Maquoketa Camping Contingency Plan

As a small child, I recall exploring the caves of Maquoketa a time or two, so when some friends mentioned a trip there this summer, I didn't hesitate to say YES!

Maquoketa Caves State Park is about a 3 hour drive for us.  The campgrounds are fairly small, meaning the spots fill up quickly during the summer months, so we knew there was little to no chance of getting a spot on the weekend.  Our friends decided to book a reservation on Sunday evening, ensuring us a spot for both of our families, but if we were going to go through the trouble of hauling the camper, I wanted to make sure we could stay a few evenings to make it worth while.

I have it in my head to stay at all the state parks in Iowa (yes, I tend to have strange goals, leave it alone) so I planned that we could check Maquoketa on Saturday, and if everything was full, then we could go to Bellvue State Park along the Mississippi River and stay there (which is only about 30 minutes from Maquoketa) since they had a lot of open spaces.  Then, if we were still feeling like camping on our return trip home, we could camp at Palisades-Kepler State Park (right outside Cedar Rapids) and maybe invite my extended family to join us for dinner?

Well, it rained a lot the weeks prior to our trip, and a lot of the rivers and streams in Iowa were outside their banks, so as it was, a lot of the parks flooded.  On our way east we found out that Bellevue was starting to fill up since the other parks were closing due to flooding and Maquoketa was already full for the weekend.

We packed our family of 6 into the truck for our first camping outing with the camper.  It's cozy!

Everyone fits!
 

Okay, now what?  Plan B.  I called a few of my uncles and asked for recommendations for various campgrounds we could check (since we were going to be driving through Cedar Rapids and our friends were already in Cedar Rapids, stopping for groceries) and compiled a good list.  We decided we would try a few places and see what we could find, and worst case was our friends would get a hotel room for the evening and we could crash at my parents house. 

Central Park, in Amber, Iowa, seemed to be a good idea since it was east of Cedar Rapids and along our route to Maquoketa,  Our friends stopped to scope it out and we hoped for the best.

Elliot drank a full bottle of water and couldn't hold it along our trip.
He had a pull-up on and we kept telling him to hold it.  I guess we learned our lesson.
That is ALL pee.  Yuck.

There was room... which was good, but bad news was that all the modern sites with electricity were full.  Good news was there were a few open spots in the primitive camping, so we decided we could live without electricity for the evening and headed to the park to join our friends.

The view from our campsite at Central Park

Derrick hillbilly rigged the level supports on the camper since this was a primitive site.
I do not recommend, nor approve of this, but prayed that we would not roll away during the night.

It turned out not to be so bad after all.  The night was cool enough and since the camper had a full battery we could use what we needed to get by and then head to our more permanent location of Maquoketa in the morning.  My uncle even came to visit us for a bit and meet Eli for the first time.  All was well.

We enjoyed a nice evening of hot dogs and campfire treats, then the next morning I woke early enough for a beautiful Iowa sunrise over the lake.  Really it was a great place, and I was thankful it worked out so well (spite the annoying, loud, and obnoxious campers a few sites over, but they left us with a little entertainment and laughs, so all wasn't lost).

There is something so comforting and relaxing about a campfire.

Sunrise sky at 5:30 a.m.

Sunrise over the back part of the lake at Central Park in Amber, Iowa

In the morning we left before breakfast (we figured not to bother getting everything out just to pack it up again) and thought we could drop in at Maquoketa to see the status on open spots.  It was still mostly full, but starting to clear out, so we parked our camper at one of the shelter houses, unloaded breakfast food (and coffee maker for our friends) and cooked breakfast while the kids played in the grass.  It was a pretty smooth setup.  

After breakfast we checked the status on the camping sites again.  They were open so we parked our camper and were able to setup camp.  Plan B complete.