As we count down the days until Shannon starts her new job at the University of Iowa hospital, we’ve been looking for places to park our rig for the duration and not having much luck so far. So instead, we’ve gone out to a number of places outside of Iowa City and found inexpensive camping.
One of our favorites is Marr Park, about 30 minutes south of Iowa City. It’s a beautiful park with walking trails, duck ponds, water and electricity for our camper and it’s pretty much deserted. There was only one other camper there for the 2 nights we stayed. Only problem is the distance to the hospital – definitely not a good commute by bike.
Another is Hills Access campground along the Iowa River. It’s just about a 10 minute drive (or 50 minute bike ride) south of the hospital. We stayed there last night and had the whole place to ourselves. And we saw quite a few bicyclists on the road back to town –there is a nice wide maybe 6 foot shoulder – but the speed limit is 55mph for about half of it. It’ll work in a pinch, but we’re hoping to find something closer. And with things shutting down because of Coronavirus, that’s not looking very likely at this point.
So for this weekend we said to heck with it, we’ll just go enjoy ourselves and worry about all of this after we find out more from the hospital about Shannon’s job.
And please allow me to digress for a minute about that – So far, we’ve not heard anything from the hospital directly about her employment there. Only the standard intake instructions from her travel nursing agency, when to start, where to go for orientation, and stuff like that. So on Monday we should know a lot more about this gig. One fear is there could be no job for her if they decide to cancel elective medical procedures as some other states have done. If that hasn’t happened yet, it seems it could happen any time with the way this pandemic is growing. So – a lot of unknowns there. But to alleviate some fears that others have expressed: working at the hospital (in IR) should be safer than a trip to the grocery store – All visitors entering the hospital are screened for Covid symptoms – we haven’t seen a grocery store doing that yet.
But anyway – so with all this unknown, we decided to just bug out of town and find a relaxing place to hang out for the weekend and using www.FreeCampsites.net, we found this place about 1-1/2 hrs north east of Iowa City. It’s Maquoketa Caves State Park and what a cool place!
Again, we have a campground entirely to ourselves. With electric and water for only $11.00 per night.
Apparently there are bats living in the caves but it’s hibernation season so we can’t actually go into the caves. But there are beautiful hiking trails passing under a natural stone bridge near the caves. We hiked just a little bit of it before dark and got a few photos.
So – offseason camping during a Coronavirus outbreak is working in our favor as far as finding nice, secluded, empty places to camp. We’re excited for Spring to come and warm things up, and of course for this pandemic to wither away and die, but for now, we’re enjoying the self-distancing that these empty campgrounds provide.
