Before this road trip, all of our tent camping and road tripping experiences had involved friends or family. The three of us had never gone on our own overnight road trip, much less tent camped on our own.
I guess somehow Iowa seemed like a safe place to start. I had read about all the neat junk stores in Iowa and we were big fans of American Pickers, whose famous store is in Iowa. I found us two campgrounds and off we went for a two night, three day road trip! We arrived in time to eat our lunch in the parking lot before heading inside for the tour. Our tram was pulled all over the huge plant by a John Deere Gator. There were many robotic arms busy doing repetitive work, with an operator watching over several arms.
It was a fascinating tour! Marshalltown, Iowa had a junk store I wanted to visit. The woman who operated the store was just getting ready to close and invited us to visit her barn at home if we wanted to see more junkβ¦and I did! She gave directions on where to go and we met her at her home. Stuff was stacked up high everywhere with little paths between things so you could walk around.
I found a little buffet cart to paint, plus a bunch of other neat junk pieces. We arrived at Palisades Kepler State Park after dark. This park has a tiny little curvy road with trees lining the sides and they formed a canopy over the top. Arriving after dark at this place was like driving into a scene from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We set up our tent in site 29 by the light of the headlights.
We made it through our first day of our first road trip! I have plenty of other stories of memorable nights in the tent. We woke up in a beautiful forested campground. One advantage of getting in after dark is the surprise views in the morning! We packed up the tent and went for an early morning hike. We hiked as far as the observation deck and turned around, which I am guessing was around a mile. The whole trail is two miles, but back then, we only ever hiked a mile at a time.
