Clear Lake, IA

28 July, 2018

It has become our practice after leaving the Winnebago Rally to head just south to the town of Clear Lake.  It is a busy summer resort town centered on the namesake lake...Clear Lake.  We always ask for a spot next to the laundry, so we can easily complete this necessary chore after a 10 day or so dry camping event.  It is always a nice relaxing time.

This year, shortly after we set up, we received some uninvited and fairly pushy guests. These chickens apparently have the run of the park and made themselves right at home.  So our happy hour time was spent with those new guests. To be clear, we decided not to have chicken for dinner.

Grand National Rally and beyond

17 to 27 July 2018

Every year Winnebago holds a rally for owners of their RV's in Forest City, Iowa.  You can park on the rally grounds starting the Monday before the rally and enjoy the Puckerbrush celebrations put on in Forest City, Iowa. There can be a bit of a wait to get onto the rally grounds as many attendees arrive on the first day of parking.

 I always enjoy the low key small town parade and other events that occur each year.  It is getting harder to find such events these days. Near the grounds is the a Heritage Park that preserves the local farming history and this year they had some exhibits of early 19th century farming equipment being operated. They also have an extensive collection of other transportation related equipment.

For us the best part of these rallies is seeing friends we have not seen in some time.  This time we ran across a couple we traveled with on a rally in 2010.  Sadly, I failed to get any pictures. There were around 950 coaches attending the rally this year.

We had a huge storm pass thru with threat of tornadoes and Winnebago recommended taking shelter in the bathhouse.  We did that and I had my first opportunity to spend time in the ladies room and managed to finish happy hour at the same time..

Another great thing about the rally is being at the plant that builds our coach.  As luck would have it, we found two water leaks while there and had them both repaired at the factory, along with some needed repairs to our electric step.  Waiting for the repairs can take some time and some people were able to zone out while waiting.

We enjoyed the entertainment and spending time sharing our mutual experiences.   

Kinze Factory

18 July 2018

Before leaving the Amana Colonies, we took a tour of the Kinze farm equipment factory located just south of the colonies.  It was a very interesting tour and a great success story of a 21 year man with a drive to fix and manufacture equipment. Today the company has customers around the globe.  There are over 40 patents for farming equipment

The tour included a tram ride around the factory, where pictures were not allowed and then a tour of the innovation center and an equipment display.  This included video of self driving harvesters.  Well worth a visit.