Over the past two weeks we've visited several interesting places within a short drive from our location here in Altoona -- Pella, Iowa (which is famous for its manufacturing industry specializing in high end doors and windows) is also a very quaint Dutch community about 45 miles southeast from Des Moines -- and, in a completely different vein, the Iowa I-80 Truck Stop, about 140 miles east of us, which bills itself as the largest truckstop in the world. It was having its annual Truckers Show and Exposition this week, and we took a drive over there. Joining Mandy, me, Mark, and Sue on the way to there were Jim and Yvette, who we met in Texas several years ago, and who stopped here to see us this week on their way back to the Austin area.
Here are some shots of downtown Pella - we were there on a beautiful day, and really enjoyed the visit.
There was an interesting glockenspeil in downtown Pella which did a show every other hour and displayed mechanical figures of the history of Pella -- including the famous western gunfighter Wyatt Earp -- who was born here. The nearby courtyard was decorated by some very detailed ceramic pictures with traditional Dutch scenes.
This last weekend was the Fourth of July, and, as you might imagine, the park was very busy. In addition, there were two fireworks shows -- the Casino/Racetrack next to us had a spectacular show on Friday night, and Adventureland had their own show on Saturday night. We didn't get much in the way of pictures, but both the shows were outstanding, with thousands of people coming to see them both.
Our friend Richard had alerted us to the truckers show at the I-80 Truckstop a week or so ago, and Mark and I talked the ladies into a trip there for our day off this week. Jim and Yvette, who were in town, also came along and we had a wonderful day looking at new and custom Freightliners, Kenworths, Peterbuilts, and Volvos -- and collecting all the swag we could. The best swag item -- for me, at least -- was all the free fuel additives that the representative from Howes Lubrication was giving away. I'd used their anti-gel and fuel conditioner for the past several years, and he loaded me up with all sorts of free samples of new stuff -- not sure if it will do any good, but it can't hurt. Their new fuel conditioner/injector cleaner additive is "guaranteed" to increase your fuel mileage by 4.85% -- its worth a try, with diesel still at the $4.60 level and lots of miles to drive after we leave here in September.
In any event, here are some pictures of some neat trucks, and of us just having fun on our day off -- and the BBQ afterwards.
The same truck from the passenger's door -- the finish work was amazing, and the driver used the truck daily -- his trailer was in back of the truckstop waiting for him to hook up and get on the road again.
This truck and sleeper were custom-made for this disabled trucker -- this was also a working truck; this guy drives it daily all over the country.
Some other interesting trucks and general shots of the show.
The whole gang with their swag and the truckstop in the background.
(Mark really outdid himself on his blogpost of the Truck Exposition, using all sorts of bandwidth to post many more pictures than we did (although its his bandwith, so I guess that's fair . . . . . ). Go to his blog to see many more super trucks)
Sue's not that sure that Mark can attack that pork chop with just a plastic knife and fork.
It was a relaxing drive back to Altoona . . . . .
We did take a slight detour to Kelona, a small farming community south of Iowa City, that still has families of Amish farmers living in the area. Mandy went looking for a new quilt for our bed -- this one was beautiful, but we passed it up.
We invited Bob and Vicki over (they had to work that day) and finished the day off at our campsite with a few refreshments, some barbequed brauts that we'd gotten at the meat market in Pella the week before, and a bit of BS-ing.
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