Cherokee

We have made it to Cherokee. Iowa has a great way of hiding it's towns. As your travel along Hwy 80 or 20 you pass a big city or a tiny town every couple of hours. And you would think that was Iout there are thousands of tiny to medium sized cities and towns all over the place. You just have to get off the hwy and drive 2 to 10 miles down the road. Then you find fabulous towns almost all have an old district with red brick or various pale stone buildings like something out of a 40s or 50s movie. Then as you move further down the road you find the newer parts of town. Some of these hamlets have some of the most modern building and structures around. There are still a lot of mom and pop stores in many of these towns and in some cases there are towns on the verge of dying.

Cherokee is an upwardly mobile town. It has a wonderful old part of town built into slightly winding knolls. It has a nice little river running through it and even a lake (I'm told). It reminds us of a bigger version of Cascade, IA, the place we spent the last two nights.

In Cascade Victor caught two large mouth bass and a Buffalo fish last night. But boy was it hot. I tell you what! It was after dark and he and I stood by the river drenched in our own sweat. The bugs were deterred by nothing. We used deet, fabric sheets, vinegar, everything and we still came home bug bitten head to toe. Earlier we all went inner tubing down that river. It took 1 and ¾ hours and it was fun. It was gorgeous. Later that night Mami and I took a short stroll. We picked and ate dew berries (tiny blackberries, and even tried the very sweet mulberries. The berries out here are larger and sweeter than the mulberries back in Cali.

Our drive to Cherokee was about 5 hours or so. Normally it would be 4 hours but we had more bladders to contend with than the navigator computer realized.

Oh, I should mention that out here, east of Cali there are fireflies. And boy are they wonderful sights. They make the nights magical. Mami and I saw those fireflies later in our walk but during the sunset part we saw a cottontail nibbling on some weeds at the edge of a cornfield. We saw a garter snake slither across our path only to stop and coil up in case we wanted a closer look, he moved on. And then we saw a cute caterpillar on a dill like weed getting ready to form it's chrysalis..

We arrived in Cherokee around 4pm and it was hotttttttttt. The temp said 93 with a real feel of 103. But as the sun lowered in the sky a welcome breeze came and cooled us off.

The fair folks have been very very kind and helpful Being an old fairgrounds the electrical supply is still wanting. Not a single outlet here puts out more than 107 volts. We have split our electrical needs between various poles to keep demand on a single supply box from being too much. Our lot is great. In fact it is nearly perfect. One thing I am worried about is the audience may be looking into the sun during our 7pm show. I will let you know how that goes.

Miles' Birthday was yesterday and at the campsite we served him his favorite dinner and cheesecake for desert. We gave him a pretty nice computer tablet a couple of weeks ago in advance. I also took him for the traditional dad-son lunch earlier in the day.