Plans are always fluid when you are mixing business and pleasure. We didn’t find the Frank Lloyd Wright house I had heard about — I think we missed it in the dark the night before. That’s a drag but we will be back in the spring, I think, so we’ll try harder to get it into the schedule.

Rather than double back for the house tour, we pressed on to Council Bluffs to try to get some work done for a couple of days. I’ve been working every day when I get a chance, but really that’s not enough and it’s time to sit still and catch up. So now we are camped in Lake Minawa SP, which is a nice spot near everything but isolated by a pretty little lake. Hardly anyone here, either, despite wonderful temperatures and great fall foliage. Business requires that we stop in at the local Airstream dealer (a pleasure, really), and while we are here we need to take care of some maintenance on the Nissan Armada.

The process of settling into a site for more than one night is complex but with each time we find it easier. The GPS tells us where to find the local post office, grocery, and other necessities. The campground hosts are usually helpful with other hints, such as nice places to visit and eat. Setting up the trailer for a stop takes no more than 15 minutes (and that’s if we go to the extra step of setting the stabilizers). It’s amazing how simple things please us. A full tank of propane and a place to plug in, and we are happy.

We have also discovered that Indiana and Iowa also make it easy on RV’ers by having dump stations at every highway rest area. They never seem to have lines, either. This is a huge improvement over the northeast, where dump stations are hard to find except at campgrounds, and they usually cost money to use. The highway stops are free! Who would have thought I’d get excited about something like that?

There’s a bike trail right next to this campground. Tomorrow, since we are expecting unseasonably warm temperatures (low 80s) we will try to break away for a couple of hours to try it out. Emma will be ready to ditch her training wheels in a few months if we can keep getting opportunities to practice. Another simple pleasure …