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We were in Oakland, California, when we decide to take the most direct route to our summer site in Minnesota. The directions from there are easy. Take I-80 east to Des Moines, Iowa, then turn left onto I-35 to Minneapolis/St Paul.

Unfortunately, that put us traveling north in tornado alley during tornado season. And NOAA had issued a Hazardous Weather Statement for the area where we need to spend a few nights.  The statement warned of thunderstorms with potential quarter-sized hail. Now, we lived most our lives in Minnesota which means we know that type of storm also may contain tornadoes.

So we did what any right thinking RVer from Minnesota would do–we started looking for RV parks with storm shelters. Boy did we find a doozy!

In Margaret Mac Nider Park in Mason City, Iowa, is this storm shelter.

Yes, it’s open for business. It is the campground’s regular bathroom facility.

And the view of it you are seeing above is through our dining room window from our campsite.

Inside the entrance is a large space not used for much of anything–except during storms. Bring your own chair.

Next to that area is a family restroom. This is for handicapped people accompanied by caretakers of the opposite gender or for parents of children who should not be sent alone into public restrooms.

It includes all the facilities such people might need.

Then down a hallway we have this:

Men’s room on the left, women’s room on the right, laundry in between, and access to/from the outside at the other end.

The gender specific restroom are large.

The closest doors lead to toilet cubicles and the further ones are shower/dressing rooms.

In addition there are two more rooms in this facility.

I’m guessing the mechanical room includes the generator the park’s website says this building has. I’m sure storage has at least cleaning products and toilet paper. Who knows what other emergency supplies might be stored there.

Have you noticed this building has no windows? There will be no broken glass caused by high winds here.

The lights have motion detectors that turn them on. Which means if everyone settles down at night it could get dark. But, it also means anyone who gets up during the night to go to the bathroom will have that fact announced to everyone in the shelter. Still, better safe than sorry, right?

So if you find yourself anywhere near Mason City, Iowa, during storm season now you know where to go: http://masoncity.net/pView.aspx?id=1242&catid=58. And it’s right down the street from the hospital the Winnebago crew took me to when I broke my face just in case you don’t manage to stay completely safe from the storm.

And after all that, all we got was a little rain.

TTYL,

Linda

One and a half miles south of exit #86 of Interstate 80 near Menlo, Iowa, there is a twelve foot high rock. Every year local teenagers would paint on that rock the types of things teenagers usually paint on rocks. In 1999 all that changed.

That’s the year one teenager, Ray “Bubba” Sorenson II, painted the rock white. Then he painted on it scenes of what freedom means to him as his way of celebrating Memorial Day.

Every May since then Bubba paints the rock white again, at least part of the rock–see details in the photo below. Then he paints new scenes.

I intended to show you what the entire rock looks like today, May 10, 2011, but the images painted on it are copyrighted. Fair use allows a reviewer to include small clips so here’s one of the photos we took of this year’s painting in progress.

You can see what the rock has looked like over the years by going to http://www.thefreedomrock.com/.

People from all over the world now stop along their drives through Iowa to see this wonderful piece of art. I hope you get to see it in person some day. It is worth the stop. And there is big rig parking at the museum across the street.

TTYL,

Linda

We are not in the desert southwest anymore. Here’s some proofs:

Bugs on the windshield. Lots of bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. We have to wash the windshield daily to be able to see clearly. If we don’t do that and it starts to rain we will have a smeary mess. Which will simply get worse as soon as we turn on the windshield wipers.

Windsocks on bridges. The winds follow the rivers so the government put wind socks on the bridges to warn those of us driving high profile vehicles to be ready to handle the cross winds as we cross the bridges. Maybe they got tired of pulling vehicles out of their rivers?

Real trees. Not just stumpy little things but real trees. The ones that loose their leaves in the winter and grow them back in the spring. The ones that scratch your RV if you get too close.

Green grass. Not rocks. Not yellow grass. Green. Emerald green. Imagine that.

Storm shelters. In the RV parks! Check this out. http://masoncity.net/pView.aspx?id=1242&catid=58. That’s where we are headed today. So are the storms.

The exception that could make you wonder:

89 degrees in Lincoln, Nebraska, during our lunch stop yesterday, May 9th. It’s only May and we are running our house air conditioning as we go down the road! Oh well, at least the generator is getting some much needed exercise. That helps keep it healthy, you know.

TTYL,

Linda

According to the brochure from the visitor’s center, Bailey Yard is “the world’s largest train yard.” I don’t find that hard to believe. Here’s a diagram of the tracks in the yard.

This is the locomotive repair shop. It’s about the size of three football fields and crews there can repair 750 engines a month.

Here’s a model of the interior of the repair shop.

To the right of the repair shop is the sand tower and the east bowl tracks. You can barely see the hump in the background.

Sand is dumped from the engine onto the track if an engine begins to lose traction. Cars are pushed over the hump and allowed to roll down into any one of the 64 tracks in the bowl according to where those cars are headed. The upturn at the far end of the bowl helps keep the cars from rolling too far.

Here we see the east end of the bowl with engines in front sitting on the ready track. These are the engines that will eventually pull out the east bound cars making trains for various destinations.

And this is the East Route Tower where a yardmaster controlls the makeup and departure of those trains.

This is Bailey Yard Headquarters where the superintendent, dispatchers, managers, and train crews gather to do or prepare for their work.

If you’d like to see all that for yourself but you don’t have a camera as good as Dave’s, don’t fret. You can watch it all on the live video feed from the yard.

Last, but not of the least importance to us, here is our home in the visitor center’s parking lot as seen from the tower.

Dave has just finished packing us up for another day of travel in our home so I must go now. I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska.

TTYL,

Linda

Does anybody really care? Today we do.

Today’s travel plan includes a stop in North Platte, Nebraska, to spend some time at the Union Pacific’s Golden Spike Tower and Visitor Center. This tower overlooks Bailey Yard which is huge. The UP has encouraged rail fans to stop and see their yard for years and we have done so before but this particular tower is new to us.

Wanting to allow plenty of time there, I went to bed early last night so I could get up early this morning thus having extra time in our day while still allowing us to get into our next overnight spot before traffic got bad.

Unfortunately, I had only been up a few minutes when Dave announced it was wasted effort since today is Sunday and the tower does not open until 1:00 pm on Sundays.

Oh, well. That just means I get to do my regular morning computer stuff this morning, right?

Wrong. Dave came in from hitching up the car and went right to the maps. We’ll be crossing into the Central Time Zone between here and North Platte. We are now an hour behind schedule.

It’s not unusual for me to have no idea what time it is. At least I do know what day it is. The Sunday funnies told me that.

TTYL,

Linda