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.

Catch-up Field of Dreams.....and mroe

The new hard drive is in the computer and the software is almost all loaded back on.
The run at the Delaware CO fair went very very well. Big crowds. I even got to host the Cutest baby contest. Glad I didn't have to be the judge....tough job. They were all cute.

Jim ran sound for a few other folks using our stage.

And our sound sounds better now since our new speakers arrived.  After 10 years of the same speakers it was time to upgrade.  Our friend, Marty Drilling, of Python Sound out of Waterloo, IA came out to visit and we had him take our old speakers to give them a tune up.  We will keep them as back ups and when we need more umph.

The Versteegts out of Janesville, IA (friends and fans and almost family), came out twice to drop packages off to us.  They act as our mail drop in Iowa. Mami was so happy when Mary (the mom) came with her hubby and son, Eric, out the second time.  She loves spending time with her. They also brought Eric's assistant (he is a magician).  She is one of the girls Jim is lifting in the photos below.

Cookie the puppy Is growing fast...25 days old.  He has climbed out of his whelping box three times so far.  JC and Dean are reallllllllly looking forward to getting their little bundle of joy.

Today we had a day off so after sleeping late, visiting the post office, and loading the last of the stuff into the vehicles, we drove to an RV camp near a river so we could go fishing tonight for catfish.  We here Walleye is running too.  After getting there we loaded into the van and went down to the site where they filmed Field of Dreams.  It was cool. Looked just like it did in the movie.  We played around and even went into the corn to see where the ghosts go.

After getting back Jim and I hit the Laundromat and that is where I am sitting and typing now.  

We will drive 4.5 hours on Wed for the Cherokee Fair in Cherokee, IA.   SO it is tourism, rest and fishing until then.

 

Manchester Iowa Day 1

We didn't expect the storms all night long nor the rains all morning. It left a couple of small mud lakes in our backstage area.  The fair provided wood chips to absorb the moisture.
Last night was the firworks show here and boy was I loud.  I was directly behind it in my rv on the grounds...just outside of the "fall out" zone.  They like them loud here I am told.
This morning it was an early rise due to our bodies still on east coast time. Convinient, because we had laundry to do....again.
Last night just after posting my blog my laptop hard drive started making noise and then commited suicide.  Ouch, lost a good chunk of video from this summer. Still have some on a back up drive and some on tape. At least everything else was backed up.  The lost programsm discs are at home so I will suffer a bit there.
I did find a comp. Repair place downtown near the laundry. He was closed until 11:30 so I will drop it off tomorrow morning.
It's finally beginning to feel like summer. We only hit 87 but the humidity made it feel warmer. Sweat time.
Cookie the pup is growing up. He likes to sleep on his back.
We are doing lots of strolling here...the stilter, the robot, and the bear went ou for a total of 5 man hours.  Glad it wasn't too hot. I was the robot today.
We discovered the place they filmed the field of dreams is 30 minutes from here so we will visit it next week before the next fair.
There is also a nice river in town and I see a fishing day in our future.
The girls discovered stunt motocross today as the act next to us is it.  They can't get enough of it.
Manchester is a cute little town. Most everyone I have met have been nice. As the robot a few "punks" (circus/sideshow term for tween and teens) were a bit bothersome. One kid who tried to remove my helmet met the wrath of Victor Jr. He told the kid, " are you sure you want to pick on someone who you don't know who they are. But he can see you and could be five times stronger and twice as big as you.. and he could find you when he is out of costume and 'take care of you'?" The punk decided to bug out of there. Other than that the smiles and happy faces as folks met the robot and took pix was great.
Our schedule is a midday schedule...2, 3:30, 6:30 daily. A bit of a different set with half the show under a tent and half outside.

Long time no blog

Sorry for not posting anything for a while. The weather, my lack of a decent internet connection, etc. etc.

We just finished four days in Willard, Ohio. It was their 27th Festival in the Park; their once a year BIG shing ding and their big fireworks show.

Seems everywhere we go they are blasting off fireworks. In fact, tonight in Manchester, IA the fair we are at just finished their show.  I was in my RV on the back side of the show when it sounded like Lebanon in outside.  I thing a few miss-fired and exploded in their mortars from the sound and firey sprays. It had rained a bit shortly before the show.   In fact, we saw a funnel cloud form about 10 miles or so out but it never touched the ground earlier today.   Cool to watch.   You know if I keep saying, "in fact", I could tangent myself on forever. Back to the main thread.

Our entire time in Ohio, even our days off, had rain everyday.  Sometime short blasts, sometimes long deluges.   On the last day we performed all three of our show with minimum electrical running and in minimum costumes because some of our show were in the rain!

The day we pulled out, Sunday, was crazy.  We were going to try and make it to Iowa that day.  Little did I know what lie in store for us. 

Here is how the day started.  I picked the kids and Mami up from the hotel (this was one of the few gigs where we had one hotel room and three of us stayed at the RV....I prefer staying at the Rv alone or with Mami and no one else around. Perhaps when or if we get a bigger one I will feel different. But it does give me alone time.  BTW at the rate I have been changing parts out on this RV this 1999 RV will be a 2013.  One the first day at Willard we couldn't start the generator while I ran 300 feet of cable to the AC power source.  Our generator battery was dead.  A trip to Napa Auto Parts and 130 dollars later we have a new generator battery. But I digress.)

Being a big railroad town Willard has many under passes, most around 11 foot tall....not sure the RV can go that low I never try anything under 12.   So to find a way out of town to the water waste treatment plant where we could dump our full black water tank we had to maze our way through town and back roads. It wasn't far but it was a maze.   When we found our way their a kind man who was told to expect us greeted us and showed us the dump spot.  (did you know that in most towns your waste is treated and the solids are separated from the liquid and then sent on it's way into rivers, etc. the solids are used in landfills? )  James got the honor of dumping the black water and as he did, nearly done, the connection from the rv came loose and the hose fell off.  A brown mush of goo known as "black water" spewed a 2 or 3 gallon goo pile under the RV.  We could do nothing but watch.  The kind man showed us to the large hose that we could use to wash it away. The handle to the hose was a 12" across valve bar-handle. It took two hands to turn the handle as I discovered as I lowered half my body into the valve box.  

The water pressure surprised James and liked a child holding onto a fire-hose he shot water everywhere. After gaining control he sprayed off the area cleaning up the mess. Then, with the hose still on he tried to put it into the mouth of our dump hose to clean it out.  The pressure hitting his hands and the parts of the dump hose sent water spray all over the place, including all over James.  It was fun to watch.

I turned the hose off so he could dump the gray water (sink/shower water).  Near the end of dumping that the separation happened again and so again with the hose. But this time as I turned the valve on a gush of water sprayed from the valve inlet pipe up at me drenching me with water. The valve had broke between uses. Now both James and I were drenched and we still had what we thought was a 9 hour drive ahead.

Fate had other plans.  Like everyone in Ohio and Indiana returning home from the 4thof July week the same time we were traveling.  the 23 or so miles between the toll plaza in Ohio (I 80 in Ohio and Indiana are toll highways...not worth it since the road really really suck) took nearly 2 hours to travel. UGH.

Well we made it through and gained an hour as we entered Central time....but your couldn't tell our bodies that.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi and made it to Davenport where we stayed at one of the cleanest RV camps ever, Interstate RV.  We got there late so we did a self check in and set up.  Then we crashed. Even though we knew the time change the dogs internal clock said it was 8:45 when it was 7:45 and they let us know they couldn't wait.  That caused Titus to wake up and so that meant we all woke up.  

As A treat i did the unheard of I took everyone out to a sit down bfast at Dennys.  Then we had to have the LP gas in the RV refilled, which took a while. Then on the road to Manchester for the Delaware County fair.  The change in weather was astounding. From mid 70s at the highest to low 90s and high humidity was VERY noticeable as we set up our show.

 We made the front and the back of the Willard paper.

 Today, Cookie went from Being a Democrat to a Republican when he was able to open his eyes.

 Below....we spend way too much time at these places.

 Pre-parade in Bellevue

 At Edison's birth place. it was closed but we looked around anyways.

 a 1949 ferris wheel

Above...the rain show.  Below....check out who is photo-bombing my picture.....