Visiting the Amana Colonies in Amana, Iowa…

We had a great stay at Bob Shetler Campground but it was time to move a 110 miles east.  Our drive took us past more green rolling hills covered with fields with corn. A couple hours after we left we pulled into a Passport America park called Amana Colonies RV Park in Amana, Iowa, We will have full hookups for the first time in a while and we will stay two days. We plan to fully clean the interior of the motor home and get laundry done. Yes it isn’t all fun and games as normal life occasionally gets in the way.

After our chores we decided to see if we could find the bike trail that was near this park. We set off and didn’t make it too far when Sharon noticed her bike was screwed up. Well back to the RV we went where I was able to diagnose the issue and make a fairly quick repair. We headed back for the trail and found it about 1/4 mile away from our park.

We rode the four mile loop around a small lake that was filled with water lilies and pickerel weed. Of course there were the requisite rolling hills of corn as well.  Upon returning to camp we hopped into the CRV and drove over to Millsteam Brewing the oldest (at thirty years) brewery in Iowa. They had good beer but not the Pale Ale on tap (the bottled was better). The stout I had was good and Sharon loved her Amber so we savored them on the very pleasant outdoor patio of the brewery.

The next day we had heard about a wurst festival so we planned to go to it and also wanted to walk around the Amana colonies. But before we could do any of that we still had to run to a grocery store to stock back up on produce (another chore).  We drove into Cedar Rapids where we found an Iowa chain grocery called Hy-Vee.  What a welcoming store it was as we noticed a chalk board as we entered advertising great happy hour prices (this is the second time we found a grocery with a bar).  We will certainly return to check that out. However this day we hurriedly bought our groceries and got back to our camp around noon.

It was a very short drive over to Amana. We parked at the entrance of town and walked the 3/4 mile to the festival to avoid the traffic already clogging the town streets. We paid $2 per person to enter and stood in line to sample the wurst (sausages for those who don’t know). There was just about every flavor of bratwurst available to try and we tried nearly all of them. We also took advantage of buying 1/2 brats of four different flavors for five dollars and each of them were delicious. We topped all the wurst off with a frosty beer from Millstream Brewing Company.

Afterward we drove through each of the Amana towns and checked out the architecture. These German colonies reminded us a cross between Fredericksburg in Texas and the Amish area in Pennsylvania although these are on a much smaller scale.  There were lots of really neat stone houses as well as many original wooden barns and homes. Back at the park it was time to put things away for the next day's departure. We skipped dinner since we apparently overate at the wurst festival and spent the entire evening lounging to recover. Oh well, we decided we were none the wurst for it…

NOTE: We are now in Iowa City at the COE park called Sugar Bottom. With the 4th of July coming up we have also made reservations at Dubuque Iowa and then Madison WI till July 6th.