I Love The Smell Of Cow Manure In The Morning

Yep, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.  We’re in Iowa farm country.  The fields we’ve been driving by on the highway are all freshly plowed and fertilized with the finest cow pies.  That will certainly clear your sinuses.

We overnighted at Flying J once more, it was a nice sunny evening when we pulled in.  This morning it was pouring rain.  Lucky us, we got blocked in by some trucks, so it looked as if I was going to have to go out in the rain, unhook the Element so we could back out.  But we were fortunate that a truck next to us pulled out.  I was able to slowly and carefully  back the Journey with the Element attached about 10 feet, enough to be able to scoot around the truck in front of us.  No complaints, the overnight was free.

We don’t pretend to seek out Flying J’s and Walmarts as our preferred places to stay, we’re destination travelers and had our sights set on getting to the Winnebago Service Center, so rather than drop a bunch of money at campgrounds for a few hour stay, we’ll take advantage of the FJ and WM free invitation to overnight, heaven knows we spend enough at those places anyway.

That’s the beauty of our Journey, it really doesn’t matter where we are, we’re always home.  Close the curtains and we could be anywhere in the world, while still having our own bed and facilities with us. 

When we get to where we chose to go and stay, we enjoy the area and all the things to see and do.  The money for the campground is then well worth it.

A short run today, 78 miles, with rain and a headwind, but by the time we got to the exit on I-35 for Forest City, Iowa, the rain stopped and the sun even came out.

Just before you get to the Winnebago Factory, there is a park with a free dump station. 

It is the nicest I’ve ever seen, ten individual recessed dump holes with rinse water and potable water.

Since we don’t know how many days we’ll be here, we took advantage to start with empty holding tanks and a full water tank.  Winnebago supplies only electricity at their facility.

Just down the road is the Winnebago Visitor Center.

They have free electric hookups for visitors and there were a few motorhomes taking advantage of them.

It’s a pretty sweet deal.  Even better if you’re a member of the WIT (Winnebago Itasca Travelers) club.  Click on the picture to enlarge.

Across the street is the Factory Service Center.

There is overnight parking right out front.  When you make an appointment, they reserve a site for you to plug in.

The service center itself has 19 bays to work on motorhomes.

Of course, we could not get in our parking spot, an obnoxious lady parked too far over in our spot and we couldn’t fit in.  I tried backing in but it was too tight.  The lady came running out yelling that she wouldn’t be able to open her slide.  The right answer would have been “Wait a minute, I’ll move over a few feet” (She had plenty of room to do so).  It wasn’t in her vocabulary and she refused to move over.  I think anybody would have gladly moved, I know I would have.  (Found out later she is there because her slide is broken and couldn’t be opened anyway). Sheesh!

So we ended up moving to another lot reserved for just day service.  Hope we don’t get kicked out by security…

We did a little drive around the factory, we saw a bunch of new Class C rentals getting ready for delivery to Alaska. They don’t have any wheel covers, awnings or ladders installed, items easily broken in the rental market.  No ladder keeps people off the roof. 

Over where we are parked, there are rows of Ford cab chassis waiting for the body to be installed.

Tomorrow, the Service Center opens at 7am.  You can be sure I’ll be standing there at 6:45.  Who knows I might even see the sun rise!

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.