At Home at Thousand Trails

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

We always feel at home when we come to a Thousand Trails/NACO preserve. You check in at the front gate by showing them your membership card only. We don't get out *any* money and we can stay for 2 weeks. Of course, we paid for the membership - but, for that we get a *home* in many of the most beautiful places in the country.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

We are looking forward to 2 weeks of R&R and website/membership work. Our next obligation is the FMCA International Convention in Bowling Green, Ohio July 20. See our schedule for more detail. Since the Thousand Trail parks are in natural areas, Internet access can sometimes be a problem. They usually have a free Wi-Fi hotspot at the adult lounge, but here, it's in the game room where kids are watching TV and playing video games and air hockey. Luckily, even though we only have 2 bars of Verizon access, it is a Verizon area and not Extended Service. The Internet connection is working fine from our RV using the tethered cell phone. BUT - we may not be so lucky next time. It worried me enough to tell Jim that I think it's time to get our Datastorm Satellite dish operational again. A new controller is on its way.

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Land of Lincoln and Jim Gould's

What a full day we had yesterday. Both of us spent the morning doing work on our website. I made a new video about using our members' forum while Jim handled some member data records issues. Then we reluctantly stowed our stuff and left the beautiful 'Lincoln's New Salem' park. Oh yeah - I haven't posted any of the pictures from the day before have I?

Here ya go:

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Click the link to the June web album for more. Ok .. Now we're leaving New Salem - after learning a lot about Lincoln's life as a young man. Now - Sunday afternoon, we're headed into Springfield to visit the Lincoln Presidential Museum. It was a gorgeous day.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

This was by far the most extravagant of all the Presidential museums we've been to. And the most crowded. It was impressive. Very well done. Here's the lobby where the Lincoln family themselves obligingly posed for photos with the visitors! And, this was the only part where photos were allowed.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

We spent almost 4 hours with eyes wide open and jaws dropped taking in so much information presented in normal displays, multi-media theatres where the seats jumped when the cannons hit and sparks and smoke, and even holographic images. Probably the display with the most impact was 'The Civil War in 4 Minutes' . As you watch the screen you see the boundaries of the Union and the Confederacy continuously move as the days tick by, the battles rage, and the casualties add up, and add up, and add up. Over 600,000 ... it makes me wonder if it was truly the only way.

It sure was memorable to visit the museum of the man who freed the slaves at a time when a black man is now holding that same office. It is also Lincoln's 200th birthday. Heavy.

Then we got back in the rig to go to dinner ... in Champagne/Urbana - 84 miles away. A place called 'Jim Gould's' !! One of our members called us a week or so ago because he and his wife had just had dinner at Jim Gould's and he thought we should know about it. We looked at the map and yeah! we should go there. And we did!

Ever parallel park an RV?

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

We looked it up on the web and saw that it was a pretty nice restaurant - so we even got dressed!

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

And here's Jim Gould and Jim Guld! The restaurant owner was very tolerant of Jim's misspelling - he said there had been a few other Jim Goulds that had visited - he gave us all t-shirts. We were the only Guld. Jim was quite forgiving of the owner's misspelled name as well and we had a great coversation about restaurants and traveling.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Thanks Glenn - it was a great dinner and a fun evening.

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Serendipity and Christmas in June

I recently read a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln (thanks Joline!) and I loved it. What a multifaceted character she was. And what a detailed glimpse into the times of Abraham Lincoln. I was particularly struck with the role that illness played in those times. People didn't just get sick ... they died. Mary Todd Lincoln suffered the death of her mother when she was a little girl, 3 of her 4 children, and of course, her husband. Is it any wonder she went a bit insane?

Anyway ... after reading that book, we took a look at the map and figured we could visit Springfield, Illinois on our way east and visit the Lincoln museum .. oh boy! We don't like to travel more that 200 miles in a day, and we didn't see much in Springfield for campgrounds. Jim found a city park listed in Havana, Illinois about 50 miles northwest of Springfield so he plugged Havana into the GPS and we set off.

Well, we didn't see any signs of a city park, so we continued on towards Springfield. Microsoft Streets and Trips showed us a promising park about 25 miles on called Lincoln New Salem Historic Site. It showed it with the little camping symbol, but we weren't too sure.

Wow!

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

It's a beautiful campground! And good Verizon signal too. But, not only that, this is a tourist attraction with all sorts of exhibits and history about Lincoln.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Including a Theatre in the Park. And guess what's playing? A monologue including the character of Mary Todd Lincoln! OK, let's stay two nights. You would think that life couldn't possibly get any better than this, but, we're also having Christmas in June. As you know, we make most of our living from our website. We call it an online classroom with Computer Education for Travelers. Lots of information is free, but in order to watch all the tutorial videos on Blogging, Picasa, Google Earth, Internet on the Road, and Computer Essentials, you must become a paying member. We normally charge $39 for a one year membership and we get 20-30 new members each month. For the month of June, we have it 'on sale' for $29 and we've gotten about 100 new members! Almost that many have taken advantage of the sale to renew and add a year to their membership as well. We get a notice every time someone signs up. Jim said that opening his email was like waking up to Christmas morning! If you'd like to watch all the videos, you can sign up too! Just click on the link for New Member, or Renewing Member. Thank you Santa :-)

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Herbert Hoover and Iowa

We love visiting Presidential museums, they are the perfect combination of history and biography - my two favorite things to learn about, besides computers that is! So, when we were told that Herbert Hoover's museum is in Iowa not too far from our route ... we had to go. This is our 8th presidential museum. You can see all our blogposts about them by clicking on 'Posts About ... Presidential Libraries' in the right sidebar.

btw - I'm sure glad I'm writing this rather than speaking ... I find it almost impossible to speak 'herbert hoover' without getting tongue tied or dyslexic and coming out with herver hoobert or something :-) Just try it ... say Herbert Hoover 3 times fast!

Herbert Hoover's birthplace, museum and library are located in West Branch, Iowa.

What a pretty little town.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

The little white house in this next photo is Herbert Hoover's actual birthplace. It's been restored, but it is the actual building in it's original location since 1874 when he was born.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Hoover was a Quaker and we had a great tour guide who made us experience the Friends Meeting house the way the Quakers would have ... in silent meditation. She told us that Quakers believed that we all have a light within and the purpose of Sunday services was not to listen to a preacher talking about God, but to sit in silent meditation and find our God within. So we sat on the benches .. Jim on the men's side and Helen (the park ranger/tour guide) and I on the women's .. for a moment of silent meditation and then she continued the tour. That was great - thanks Helen! I didn't know I was a Quaker!?

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

I was fascinated with Hoover's biography.

• His childhood started out idyllic in West Branch with 2 siblings and happy parents. Then his father died when he was 6 and his mother when he was 9.
• He was sent to an uncle in Oregon, ended up graduating from Stanford with an engineering degree and went to Australia to manage mines.
• He came back to the states to marry Lou Henry - a fellow Stanford student. They moved to China with his engineering career, then to many places all around the world, becoming quite rich in the process.
• After WWI, Hoover organized the relief efforts American Relief Administration which fed 350 million people in 21 countries in the aftermath of the war. He became known as the Great Humanitarian
• He was elected to the Presidency in a landslide by an adoring electorate
• His first year of office was 1929 - the Great Depression hit and he took the blame. He was defeated for re-election by about as great a landslide as that which elected him!
• After a kind of exile during Roosevelt's administration, he worked closely with Truman to help Europe recover after WWII.

What a full life! And full of such huge ups and downs.

The museum also had an exhibit about Iowa A-Z which I thoroughly enjoyed. Who woulda thunk there'd be so much interesting stuff in Iowa! I could have spent a lot more time in that museum (I always say that) but Jim reminded me that the Lincoln museum in Springfield is next on our agenda and we'd better get going.

whew!

meanwhile, I need to take a 'work' day. I need to get our newsletter out in time to remind folks that our $29 special on new and renewing memberships is over on the last day of June. I also have lots of new 'show-me-how' computer videos I want to make, but that can wait till we get to Indian Lakes Thousand Trails where we'll stay for 2 weeks of catch-up before heading to Bowling Green, Ohio for the next FMCA convention where we'll be presenting 7 different seminars plus our hands-on Boot Camp during the evenings. See why we need to rest up? For our complete schedule see our website.

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Mississippi River and Iowa County Parks

When we visited Field of Dreams, we stayed at a nearby county park called 'New Wine.' Great name ... very nice park. We had it almost to ourselves.

I especially like it when there's a trail in the woods.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Next stop was the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, and we found another county park, called Mud Lake, right on the river.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

A note about the photos in this blog: I first upload photos to my Picasa Web Album, then I select the ones I want and embed them in this blog. If you click on the link below the photo, it will take you to the album for this month. There are quite a few more photos in the album than what I add to the blog. If you click on a picture, instead of the link below it, you will see the larger sized photo from the Web Album - you will need to click 'Back' to come back here. We went to Dubuque to see the Mississippi River museum. We heard that it is quite worthwhile and they were right.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

This exhibit demonstrated how the river floods. You could see the water level for the 1927 flood and how it would be over the bridge.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Jim tried his hand at the controls of a barge pilot simulator. One tug pushes 22,500 TONS on up to 15 barges. They don't move very fast or respond very quickly to the controls.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

I enjoyed learning about the issues of cargo transportation. The grain from Iowa farmland gets loaded on these barges and they go downriver to New Orleans where they're loaded onto ocean going freighters bound for other continents. What takes 4 barges = 15 train cars or 60 trucks. River transportation is obviously the least expensive, but the river and surrounding environment suffers. So much to learn. I always feel overwhelmed when I visit museums like this.

Next comes Herbert Hoover museum in West Branch.

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Field of Dreams

We finally made it! As we've been living our dream, we really wanted to visit the Movie site for the Field of Dreams. We were close last year when we did the rallies at Amana Colonies, Iowa. This year, we arranged our itinerary specifically to visit here. Actually, Jim arranged the itinerary ... I still thought it was too far out of the way. Sometimes its good that I defer to him :-)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

And then, of course, we had to watch the movie. Unfortunately, the gift shop at the site was closed by the time we got there. So we drove into town and found a video store. I've always liked this movie.

Ok, I love this movie.

Most movie DVDs today add some 'extra' material. This Field of Dreams DVD had a full length feature on the making of the movie. One of the comments was that Field of Dreams is our generation's 'It's a Wonderful Life.' I thought about that a lot. Both movies are about American values of family and love. But in 'It's a Wonderful Life' ... (the Christmas classic with Jimmy Stewart) the main character gives up folowing his dreams in favor of doing his duty - a very 1950s mid-American thing to do. In Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner's character gives up doing his duty and he follows his dream ... literally. A very baby-boomer generation thing to do. My generation is just crazy enough, and just spoiled enough to believe that following our dreams *IS* our duty.

My favorite scene, perhaps of *any* movie is when Annie (Amy Madigan) convinces the PTA to stop considering the banning of books. The quiet raising of hands that tells her the crowd agrees inspires her victory dance of boxing jabs and I'm always cheering and punching right along with her!

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Spam and Tornadoes

No, I'm not talking about getting lots of emails about Tornadoes, I'm talking about that tasty spiced ham canned meat made by Hormel right here in Austin, Minnesota!

When we saw there was a Spam Museum, we just had to go.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

They proudly display what they call Monty Python's most inspired crowning achievement ...

My favorite part was learning about the Hormel Girls. They knew, back in the 30s that the best way to promote a product was thru community buzz! We had a delicious Spam burger at the restaurant across the street then came home to spend a quiet evening. It was quiet until the tornado warning siren went off! Then we enjoyed a party of sorts at the local storm shelter! Here's the radar as seen on Jim's cell phone:

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Three sirens and about 3 hours later, we came back to the RV and went to bed. The worst of the storm passed to the north of us - all is well here.

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The Sun is out, Rally must be over

OK, so I might be exaggerating a little ... the sun did come out on the last day of the rally. It was actually quite beautiful yesterday. But most of the time it was pretty miserable, they even had to cancel the entertainment on one night due to a tornado warning. They announced that everyone should seek shelter under the grandstand, and definitely *not* stay in their RVs. The shuttle golf carts were driving around making sure everyone got the message and offering rides to the grandstand. A tornado actually did touch down just a few miles from here in Austin, Minnesota. All was just fine here.

We did two seminars here - Picasa, and Every RVer Needs a Blog . They were well attended and well-received. The rest of the time we 'worked' the booth. I put 'work' in quotes because I'm not sure you can call it that when you're not accomplishing anything, and not making any money. It was a relatively small rally - I think the attendance numbers I heard was 280 coaches. We're trying everything this summer as we continue our quest to make a living on the road. A little of this, a little of that, and it all adds up. My bet is that some of the folks who attended the seminars signed up for a Geeks on Tour membership online. Our online sales are going quite well this month since we have the membership on sale for $29.

We did have fun getting to know some of our fellow vendors - the booth next to ours was TechnoRV. Whaddaya know - some more geeks! But these were geeks with toys. A wireless mouse in the shape of a Corvette, or a PT Cruiser was one of their popular items. But, what I want is the scuba diving mask with a camera (and video camera) built in to the frame!

Tracey and Phil, who own TechnoRV, are from England. They moved to the US with their jobs several years ago but have now quit those jobs so they can travel around this beautiful country of ours. And, they do it with 2 kids, a dog, and a retail business - all in their RV! Their son (12 I think) and daughter (14) are home-schooled and appear to enjoy their lifestyle very much.

We also met Ben and Leslie from RVSunpower - their booth was across the aisle from us. They've been living fulltime in their motorhome for over 15 years! They also do many things to make a living on the road. They told us they enjoyed working for the Corps of Engineers parks. And they really like spending winters in Baja!

Is this a great life or what?

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Greetings from Minnesota

The sun woke me up this morning. Two things were very remarkable about that

1. it was 5:30 am! You can tell we're way up north.

2. it's been raining and raining and raining. Does this mean the rain is over?

We're at the Freeborn county fairgrounds in Albert Lea, Minnesota. We're here for the FMCA Midwest Area rally.

Hey, it's Raining!! Time for another RV rally :-)

Ya think we can blame this guy for the rain?

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

We'll be giving our Picasa seminar today at 2:30. See our complete seminar schedule on our Geeks on Tour website.

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Lake Panorama, Iowa

Clark and Helen's neighbor - Frank, is also a member of our Geeks on Tour online classroom, and we looked forward to meeting him. He and his wife, Sandy had us all over for dinner on Friday and took us for a boat ride on the lake on Sunday ... the one sunshiny day we've had here!

Wow .. this place is impressive. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Then, last night - we held an impromptu Picasa class and Clark and Helen invited a group of friends to bring their laptops and give it a try. I'd say we have 8 new Picasa converts!

We said our goodbyes over breakfast this morning at 'Just Ethel's' cafe in Yale, Iowa. Thanks for a fabulous time Clark and Helen! or should we say 'Pohl's Lakeside RV Resort'??

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

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A day in Iowa

Clark and Helen graduated from Yale. The high school in Yale, Iowa that is! They took us to breakfast this morning at the Yale community center where their photos were hung on the wall along with all the other graduating classes. In 1951 the total number of senior students was 6!

Then we went to visit Helen's brother who farms the family land. We got there just in time for feeding an orphaned calf.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

This tractor is all shined up for taking part in a tractor ride with 500 others next week. That would be quite a sight. They're supposed to drive about 180 miles each day for a 3 day event. (see video at the bottom of this post)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

In addition to hundreds of acres of corn and soybeans, they also raise some cattle. Here is just one of the farm machines necessary to run a place like this: Then, in the afternoon, we took advantage of a nearby 'Rails to Trails' and rode our bikes about 8 miles. This is the Raccoon River Valley Trail. If you click on the links above to the album - you can see some more photos. p.s. I have since learned what a big deal the Tractor Ride is that I mentioned above. If you're going to be anywhere near Waterloo, Iowa on June 21-24 it's worth taking a look at the Great Iowa Tractor Ride. Check out this video about the event:

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Driveway Camping

We are now parked at Clark and Helen's in the community of Panora, Iowa. We call this 'driveway camping.' The best driveways are of people who also RV. Because they know about needing level sites, and 30 amp electric hookup and water! Is this a nice spot or what? That's a lake in the background ... and we hope to do some paddling and boating while we're here.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

We met Clark and Helen back in 2004 when both of us were doing work for Coach Connect. We were all together at the Great North American RV rally in Hutchinson Kansas. Clark and Helen are the last 2 on the right in this photo:

Through the wonder of group emails (and blogs), we've kept in touch with them over the years and we're thrilled to finally be able to take them up on their offer to visit. Thanks Clark and Helen!

They still go for RV trips, lots of rallies, and travel to Arizona for the winters. For many years, Clark and Helen worked as delivery drivers for RVs. This is how they got to Alaska several times. If you're interested in something like this, check out Bennett Driveaway. Don't expect to make a profit at this, but it can be a great way to get somewhere and have your expenses paid.

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Another Day around Winterset

I got up before 6 to finish a small web project, and I tried to take care of my emails. It appears to be a losing battle - but I will get to the bottom of it! New and renewing members for our Geeks on Tour Online classroom are signing up by the dozens during our June special of $29 (instead of the normal $39) for a one year membership or renewal. I'm trying to make sure they are all happy with the service.

I also wrote and posted my Picasa Tip of the Week - a day late. I used a photo from yesterday as my example ... if I had waited till today, I might have used that butterfly picture below - isn't it pretty?

We went for another walk right from our site in the city park. We saw a sign that said 'Tower Trail - 1 mile' OK, we're game, is there really a tower? It was certainly a pretty trail, and nobody else in sight:

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Lots of birds and bees and butterflies too.

OMG, there really *is* a tower. We felt like we'd been magically transported to Ireleand.

Odie couldn't make it up the last flight of stairs because it was more like a ladder. He just patiently waited for us. After that good walk, we were hungry! We decided to go to town and eat at the cafe where Clint Eastwood went in the movie. Jim sat in the same stool. Maybe if you squint real hard ... and let your eyes go blurry, you can see Clint here?

Nope ... I can't do it either :-) Then, we had to go see the main covered bridge from the movie - Roseman bridge. It is about a 10 mile drive out of town.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

According to the brochure - the covers were made in order to protect the timber in the bridge itself which was much more expensive. When we got back home, Jim spent a little time putting stuff back into it's new shelving in our 'loft.' We decided we no longer needed the wood cabinets that had been there. Taking them out means less weight! Always a good thing. Then came a knock on our door ... wha?!? Wow - it was Paul Stough, he told us he'd been following our blog for a year or so and he lives in the area. When he saw our post from this city park, he figured he'd come say hi. Paul is an ocassional RVer and hopes to get on the road even more. We talked about best ways to connect to the Internet and we showed him how we were connecting with our tethered cell phone right now. We had good, four bar EVDO from Verizon while in Winterset! Thanks for stopping by Paul.

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