Our original plan changed (the first of many future changes from the original plan, I’m sure) and we skipped Wyalusing State Park in Iowa in order to shorten our travel day. From Sioux Falls we drove to Albert Lea, MN and had a diverting one-night stay at a Harvest Host location on a small tree farm/self-storage spot. We were directed to park in any space on the outer edge of the storage units. The view was actually sublime and there was a couple from Montreal there whom we chatted with about Harvest Hosts and traveling in general.
It was a decidedly unique and interesting stay. My first impression was – ‘what am I doing bringing my family into a self-storage business to park on the gravel lot under flood lights off a rural road in god-only-knows-where-Minnesota to sleep for a night?’ I don’t think the girls thought it was as intriguing as I thought it was, but I enjoyed the local flavor of it and the chance to see a more removed and ‘real’ side of the country. Locals waved in awe and confusion as they drove by. Fireflies came out over the field of wheat in front of us at sundown. Jake’s Pizza delivered a pie right to our camper door and we sat outside in our camp chairs on the gravel eating and enjoying the peace and quiet of country life.
We moved on the next morning, waving goodbye to the Quebecois as the drove off. That afternoon we made it to the Dells and checked in to the most Americana-laced park I’ve ever been to in my life. Golf carts in all shapes and sizes zinged by decked out with bunting, red, white and blue tape lights, big tires, radios blaring and so on. I thought to myself, where is the golf course? But there was no golf course. There was just about everything else you could imagine, though: pool, stores, lakefront beach, restaurants, laundry, showers, game room, playgrounds, basketball hoops, gah-gah ball pit, bars, fireworks, firetruck/water gun parades. The list goes on. There were over 200 sites including tent sites, RV sites and homes intermixed within. The roads were close to impossible for us to navigate with our rig, but we made it and settled in.
From there we made it to Rockford and are now settled in for a couple weeks which feels nice. Finally a longer stay to make repairs, get organized, relax, resupply and see some friends and family.
