Bellevue Iowa State Park & Old Friends
We made it to Bellevue State Park to visit our friends Lee & Jacque Davis, campground host of the park. We got in around 5 PM and it was raining on us for the last 2 hours of travel. After settling in we rode another 3 minutes with Mario Andretti Davis to an Indian Restaurant in Dubuque, Iowa. The meal & company was simply great. Getting back at the camp site around 8:30 Lee took us to see the sights of the park, the river overlooks were simply marvelous. The majestic Mississippi flows past Bellevue and several homes are built on the riverboat theme. There was one very close to a Steamboat Gothic, and there were several old Victorian style homes as well as the old European style stone cottages.
This morning we woke around 7:00 and had hot coffee around the fireplace with Lee & Jacque. Being the host of the park they have a pretty rough schedule, up at 7, lunch around noon & bed by 9 PM. What a life they have. Actually Lee gets so bored he invents things to do like spray weed control on the gravel campsite pads, due to the lack of camers the weeds do have the tendency to grow on the camping pads. Bellevue is off the high traffic flow path and if you’re looking for a beautiful place to stay I would highly recommend this park. Sixteen bucks a night for electric is not bad at all, water and sewer is on the way into the park. Concrete streets, shaded sites and the host, well you know, over worked; all in all it’s not a bad deal.
After coffee we went on another tour of the local sights, overlooked the river, played tourist and took a few pictures then we had to depart, but knowing we will see our friends again in October made leaving easier.
Traveling cross county you can do in many ways, fly, train drive the Interstates or take the US Highway System. We chose the latter, we took US 20 pretty much all the way across Iowa, and it’s beautiful. US HW20 is a gently rolling highway built of concrete in the 40s I would think, and it is just an easy ride. Riding across the middle of Iowa all you see is pretty much CORN, CORN, and more CORN. The barns are built to meet the needs of the farmers operations, many were very unique, many different styles and different materials for construction. Several barns looked much better than the homes of the caretakers. Through the middle of the state on the rolling hilly plains there were several wind turbines generating power. The massive machines look like they belong in a Star Wars movie.
Later on we saw a truck which had the largest tires we had ever seen, the drive stopped behind us at a vegetable stand and I asked him the price of the tires, he said 20 grand a piece and they lasted usually about 90 – 120 days. I don’t think they were Michelins either.
We drove nearly 9 hours took several side trips and stopped at a few unusual places, and we are now in South Dakota just a few miles east of Sioux Falls, staying in a dive of a campground call the Windmill RV Park. I think the rates are based on what you arrive in so our site for the evening was $30 & no sewer, I guess we could dump on the ground I doubt it would be noticed, but we’re tired and we’re off to the Corn Palace, Wall Drugs & hoping to make it to the Badlands tomorrow evening.
