(Early April to mid-August, 2020) A quick status update – The past few months have really slipped by quickly. Kim and I remain in good health and have avoided contracting the COVID-19 virus. We have been spending a quiet summer at a campground in rural Iowa and limiting contacts with other people as much as possible. The curbside pickup services offered at local grocery stores and other businesses help us maintain self-isolation.

Hanging Out In Iowa

Despite the isolation we have enjoyed our time in Iowa and have generally found things to keep busy with. We frequently visit with my family – sister and brother-in-law, Shirley and Craig, and mother, Marta – at their home near New Virginia. Kim and I enjoy helping with yard work or with home projects, meals together, an outdoor movie night, or a campfire on cool evenings.

When we feel like getting out we will take day trips around the area – long drives in the countryside. We’ve enjoyed visiting local parks, including: Red Haw State Park, Nine Eagles State Park, and Lake Rathbun – an US Army Corp lake. We also took a driving tour to see the covered bridges of Madison County.

Here are a few recent photos:

To Catch A Comet

I especially enjoyed seeing grand Comet NEOWISE – full designation: Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) – during its flyby of Earth in July. Such a naked-eye visible comet may only pass through once a decade. I dusted off my camera gear and tracking mount and headed out to nearby dark sites to photograph the comet. The comet was first visible in the early morning sky, but within days it transitioned to the early evening sky.

Skies in this area of rural Iowa are generally dark, but seeing conditions were not the best. High humidity, haze, and distant city light pollution made for poor viewing. I enjoyed seeing all of the fireflies swarming around the fields and trees. At times it looked like twinkling stars had come down to earth. The lightning bugs even managed to photo-bomb several of my images.

I’ve included photos taken over several nights as NEOWISE made its closest pass to Earth. Despite varied seeing conditions, change in detail and brightness of the comet tail was evident. Eventually the bright blue Ion tail became prominently visible next to the white dust & gas tail.

After several nights of good viewing, storms moved into the area. By the time they passed the comet was fading away. It rapidly receded back into the darkness and cold of the outer fringes of the solar system. Great memories, but sad to think that NEOWISE will not be back for about 6,700 years – farewell.

Photography Around Iowa

I’ve also taken photo day trips around southern Iowa trying out a new Infrared-modified camera. I will include the latest IR photos in a subsequent blog post. In the meanwhile, here are several standard black and white images from the area – pure Americana.

A Bought of Extreme Weather

Several weeks ago we experienced a rare extreme weather event – a Derecho. The storm packed hurricane-force straight-line winds along a front of thunderstorms. The derecho developed in western-Nebraska and blew across central Iowa and through Illinois. Central Iowa experienced winds clocked from 95 mph up to 112 mph – Category 2 hurricane-strength.

The storm damage in central Iowa was extensive – downed trees and power poles, destroyed roofs and buildings, crushed grain bins, and flattened crops. Around 130,000 households and businesses were left without power. At least eleven counties were declared disaster areas. Fully 43 percent of Iowa’s corn and soybean crops – about 10 million acres – were damaged or destroyed. The storm damage is expected to take years for communities to recover from.

We were fortunate to be on the southern fringe of the storm and experienced maybe 65-75 mph winds. We rode out the storm in our fifth-wheel. Pelted by debris blown off trees, shuddered by heavier gusts, we were lucky to sustained no damage. Very fortunate – had we been in the heaviest winds we surely would have a damaged or destroyed RV.

Winds at my sister & brother-in-law’s, home hit around 80-90 mph. Damage at Shirley & Craig’s home was minimal. A few limbs ripped out of trees and objects blown around the yard – whew! As the saying goes, we can all count our blessings.

Wrapping Up

Not much else to report – just day-to-day life. I’ve been working on several art projects and Kim has started tole painting, again.

We had several issues with our RV solar electric setup. Our batteries were weakening and our inverter suddenly stopped working. Initial diagnostic was that maybe the inverter had gone bad ($$$). Testing with multi-meter soon pinpointed it to the blown fuse – much less expensive to replace. I ordered replacement fuse and batteries and swapped them all out – an afternoon’s work. (…and those batteries are HEAVY!) Electrical system is working great, again.

We also ordered a Hughes Autoformer to help smooth out some of the flaky campground electrical events. The Autoformer boosts voltage during brownouts by about 10%, but can’t do anything about high voltage. The first Autoformer was defective and boosted voltage all the time – tripping the RV high-voltage cutoffs. We returned and replaced the unit – second unit works well – smooths out some of the flakiness – but not all. Oh, well – it’s an improvement.

We’ve also planned out our eventual departure from Iowa for the winter. We will swing through Kansas, southern Colorado, and Utah on the way back to SoCal. We plan in spending some time around Great Sand Dunes, Durango, and Bluff. Maintain quarantine & social-distancing, but get in some sight-seeing and photography. We are looking forward to a change of scenery, but are nervous about traveling in the ongoing pandemic. One way or another we need to be out of the mid-west before the snow flies.

That’s all for now – stay safe – stay healthy – stay positive.