3 Days, 670 Miles, a Casino and a Brewery

From when we left the Airstream factory at 5:00 pm on Friday night and headed to Iowa (we’ll pull into our destination campground around noon today, Sunday), we will have driven about 670 miles, which is way more than normal for us. We really want to see our friends in Iowa!

Just a couple of hours from the factory was an easy stop for us: Harrah’s Casino in Anderson, Indiana. Much fancier than the drug-drop casino in West Virginia, and we were one of several RVs and many big-rig trucks in a huge parking lot by the horse-racing stables. As you can tell from the photo above, Banjo enjoyed watching the horses from afar (she’s not keen on them up close).

We drove an amazing seven and a half hours the next day, which is a record for us towing the trailer. We broke it up by stopping at a couple of lush park-like rest stops, one where Tracy cooked lunch and we ate out on a picnic table.

We needed the nature stops; the highway was brutal. Normally we stay off the interstate but needed to spend long stretches on it the second day, which sucked. Cars cut in front of us, a travel trailer ahead was swaying drastically, and we ran over a piece of plywood in the road that we thought for sure had done serious damage.

In fact we pulled over as soon as we could find an exit to inspect the tires in case we were at risk of a blow-out, but all looked good, even the wrap under the body of the trailer. Whew.

Our reward for a long travel day was parking in the lot of a brewery in Iowa as part of our Harvest Hosts membership. We sat outside with Banjo, and later with a couple whose camper was also there, for five straight hours, drinking their beer and eating their good pizza made with spend grain from brewing.

Oddly, their guest pour was mead from our first Harvest Host stay in Iowa a year ago. It’s strange how we’re repeating the start of our trip in this annual fashion, with a similar route from Virginia to the Airstream factory to Iowa. After Iowa will be brand-new territory, though.

In the meantime we’re super excited to hang out with friends in three different towns in Iowa (maybe four), and I’ve got two appointments with our friend Molly for more tattoo work. Stay tuned.

Music on the Road

I don’t have a tiny house update or new a new uke video (you’re probably relieved on that one) so I’ll end with the music we’ve been listening to on the road. You know how, for travel days, we work our way down the alphabet, picking a new artist/band each day.

Rules: the artist’s last name has to start with that letter or the band name (not including “The” or “A”). And we listen to that artist’s music only for the whole trip. For me it’s a recipe to hate that band by the end of the day. Still, it’s a fun challenge to brainstorm bands, and we do listen to stuff we normally wouldn’t

This is our second time through the alphabet. It was M: Bob Marley on the way to the dealership (pulling in as one of the best concerts of any band ever, in my opinion, ended: Boston 1978). Pulling out of the factory was Nirvana. Both bands provided a strong juxtaposition with the bucolic Iowa countryside—Bob inciting his crowd to rise up in revolution, and Smells Like Teen Spirit getting Tracy and me banging our heads while passing slow wind turbines.

The long drive day was torture musically. We were at O, which we broke the rules for (that day was a rule-breaking day) and split between two artists: Buck Owens and Lindi Ortega. Big on diversity between the two artists, but not within their repertoires. Today as we pull into our campground we’re listening to the inestimable Phish.

Rock on, Barbie Dream Airstream and Kayak Camping Pack.