Altoona, IA - The Cemetery, the Campground and the Lumberjacks

As I said earlier, one of our goals was to find my great grandfather’s grave in a local cemetery. Gary had done some research online and, not only had found the cemetery on line but also the # of his plot in the cemetery. It was a beautiful day, sunny with temps in the low 80’s and a bit of a breeze so the walk to the Laurel Hill Cemetery was a delight. We had some rudimentary maps but knew that we’d have to walk the graves to find it exactly. It took us a while since the descrription we had said it was in the SW corner but we found it in the SE corner.

But, here’s the view. That’s the gold-domed capitol on the right and the city skyline in the center.

However, finding the grave probably posed more questions that it answered. Yes, Charles is buried here but what happened to Wilhelmine? Her dates are not filled in. And, who are Constant and Sophia? I assume that they are twins but given the dates of their birth, they couldn’t have been children of Charles and Wilhelmine.

We have a book on my father’s family but only very sketchy information about my mother’s and the only person I can ask in my aunt in San Diego.

We then walked back to the fair via the campground. Now, this is a unique campground. It has over 1500 sites but most of them are on hills. Didn’t know Iowa had hills? Well, just try to find a level spot in this campground. Not only is it hilly but it is difficult to maneuver when all of the fair goers are in their spots.

We have never camped her since we live in the area. However, it is difficult to get a campground spot during the fair since people have had spots here for years and pass them down in the family or to friends. They are probably in wills. Here are two people who have camped next to each other for 40 years: one lives in Dubuque and the other across the state in Carroll. But they meet for 14+ days during the fair.

But what impresses us the most about the fairgrounds is the engineering jobs that people perform to get their rigs into their spot. Here’s a 5th wheel on one of the hills. What is in those black bags? And, look at those ramps. I can’t imagine saying ‘Sweetie, back up just a little bit more.’ What would happen if we got a typical Iowa thunderstorm?

And, another view. I’m not trying this is my motorhome.

Now, here’s a ‘level’ spot but it also needs some engineering.

Here’s a 40’ Winnebago Tour. Looks like he’s got some specially designed ramps that he brings along.

But the campground is absolutely chock full for the fair.

Back at the fairgrounds, we went to the Lumberjack contest. One of the entertainment options. Here are some of the contests: the pole climbing contest:

the chainsaw contest:

the sawing contest:

and the log rolling contest:

Pretty interesting. But, it was 5:00, it had been a long day, there were no more foods we wanted to try out and we decided to leave. On the way out we found several people giving away soda. I took a diet Dr. Pepper (big mistake it had caffeine and I had a difficult time falling asleep) and Big Gar had a Root Beer.

We had free tickets to get into the fair and free soda when we left. 

Remember, now, we parked in the Bunny lot.

A small salad for dinner, showers and relaxing.