As morning rolled around, we packed up our rig and hit the road. Since we're a little behind schedule due to the mechanical issues, we quickly headed 109 miles east to Menlo, Iowa, a tiny little farming town. We only spent one night in Menlo City Park and didn't do anything other than take a small drive around the town.
However, upon setting up while we were putting our large living room slide out, I heard a shear pin break right as it was fully extended. I went to a True Value store in a nearby town to buy a bolt to hold me over until I could find a more proper bolt to serve as a shear pin. Alas, this store was no longer in business. Fortunately I had a less strong bolt that would at least allow us to pull the in the slide on travel day.
With our new makeshift shear pin in place, our next stop was 164 miles further east to Sugar Bottom Recreation Area near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We've been to this park before and really enjoyed it. It's another Corps of Engineers Park situated on a lake with lots to do nearby.
We were primarily there to visit friends, John and Jane, whom we met on the road years ago. They now live in downtown Cedar Rapids. We spent a few evenings with them having dinner and happy hours together while rehashing old times. Although we hadn't seen them in 6 years, it was incredible how we just picked right back up as though we never missed a day apart. We feel so very fortunate to have met many life-long friends on the road all over the USA.
There was also a really nice 18-hole disc golf course at Sugar Bottom Park which we played. The front nine was much more open and friendly than the back 9 which was heavily wooded with some brutally challenging holes but it was fun nonetheless.
Before leaving the area other friends of ours, Roger and Lynn, whom we first met in Arizona contacted us! They now live real close to where we were staying so we met up with them for happy hour our last night at Sugar Bottom and once again we reconnected immediately.
As always, we also did a few hikes along the trails at the park where we happily saw lots of birds and beautiful flowers in bloom.
Once again it all too quickly became time for us to move on down the road and so off we went...
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