Corn, Corn and More Corn

Sunday dawned beautiful with moderate temperatures. I felt bad for all the plans that had been rained out on the 4th. We took our time getting dressed and having breakfast. We decided to drive to Coralville Lake, a Corp of Engineer park with five campgrounds. It is about 15 miles east of Amana.

We stopped at the Visitor Center upon arrival and watched a film about the 1993 flood at this dam. The water topped the spillway for many days and carved out a gorge 20 feet deep. What it exposed was fossils millions of years old. They erected a plaza using polished sections of fossils to form a fountain. There were also several large boulders along a walkway that showcased important visible fossils. In 2008, an even worse flood occurred and it washed out the stairs to the plaza and the lower part of the walkway and boulders, leaving only four in place. We had no previous knowledge of the Devonian Fossil Gorge and found it interesting.






After driving through two of the campgrounds we headed west to Marengo. They had a Picnic in the Park scheduled for Saturday and we thought perhaps some of it would be carried over because of the weather. But alas, the trucks were there taking the tables, chairs, canopies, etc. down and nothing was going on.

We drove back home and played an entire game of Mexican Train (I won with 149 points) before cooking brats we bought at the Amana Meat Market. When we checked into the campground we were given a wooden $1 coin that was good for one pack of brats. We also bought some smoked pork chops for another time and Rick bought German potato salad to have with the brats.

The fireworks were scheduled for 9:30 so we drove to the end of the campground to a small rise where lots of trucks were parked. We sat in our chairs with our jackets on and watched a half hour fireworks show. It was a nice end to our time at the Amana Colonies.

This morning we pulled out at 8:30 and drove to Little Sioux, IA. We drove about 235 miles past field and field of corn. For 5 hours we saw nothing but corn! Now we know why the ball team was called the Kernels. We thought they were talking about the Colonels when we heard them talk on TV. Silly us.

We move on to Mitchell, SD for an overnight. We want to visit the Corn Palace and make a grocery run at Wal-Mart. We are going to be out of the mainstream while in Interior, SD so we've been warned to have what we need with us.