Scott County Park, Pioneer Village - Eldridge, Iowa

Pioneer Village, Scott County Park

Kathy at the old school house

Scott County Park has an area that they have moved several old buildings to recreate a village. A beautiful old church, a couple of homes, a school house, bank, telegraph, saloon (now an ice cream parlor) just to mention a few.  It was fun walking through history and they even had people dressed up in time period clothing working looms, making rag rugs, quilting and even a school teacher who preached on the importance of history lessons :-) 

One of the many farms

     Buffalo Bill Cody's Home

Drove about 8 miles to see Buffalo Bill Cody's home but didn't get to tour it since they were closing in 15 minutes. Fun day, a little hot and humid but enjoyed see the beautiful fields and farm houses. They take such pride in keeping their homes and building looking nice!

Quad Cities, Iowa

Looking across the Mighty Mississippi

Drove around Davenport, Iowa; Rock Island, Illinois; Moline, Illinois and Bettendorf, Iowa which are part of the area called the "Quad Cities". From the roads we took Davenport was the nicest looking city.  We stopped at a park in Davenport that overlooked the Mississippi River which also had a paddle boat casino docked nearby - Rhythm City Casino. We didn't even discuss going aboard since we have NO luck with gambling. There were a couple of COE RV parks on the Illinois side so we drove through to check them out - Fisherman's Corner and Illiniwek Forest Preserve. Both looked nice but Illiniwek's had a better view of the Mississippi River. There was a railroad track that was very close to the RVs but no one was outside for us to ask if the train track was active. No one was in the offices so we were unable to get more information on the parks.  Glad we decided to stay in Scott County - tornadoes and severe thunderstorms just north of us in the Dubuque. We had some storms during the night but not severe, thank God!

Scott County Park - Eldridge, Iowa

I-80 Truck Stop near Walcott, Iowa

Another day of traveling up I 35 north to I 80 east - Bruce wants to go to the I80 Truck Stop. He saw a program about it on the Travel Channel and wanted to see it. Since it is in the area just re-routed the plans a little to make it happen. It was a huge place and as you can see from the picture, all kinds of lights for vehicles. For those of you that know Bruce, his knees did go weak when he saw this display!

View from our window of Incahias Campground

Only another 20 miles to get to the Scott County park that I found at RVParkReviews.com. Another great county park! Not far off of I-80 and Highway 61. They do not take reservations so just get to drive around and find an empty site we liked. The 1st area we came to was "Bald Eagle Campground" where they have full hook ups and level concrete sites for only $20 but the trees are not full grown yet so no shade. The next campground is "Incahias" but it only has electric and water but lots of trees and it is $18. We chose the Incahias for the tree cover although the sites are gravel and unlevel.  We are slanted a bit but it will probably only be a few days so will just deal with it. Need a fews days off from driving/riding in the pickup.

Terrible's Lakeside Casino, Hotel and RV Park - Osceola, Iowa

Loved driving through Missouri! Such a beautiful area and the farms along the highway are so nice and well maintained. South Iowa was nice too, rolling hills of cornfields.

Terrible's Lakeside Casino RV Park

Terrible's RV Park was ... Terrible! It could be and probably was at one time a very nice park but they have let it go.  They need to mow, such a simple thing to do to make it look nicer! The sites were concrete and most were crumbling. They charge $20 and signing up for a new players card gets you $5 in free play and a deck of cards. Bruce played the $5 and since we'd played on $40 the night before, left the casino :-)

Downstream Casino, Quapaw, Oklahoma

What a day for mixed emotions! Hated leaving with Stacy being sick but she is doing much better. Loved leaving due to the horrible heat wave! Our poor air conditioner and refrigerator just couldn't compete with the extreme heat. We can only hope that getting in cooler air will revive the refrigerator, don't want to even think about having to replace it.

Our first night on this trip was at the Downstream Casino which is located at the tri-state corner of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. We've stayed in the RV section before which is basically a parking lot with electric and water hookups. The grounds are so nice though and you can't beat the price - free for 3 nights then $15 a night after that.  We donated $40 to the casino - just wish we could get lucky one time! We'd found our favorite slots, Rockin Olives, but they were not as loose as the ones we played in Las Vegas. Some severe storms were headed our way so we sat out on a bench and watched the lightning. Storms went east of us - was hoping that they would head toward Lawton!

Lake Lawtonka, Lawton, Oklahoma

Time to take Owen home and visit family. Had a great week with Owen but his Mom and Dad are ready for him to come back home. Drove up to Moore to kidnap Hayden for a few days, will be glad when she is able to spend a week with us too.

Had to have an ultasound for the lump that was found during my annual exam. Took too long to get results back, will have to shop around if I ever need this again! Results were negative so not sure what the lump is, will just monitor it for a couple of months, I guess.

Owen's birthday party was great but Stacy was sick with a UTI that she ended up in the hospital a couple of days after Owen's party. UTI and a reaction to an rheumatoid arthritis medicine she takes.

The RV park at Lawtonka has no tree cover and the 115 plus temperature was more than our air conditioner and refrigerator could take! We got to spend a little time with Dad, visit Nancy and PeeWee, Debbie and Jim at the lake, fun seeing lake friends again. Moved over to Robinson's Landing on the north side of the lake to see if the trees would help out. It did help the AC but the refrigerator is still struggling at around 50 degrees - not cold enough to store food, for sure! Stacy is out of the hospital and doing better so we are heading north to get some relief from this heat!

Owen's Visit to Loyd Park, Grand Prairie, Texas

Medieval Times - Dallas

Nana, Owen and Papa at Medieval Times

Brought our Grandson, Owen, back with us for a week of birthday fun! We had told him we would take him to either Six Flags or Hurricane Harbor - he chose Hurricane Harbor. We also had a surprise planned for him during his visit - a trip to Medieval Times in Dallas. We had such a great time there with him and he sure enjoyed it too!

Owen helped us out with our camp host duties at Loyd Park and Lynn Creek. He was just such a joy to have that whole week!

Owen and his Papa (Bruce) had fun at Hurricane Harbor too - me not so much - got a little overheated waiting in line and had to walk back down the stairs to get some water and shade. I'm such a girl when it comes to getting overheated. The week went by too fast, Owen said maybe next time he would do 2 weeks with us :-)

Owen at Hurricane Harbor

Owen doing beach patrol

Loyd Park, Grand Prairie, Texas

We arrived May 2 for at least a 2 month camp host assignment at Loyd Park and found it to be a great park system ran by the city of Grand Prairie, Texas. Bruce had seen an ad for Loyd Park and contacted them to see if they utilized camp hosts and, if so, did they have any openings. Needless to say, they did and here we are! We were very impressed with the cleanliness and friendliness of the whole region! The staff and other camp hosts at Loyd Park were very nice and worked with us regarding scheduling around visits to Lawton for appointments. We worked at both Loyd Park and Lynn Creek Park (a day use only park about 5 miles away). The Loyd gate was very busy and required being able to do a lot since we were responsible for collecting vehicle entry fees, registering campers, cabins, pavilions and the club house plus answering the phone after 4:30 and all day on week-ends. Lynn Creek was mostly just collecting vehicle entry fees so this place was our preference and Patti would schedule us there, when possible. We were in site 106, which was a full hook up site and great tree coverage, which was important when the temperatures climbed over 100. We asked about helping keep the park clean, since we enjoy getting out and about. We were given a loop to maintain, which most of the time was not much work at all. Of course there are a very few campers that are messy and it might take 1 hour just to clean up those sites.
Stacy, Gary and Owen came to visit us for a few day and had a wonderful time with them! Set up the tent for them to "rough it" but Owen wasn't into roughing it so he stayed in the RV with us. Went to Trader's Village with them, huge place with a little bit of everything.
Bruce and I went to Canton's First Monday and was much more impressed with it versus Trader's Village. Need to come back in the spring or fall, it was too dang hot to walk around very much!
We had a great time at Loyd Park and hope to go back there some day!