Keokuk Municipal Park, Keokuk, Iowa 100 mile jump
This is objectively one of the worst places to camp. It’s an asphalt parking lot with no trees; there are water and electric hookups. But across the street is a railroad switchyard delivering raw material (corn) and shipping whatever products they are processing. I am thinking high fructose corn syrup would be one. This processing plant is over half a mile long belching smoke and emitting a cacophony of industrial noises in addition to those made by the switching railroad cars. Actually, it’s such a loud, continuous din that it becomes a background noise you soon don’t notice, unlike a barking dog or a fire engine.
On the positive side, the waterfowl (pelicans, geese, ducks, eagles) coexist in the river with this behemoth of a processing plant just a few hundred yards away. The river runs east-west through here so sunrise and sunsets are killer. Lock 19 is just upstream, so one can watch huge football field size barges navigate the locks. Amazing!
Another component is the South Side Boat Club; they collect the city’s camping fees. They are so darn hospitable, they won’t let you out of the place without buying you a beer and/or a pizza. We made friends with Ron and Mary two years ago when we came here as rookies on our Nomad 1: 2015-2016 trip. They had traveled for 10 years after retirement but had recently given it up. They cheered us on, telling us to do it as long as we could. We returned to let them know of our success and to show them that we honored Keokuk by painting the very scene I described above on the side of our trailer. The dichotomy of industry and nature is apparent in Penny’s mural.
On Saturday afternoon after conversing with Ron and Mary and making a slew of new friends Jim, Larry, Roger, Lois, et al. We went out to the ITLDO to start dinner when our phone lit up with a tornado warning! Our awning was out, so we went out to retract it with no problem. We went inside to see what developed when the wind and rain hit like a freight train. I knew the trailer was vulnerable to high wind; luckily the narrower back end was facing the wind. We opened the door which pulled me out into the wind and rain. Penny followed and helped me close and lock the door. We then almost literally flew the 100 feet or so to the South Side Boat Club. By the time we got into the door we were absolutely drenched.
After an hour or so, the storm quieted down, so we went out to get in dry clothes. Shortly thereafter (about 6:15), another alert sounded so we went back inside where our new found friends started buying us beer and pizza. We finally got out of there about 9PM. It was a long night with high winds buffeting the camper, but no damage resulted.
We went to church Sunday morning, thanking God for our safety. We visited the Keokuk Museum which was an old steamship built in 1927, then we took a ride through historic residential neighborhoods and Rand Park on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Stopping in to say our good byes, we had people trying to us beers and 85 year old Lois came over to tell us some of her bawdry jokes. Fantastic! We insisted we weren’t drinking any more beers and got out of there.