2019 Mini-Vaca, Western Iowa, Part 4 - Desoto National Wildlife Preserve

So we woke up on Sunday morning at various times... Dad was awake around 30 times during the night moving very cautiously as to not lock up his neck and shoulders which were bothering him tremendously. Mom got up around 4am and the boys, well, one went to sleep around 10:30 and the other closer to 1am. We were a mess...

I finally got out of bed around 6am and walked up to the bathroom, and then walked around the campground and our by the lake.  I sat by the previous nights fire, which was still smoldering, and enjoyed that for a bit and then went back into the cabin to wait for others to awaken.  Mom was first and went up to do daily maintanence and then when she got back,  Rob and I headed up.

When we got back to the cabin,  Caleb and mom were gone and the reason that Rob and I hoped for was that they were bringing back piles and piles of coffee!  

That turned out to be true.  Meanwhile, Rob and I cleaned up the cabin and got the trash hauled away.  We were pretty much ready to reload the vehicle and be on our way!

Hence, Rob drove from L&C State Park by Onawa, IA, down to our next destination, Desoto National Wildlife Preserve.  We got off the interstate shortly after it went down to two lanes due to reparations around recent flooding.

What a cool building and moreover, a cool place!  They built the building in a manner that it could remain open amidst flooding which behooved us this year!  The water in this pic is back about 35 feet from where it normally resides.

Caleb in the eagles nest.

Rob in the eagles nest!  I was amazed that we got both varmints to pose for picture without much of a fight from either, with a mask on, non-the-less.

This is a good shot that shows how high the water is based on where the vegetation ends.

There's a whole wing of the museum based on the sinking of the Bertrand.  It was a ship loaded with goods headed for...  Oh jeez, just go read about it here and there's links at the end of the pages to get even more history.  It's a cool story and seeing the contents of the ships cargo in the museum was quite interesting.

Caleb.

Rob.

Dad...  and no, I'm not violating the wall.  The bird above my head made me duck to get my hands on the poster...  get'cher minds out of the gutter.

The Missouri river.  She's still high, which had this look-out closed.

The sinking location marker.  Nothing was visible since the water is still many feet higher than normal, but at least the marker wasn't covered.

The boat dock at the Bertrand marker...  a little clean-up to be done once the water recedes.

This was a aviary lookout further down the trail...

Once we finished here,  we drove down I-29 towards Council Bluffs.  We were amazed at the flood waters that still remain from earlier this season.  In some places, the water was still right up to both sides of the interstate!

A fun trip was had by all (maybe except Rob) and we swung by my sister in laws place before heading home.  

The fun weekend has been wrapped up.

2019 Mini-Vaca, Western Iowa, Part 3 - Lewis & Clark State Park

Part III finds us at Lewis & Clark State Park just West of Onawa, IA.   We left Preparation Canyon State Park after driving part of the loop and found ourselves on the Northwest side heading North, so kind of perfect for our next journey.

We headed North on Larpenteur Memorial Rd, until we reached E54.  We hitched onto that until we hit K45 which marched our happy butts straight up into Onawa, IA. where we hung a left onto Hwy 175W to arrive shortly at our next destination.

We were early to arrive after our near-death experience at Prepararation Canyon earlier in the day so we passed our campground and headed to museum on the opposite side of the lake.  

The right side red block is our KOA campground.  The left side red block is where the following pictures were taken.

This is Rob is a cutaway of the "Keelboat"  learning about the secret message code that Thomas Jeffereson had established with L & C.

The boys are testing the PSI of what it takes to pull the boat into shore.

Just some random interesting stuffs...

Canoes made of Buffalo skin. Get'cha some!

This begins the brief section of pics that are of the actual only replicas of the 5 boats that L & C used collected into one spot in the world!  It's kind of cool!

Not sure what this plant was but there were a good number of them out in the parking lot as we were leaving and I thought they were fascinating!

Calebber was the only one left with me at this point around the campfire.  You can tell from the sky thru the trees that it's not completely dark yet, but a few folks got sick of the bugs and the 99% humidity...  they went back into the A/C and relative safety from critters.

A shot from my seat with the sun setting and the water slightly visible.

2019 Mini-Vaca, Western Iowa, Part 2 - Preparation Canyon State Park

After a few more moments driving and a few errors upon our (experimental) path, we found our way to Preparation Canyon State Park.

We only found out about this place as Mama was searching for places to hike while in the Loess Hills and we figured since we're essentially passing thru on our way to the Lewis & Clark State Park in Onawa, IA.,  we may as well get our pudgy little butts out and hike.

Right?  But it's HOT!!!

There's a bit of history on why this exists today, so read away!

This was right at the entrance where they talk about all of the native prairie grass that L&C would have seen and explained how that as the tree's grew up the landscape, the prairie grass shrunk in square mileage due to the shade of the trees. 

Caleb's phone just a little ways down the road.

Same here.  Pictures don't EVER do these types of nature pics proud but these were absolutely stunning views.

We finally got to the spot where we were going to get out and hike.  Rob is regretting his decision to gamble against mom and dad about being able to stay home.  He stayed up playing Overwatch the night before and is operating on about 5 hours of sleep.  It's roughly 97 degrees at this point and he appears to be having some type of regret!  LOL.  Never been there myself so I CANNOT understand...  LOL!  I'm putting on socks and tennis shoes after only wearing sandals to this point.

I think the posture says it all...

Some random forest to get your head straight.

More of the same.  In person, you can see thru the trees much better to get the full depth of what your seeing, which was perfectly stunning.

One of the best photos of the "dirt" that makes up the Loess Hills and how it erodes.  Again, the picture falls wildly short of showing the awesomeness of how the roots of the foliage are holding the dirt together as best as it can.

Hiking...

More hiking...

This was about the point to where dad, and his allergies that had kicked in, was starting to scour areas where a helicopter might land to lift me out.  I couldn't really breathe thru my nose anymore and I knew we had to get back up the crazy/stupid slope that we came down...

Hollywood Caleb is always happy hiking...

Hollywood!!

A lad and his dad...  his dad carrying two bottles of water and still contemplating his own mortality with the ascension still to come. 

This is a shot of some crazy looking bamboo type plant growing by this tree root.  What is it truly?  We have no clue.

You cannot tell the elevation, or the quick descent thereof, but trust me,  you should practice for this especially if your day is to include near 100 degree temps with wildly high humidity as well.  Not cool...

This is on the Preparation Canyon Park Loop Trail.

Same here...

Same here, looking over the old Missouri River be from many years past.

Momma had me stop on the gravel road that we were on so she could explain this picture to the boys.  I should have been listneing, but I get the overall gist of the situation and have never really cared for official labels of stuff, so I was spacing...  Well, truly,  I was watching for cars in the rear-view mirror coming down the road behind us.

2019 Mini-Vaca, Western Iowa, Part I - Gettin' There

So we've been kind of embarrassed by the fact that we've lived in Iowa for around 90 years combined and we've seen so little of our local State Parks, Nature Preserves and whatever else.  This lack of our observation of local beauty came about with the realization that we saw so VERY little of the are surrounding the "local" area of Tulsa Oklahoma while we lived there for 3 Freakin' YEARS!!!

So after the last two summers of visiting Hawaii and the New England area respectively, we decided that this year will be a few smaller/shorter/less expensive trips around Iowa (and 1 to Chicago earlier this year, which reminds me, I've posted nothing from that trip...) visiting state parks and other local interests.

We left the house shortly after 8am Saturday morning with Mom driving, dad riding shotgun and the boys in the back sporting various opinions.  Caleb was super excited because we were going to be hiking later in the day and Robby was highly disenfranchised that he was being forced to go almost exactly 12 hours after being home from camp.  Not a happy man...  he had set down with me the night before and recited a passionate plea of why he should be left behind (non of his reasons were to help take care of Grandpa, which would have been his best argument!) but I told him to can it, he's going and he may just as well as enjoy as much as he can.  He appeared dejected and headed back to his room where I could hear him telling his buddies that he was being forced against his will to go on this stupid trip.  LOL!!!

The disenfranchised Robert James at the Chuckwagon restaurant in Adair Iowa.  This is one of our favorite little restaurants after accidentally discovering it when Caleb and myself were headed to a 1-day adoption camp in Ashland, Nebraska and needed to find some supper.  As luck would have it, we pulled into the Chuckwagon and had some fantastic burgers.  Turns out that they won the best burger in Iowa contest the next year!

The Chinaman not wishing to be photographed...

It ain't much, but never had bad food or service in this building!

Robby was driving at this point (after breakfast) and he doesn't like the interstate (even more-so than his dad!) so I had him drive on the interstate from Adair over to hwy 173 to head North into Elk Horn, Iowa.  I love roads I've never been on so this figured into my decision of where to get off of the interstate.  This is heading into Elk Horn.

Rob drove to Portsmouth, IA where I took over driving until our first destination of the day, which I'll cover in the next post!