Yes, it has been a month since our last post. The Biker is currently working 60 hour weeks and I'm walking dogs for folks on four different shifts. We will endeavor to get more posts up, but things are probably going to continue to be slow until Christmas!
Time to wrap up the Winnebago Rally, which was, um, July? Yeah, we're not very good bloggers. One of the most exciting things that happened at the rally was Winnebago techs tracked down our electric gremlin affecting the 12 volt system. It turns out our coach had a frayed wire. It only cost $5 in parts, but three hours of labor. Ouch! Oh, well. It's fixed and we now have 12 volt all the time, which is kind of important.
We also got to go on a long bike ride with the WIT riders.
After all the rain at the beginning of the rally, it was nice to enjoy some great riding weather.
We headed up the road to a tiny town called Rock Falls. The town was built by the falls at Shellrock river, and was originally called Shell Rock Falls. We couldn't an explanation of why the town folk decided to drop the "Shell".
In the 1960s, Rufus Wilkinson and his wife donated 19 acres for a park. Cerro Gordo County Conservation Board has worked to expand the park to 80 acres.
Wilkinson Pioneer Park is now a valuable nature trail, and home to many birds, from blue herons to bald eagles.
The park is best known for its covered bridge. The bridge was built in 1969, was destroyed by fire in 1997, but was rebuilt the next year.
After leaving the park, we grabbed gasm and stopped to see one of Iowa's Freedom Rocks. Ray “Bubba” Sorensen II, a native of Greenfield, Iowm launched the project in 2013. He is placing a rock honoring veterans in each of Iowa's 99 counties!
We then headed to Lake Mills to grab lunch at Teluwut, which has really good food - although I would have liked a bit more seasoning on my fish.
The restaurant is the old Merchant's Bank, so we got to eat in the old bank vault - which was certainly cool enough to make up for the lack of seasoning!
After lunch, we strolled over to the town's Arlington Veterans memorial.
The park was created in 2004 to honor local Veterans.
It currently has 124 flags and honors 1,234 veterans.
Another Freedom Rock. The black granite on the top of the walls came from the same mine that provided the granite for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
This stone honors the 22 local men who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Reading their names and remembering these brave souls seemed like the the best possible way to end to this great ride!