The county park in Omaha was nice and quiet, and quite pleasant, but in the morning Tom got on the phone and called Kelderman Manufacturing, which is the company that put the original beefed up suspension on our truck when it was still a honey farm truck. We’re still having some problems with excessive sway, and lots of bouncing if we hit a big bump, and we figure nobody will know how to fix it like the company that installed the suspension. And, since we were within a few hours of the place, we decided it was worth a call. The owner was super accommodating, and told us to bring it in - tomorrow! So, instead of spending another night at Walnut Creek, we did all of our morning stuff and packed up to tick Des Moines off the list before heading to Kelderman.
It was a typical little RV park, with concrete pads and a picnic table at every site. But it was nice, and quiet. And, the park was built around a lake, which had a 3+ mile walking trail all the way around the lake, so we had the perfect place to walk the dogs.
When we had our walk and our breakfast and cleaned up a bit, we hit the road and headed toward Des Moines, our next capital. As we were heading that direction on the highway, the phone rang with a call Tom needed to take, so we pulled over at the first available place which turned out to be a sort of random parking lot with this cool musical park attached. Needless to say the stop took more time than the phone call by the time we finished playing with the percussion instruments, but it was fun.
When we had our walk and our breakfast and cleaned up a bit, we hit the road and headed toward Des Moines, our next capital. As we were heading that direction on the highway, the phone rang with a call Tom needed to take, so we pulled over at the first available place which turned out to be a sort of random parking lot with this cool musical park attached. Needless to say the stop took more time than the phone call by the time we finished playing with the percussion instruments, but it was fun.
We continued on to Des Moines, where were pleasantly surprised both by the accessibility of the capitol, and by how nice it was. This was the first capitol we hadn’t visited on a weekend or holiday, but we still found easy parking and were able to cross streets without getting hit. We also were surprised that it was the nicest capitol complex we had seen. To this point, we had been most impressed with Austin, where the building was beautiful, and set in a well maintained park. Oklahoma City was nice, but the building wasn’t as fancy as Austin, and the surrounding area was more utilitarian. Topeka was a bit of a dump; the building was okay, but the surrounding area was a little bit of park which quickly degenerated into run down neighborhoods with abandoned houses and areas in obvious need of urban gentrification. Lincoln was about like Oklahoma City, nice but not as impressive as Austin. We had expected Des Moines to be more like Topeka, but we found that we were letting our stereotyping of the Midwest influence our expectations. Instead of being run down and generic, the building itself is beautiful and under reconstruction, and the surrounding area is a very pleasant, accessible, and well maintained park, which looks like it runs all the way into the city. And, the surrounding area is full of well maintained older buildings, and everything is clean and well kept.
While we were in Des Moines, Tom called Kelderman to ask if they had any suggestions on where we should spend the night. We were pleasantly surprised when he was told that we could stay at their facility, and that they had pads with water and electrical hookups! We don’t need either, but we made our way from Des Moines to Oskaloosa, where Kelderman is located, and found that it is in a nice location out in the country, only a mile from a state park. We are expecting a quiet night, and while Tom “supervises” the suspension work tomorrow, I’ll take the dogs for a walk to the state park. And, if we end up having to spend a couple of days here - all good!
