The Mayes' Great Adventure 2023

This morning Rob scratched his head and felt a bump. Further investigation confirmed that we must have missed a tick in last night's check. After removing the tick from the top of Rob's head, we loaded up and were on the road by 7 am. The sky looked so ominous we felt as if we were traveling in the middle of the night. We love to take the road less traveled. Headed toward the Amana Colonies, we went through Oskaloosa, IA - a pretty town with some old Victorian homes and a big old courthouse. Also home to William Penn University. We didn't get any pictures though. There was too much rain. We made our way to the Amana Colonies and drove around looking at some of the homes. Lots of homes had first-floor walls that were entirely covered with trellises and we later found out these were for grapevines that many families grew. Our plan was to visit the Amana Heritage Museum. The price of admission included three separate buildings spread throughout the colonies. It was still raini...

We have camped for 50-plus years but last night we made a rookie mistake. Even though we were concerned about how we would sleep in the heat, Pam had one of the best nights' sleep yet and missed all the excitement that transpired during the night. Rob, however, was awakened at about 2:30 this morning by something shaking the camper and it was obvious that somebody was crawling over, under, and around our camper. Suddenly there was a big bang and Rob looked out his window to see a raccoon walking by. He yelled at it trying to scare it away but it was undeterred. Hearing much ruckus outside Rob decided he was going to have to confront the intruder.  He crawled out of the camper and shined his light at the picnic table, spotlighting the coon trying to make his way into the drink cooler. Instead of being frightened off, the coon merely gave him a look as if to say, " You got a problem, buddy?". Only after Rob began to approach the coon did it decide to lazily make its way out...

We left Joan's house fairly early this morning and made our way toward Rathbun Lake in Iowa. There isn't much to say about this part of the journey.  We crossed the Missouri River. Last year we were so excited about every river crossing. This year, not so much. We avoided the Interstate highway and took the "scenic" route toward Iowa but didn't see much except corn and soybeans. There has been a lot of haze that we thought was perhaps humidity but thought it might be smoke from fires in Canada. A little Internet research confirmed that the haze was indeed smoke and that air quality is poor in all the states we plan to visit. We arrived at Honey Creek State Park and found lots of availability of campsites. We chose a place that was fairly secluded and reserved it for two nights. It was so hot and humid that we weren't sure how we would be able to sleep, but a shower helped us cool off and we will sleep most of the night without covers and will have 2 small fans...

Today was spent helping Joan and Hal with some technology issues - how to set navigation on their phones and have it go to the car, and how to do some things on the computer. Rob and Pam spent some time planning our next stop in the journey and packing up last-minute stuff. After dinner, we made sure our clothes were packed as we wanted to get a fairly early start in the morning. Tomorrow we will head to Rathbun Lake in southern Iowa.  We failed to get a picture of the dogs, but here is Joan with Gus the cat.

Today was "catch-up" day. The morning was spent unpacking, doing laundry, and repacking the camper. The afternoon was spent catching up on finances and our blog while we still had access to Wi-Fi. The day kind of got away from us so we went to a local cafe for dinner. You have to love small-town diners. The waitresses, young girls in their teens and twenties, are used to dealing with tourists and asked polite questions like "How's your summer going?" and "Have you done anything fun recently?" We told them that we just got back from Costa Rica and they asked all kinds of questions about our trip. It was fun to share some of our experiences with them.

After sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, we met Bill and his son, Tim, and Tim's girlfriend, Abby for an early lunch at Panera's before heading to Joan's house in Hermitage, MO. Hal (Joan's husband) had prepared a wonderful homecoming dinner for us and we spent the rest of the evening sharing stories about our trip and playing Rummikub.

On the last morning in Costa Rica, the "three gringos" ventured to the panaderia (bakery) all on their own. We felt quite accomplished as we made our selections and paid for our purchases without any assistance! Pam's pastry After enjoying our bread and pastries with a cup of fine Costa Rican coffee, we finished packing. Bill had to return to the States for another medical appointment and without realizing it, he booked the same flight as ours. Bill lined up a friend to take us to the airport. After our experiences with "Tico time", we were a little concerned about getting to the airport on time but the driver actually showed up an hour and a half earlier than we were expecting. Thankfully, we were all ready to go. After a long flight to Denver, we had to change planes and go through Customs. It felt good to get off the plane and stretch our legs but we were not expecting the 20-minute walk just to get to the Customs area. We made it through Customs, grabbed a q...

 

After a relaxing morning, we headed to Playa del Coco so that Joan could go to the beach. Ilse and Luna stayed behind because Ilse had students coming over. Bill took us by the condo where he used to live then we went to Claudio y Gloria, a seafood restaurant with a Peruvian flare (according to Bill) right on the beach. One of the things on Joan's must-do list was to drink a Pina Colada on the beach so we started our lunch with a round of Pina Coladas. Bill ordered ceviche as an appetizer. Pam actually liked the shrimp but the texture of the fish was a little strange. Rob was even interested in trying it.  Bill, Joan, and Pam ordered fried red snapper which was wonderful. It was served with patacones (fried, smashed plantains) and a salad. Fried plantain isn't our favorite unless it is very ripe plantain. Rob had grilled shrimp which was pretty good. Before we left the restaurant, Pam went to the restroom where she found an unexpected companion. A crab, approximately 6 inches a...

We woke to birds singing and chirping and our host served a wonderful breakfast of eggs, gallopinto (beans and rice to us, although Bill says it is not just beans and rice), fried banana, pineapple juice, coffee, and toast with guava jam. Luna is ready for breakfast After breakfast we got to try a roasted cacao bean which tasted much like the cocoa powder that we are familiar with, and then the finished product of chocolate. The landscaping here is incredibly beautiful and we have a gazillion photos of flowers and trees. We will dedicate one of our posts to the flora of Costa Rica.  After checking out of Rincon Verde, we headed to the Tenorio Volcano National Park . We took a shortcut suggested to us by our hosts and it took us directly over the mountain on a STEEP one-lane gravel road. At times it was difficult to keep our wheels from spinning in the loose gravel. We were glad it was a rental car! Once we arrived at the park, Bill hired a guide to take our group on a tour of the w...