The Midwest (Part II) and going West

After racing at Spring Creek in MN we drove to Davenport Iowa. The next day Dad and I (Sarah) took a tour of the John Deere factory in Moline IL and that was really cool. There were three stages to make the Combine harvesters.

The next day we were still waiting for our RV to be fixed (it required a new converter / batter charge) so mum and I went to look at the homes of the Deere family. We walked through John Deere’s son’s home (Charles Deere) built around 1870 which was very old and beautiful and had a lot of renovation done. There was also Charles daughter’s home (built in the 1890s) to walk through which was a lot more modern.

That night the RV was fixed so Dad, Mum, Joel and I travelled south for two hours back down to the Hempens (Josiah was already there). It was awesome seeing the Hempens again.

We mainly hung out for the next few days. Roger Hempen, Kenny’s dad, cooked dinner one night and BBQ’ed a massive dish of meat. On Saturday afternoon when we drove north to Cedar Rapids for a night race. Josiah, Joel, Kenny Jr., Josiah and Luke Hempen all raced and they all did a good job.

On Sunday we went to church and I enjoyed that even though every one was really tired from the night race (we got home after midnight). After church we all went out to lunch and stuffed ourselves silly. Then at dinner the Jim and Nancy Bash and their children came over for a BBQ and all the kids swam and played while the adults went on a 4-wheeler ride.

Over the weekend mum and dad sold our fifth wheeler (the Raptor). We sold it on eBay. We nearly sold the Raptor to two buyers. We had agreed to sell the fifth wheeler to an interested buyer who had the highest bid but in the seconds between seeing that this person was the highest bidder and going to the next screen to accept the highest bidder, another person put in a higher bid (and was now the highest bidder) so the Raptor was sold to them. Dad said it was a nice problem to have.

On Monday I went with Jennifer and Jamie to pick grapes. We picked grapes from 8am-3pm and we didn’t pick very many grapes because we had to pick the tiny green grapes out of the purple grapes. But it was worth it because we got paid. We did it again on Wednesday and we picked 28 buckets of grapes. Then we got paid again!!!

Also that day all the boys went riding in Illinois. Josiah got to test out his new Yamaha 85 he got the day before.

On Thursday Josiah, Joel and I travelled with the Hempens north to Mt Pleasant to a place that they go every year for a holiday. The place we went to was called Old Threshers and it was really fun. We rode trolleys & tractors, squished pennies on the rail tracks, shopped and tried heaps of new food. Mum and Dad arrived on Friday afternoon. The Bashs came up and we had dinner then went around and did all sorts of things together including a ride on a steam train.

We said goodbye that Friday night and it was really sad. We have made so many awesome friends on this trip and we are going to miss them all.

We left really early the next morning at 7 o‘clock. It was a super long day of traveling and we travelled till midnight from Mt Pleasant Iowa to Denver CO (800 miles). That day an old lady clipped the back left side of the RV but only hitting the ladder (and taking off her side mirror in the process). She then called 911 and tried to say dad side swiped her when the state trooper pulled us over (dad didn‘t know we had been hit). In the end she admitted that she had tried to pass us when her lane had finished (the state trooper said she changed her story six times!)

The next day (Sunday) we went to the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was amazing and very pretty. We got through it quite quickly and once we were done we went back to our RV park.

On Monday morning we dropped off the fifth wheeler to an RV storage depot mum and dad and the new buyer had agreed to drop off the Raptor at. We then loaded every thing into the truck and travelled for another 12 hours to Cedar City Utah driving over the Rocky Mountains.

We are now staying in a hotel in Cedar City. Dad just got a new trailer so he is rather pleased about that.