again we don't usually do. We have figured out what works for us and have stuck with it. This is not what we like.  We were on the turnpike and when we stopped at the rest area the diesel pump was either broke or you had to go inside and prepay. Jeff didn't want to do that. It was a pain. We had a few issues, but finally got our fuel. It was a relief for sure. When we arrived at the park the place was busier than we usually see. This place has a water park and pools. Lots of families here using them. I just don't get it. We had a big easy pull through site. When we set up it was super hot and the bugs were there to welcome us. Had a bit of an issue with the big foot coming down but finally got it. We had a few issues inside too. During our traveling we had a light fall down and shatter. We also saw some water on the floor in front of the frig. Found an water bottle inside that the lid wasn't on tight. We sat up and relaxed, getting ready to hit the road again tomorrow.


Friday March 27- Jeff started the day by washing all of our vehicles. It is a foggy morning too. This park is right by the interstate so we jumped back on and continued north. Today we are driving to Montgomery Alabama. This is no good way to get there on interstate roads. We have to take some US highways. These go thru towns and business areas. Not our favorite way. It was a long day with lots of stop and go driving. I found out on the radio that here in Alabama they haven't closed up the restaurants and business's yet. The traffic was super busy, Friday lunch time. We were so close to the park when we ran in to big construction. It took us quite a while to get through that and in to Woods RV Park. This park we usually stay just one night. Again it's busier than usual. We are already tired of driving. We changed our plans a little. We are adding another stop because we can't keep doing this. Jeff got online and found a spot. We called and have a spot.


Saturday March 28- Today we are driving to Cornersville, Tennessee, about 50 miles south of Nashville. The drive today was way easier. We jumped on the interstate and stayed there until we got to the right exit. The park Texas T campground was located right off the interstate. Super easy on and off. We set up and then went to fuel up. That was an interesting drive. It was on the back roads to a small town and up the hills. Very pretty drive. This park was a great find. Later on the park manager came around to tell us we have weather coming in over night. Great, just what I want to think about.

Sunday March 29-Well he was right. We did get quite a storm last night. Lots of rain and lightning. Today we are driving through Nashville. Neither of us like driving through there. We were on the road by 8:15. Driving through Nashville was easier than usual. With it being Sunday morning that helped. We kept on, arriving in Benton Illinois at 1 o'clock. This time we stayed at the KOA because our other park is closed. We have stayed here before. They took us to our spot and we set up. This is not my favorite park. It is right next to the interstate and you can here every car and truck buzzing by. Our rig is fairly quiet. We thought that the traffic would slow down at night but that never happened. So not much sleep. We will not be coming back here. Tomorrow we will make it back to Keokuk Iowa. We talked to Hickory Haven Campground and they have a spot for us. The water isn't on yet but will be in a day. So until next time...stay safe everyone.