Missouri and Iowa
The stays between selling our house and Labor Day
As I was getting ready to write up a 6-month recap of being full-time RVers, I realized we had started our write-ups at Labor Day and not when we sold our house. So, here’s just a quick post about what we did between August 8th and Labor Day 2022.
We listed our house in mid-June and weren’t sure how quickly it would sell or how fast the buyers would want to take possession, so we didn’t make plans to leave the area before Labor Day. We did plan to visit family and for me to do a couple of genealogy projects in Missouri and Iowa. Luckily, we accepted an offer on the house after 6 days on the market, and the buyers agreed to close August 8th to give us time to move both kids and pack ourselves up. That allowed us to have a pretty smooth (but very busy) 5-1/2 weeks to get all three moves done.
The first stay after closing on the house was at Worlds of Fun Village in Kansas City. We had stayed here before and it’s a great place to stay in the KC area! While it is connected to Worlds of Fun, the noise from the park and the interstate wasn’t bad. With easy access to I-435, it was just a quick drive to almost anywhere in the city.
After Worlds of Fun, we stayed in a campground at Lake Thunderhead in Unionville, Missouri, for a long weekend. We celebrated Tracy’s dad’s birthday here and also got to spend some time with his brother and sister-in-law.
Next was Crow’s Nest RV Park in Indianola, Iowa. This stop was mostly for me to get together with two of my best friends from high school and to do some genealogy research at the Iowa State Historical Society in Des Moines. The campground is newer and still feels very new - not a lot of established grass, landscaping, or trees between sites. The campground also sits down in a valley, so internet was a bit of an issue for us here, too. We did have a beautiful sunset after a stormy afternoon and we also got to see a hot air balloon landing near us!
After a week in Indianola, we moved on to spend a week at Lazy H Campground in Akron, Iowa. We needed to do a few things in Sioux Falls and wanted to spend some time with my dad and stepmom. This newer campground was a good halfway point for doing both and I loved that my dad and stepmom were able to bring their camper out to spend a few days with us.
Next we spent a week at Linder Point Campground in Iowa City, Iowa. This is a Corps of Engineers campground close to Coralville Lake and an easy drive into Iowa City or Coralville. This stop was for more genealogy research, and while I didn’t find everything I was looking for, I did find the gravesites of my 3x great grandparents, Martin and Mary Neville Dwine. Sadly Martin’s stone was very deteriorated, and Mary’s stone had fallen over at some point, but her stone was still easy to read.
From here we traveled to Thousand Hills State Park in Kirksville, Missouri. We were able to spend some time with our youngest daughter while we were here. We only spent the long Labor Day weekend here, as there are no campsites with full hookups, and we weren’t sure how we well would do without sewer and water connections (it was fine). Our friends, Richard and Kim, came by for a visit while we were here. Richard is a Kirksville native and served as tour guide for Tracy on an early morning visit to the Native American Petroglyphs in the park. Between them, they were able to view everything, both high and low (see photo 😁).
After Kirksville, we went to Wakonda State Park in La Grange, Missouri. This is where my first write-up started and now I am all caught up!