Discoveries large and small

    We discovered a few things today as we left Missouri and headed home through Iowa.  First, we counted the number of things that have fallen off within the RV.  Nothing major, just a few pieces of trim, a hook that WE put up, and a couple of wood buttons that cover screws.  Overall it is very well put together.  I am impressed with Winnebago manufacturing.
    Second: We stopped for lunch just outside Iowa City.  The weather seemed to be getting windier and the sky was getting darker.  I checked the weather on my cell phone and could see a storm moving west in our path.  We drove on, but the wind was gusting stronger and moving us around on the highway.  I looked again at the weather map and saw that the front was getting stronger - lots of dark red at the center of the storm.  We decided to pull off at the upcoming rest stop and wait for the front to pass.  As we pulled off, I turned on the radio to see if I could get some information.  Well, doggoned if we don't have the NOAA weather radio as part of our satellite radio.  The radio knew where we were and gave us immediate weather information about the dangerous storm that was passing by.  A tornado was sited south of us, but did not get to our area.  We just had strong winds and rain.  Finally the storm passed and we moved on.
     We got to our intended campground and found that it is located across the street from a NASCAR raceway and today was a race.  As we left the freeway we could see hundreds of RV's in the racetrack area.  A sign told us that the campground was full.  We pulled in anyway so that we could turn around and decide where we would go.  We stopped in the office "just in case" and it was our luck that there was one site open.  It is a nice, long site with lots of green grass - about 100 yds from I80.  Pretty noisy, but its hot out and we have the air on.  While standing around getting set up Rick complained about how much the rig sways when it is so windy.  We got our third discovery when Rick got a hint from one of the other RVers about having some rear stabilizers installed.  We are going to look into it when we get home as a a sway in strong wind is one of the few things that we don't like about this new RV arrangement.
   A final personal and vastly interesting discovery:  We have traveled from Iowa, to Nashville, Tupelo, Jackson and Memphis.   These are all sites that had Civil War battles.  I wondered if my great, great grandfather, Joseph Shepperle who was in the Civil War had fought in any of these places.  I was astounded to learn when I looked up a history of Joseph's Minnesota regiment, I found that I had inadvertently been following the path of the regiment as it fought in the Civil War.  I know that Joseph was invalided out of the war before the end so he may not have been in all of these places, but it seems a unique coincidence that we have been traveling in those footsteps.
   We are happy to see that the storms have passed through this area and we don't need to worry about running to the shelter tonight.  Sad to see the pictures of the damage done to North Minneapolis.  Time to head for home.