Lake Okoboji, Iowa

Our next stop on this three-month adventure was Lake Okoboji, Iowa. Referred to as the Iowa Great Lakes, this string of lakes is located in the north-northwestern part of the state. In fact, it’s so far north that if you aren’t careful where you drive, you’ll end up in Minnesota.

We stayed at Cutty’s Okoboji Resort, a membership only RV park. It was a really nice campground except for the incredibly hard water. They even had a disclaimer on the front of the park map stating that you may have to change your water filter frequently due to the high mineral content. And they were not kidding – you could taste it even just showering.

The resort was great though, very pretty grounds and they had everything. It was pretty empty. I guess their high season ends at Labor Day. But it did pick up on Friday afternoon; there was almost a parade of incoming RVs then.

We explored the area to find some fishing spots we’d enjoyed a year and a half ago when we were there with my younger sister and her husband. We found the spillway where we’d had such good luck before and then stopped at the store to get our fishing licenses.

The weather took a turn after we arrived and got fairly chilly. We toughed it out on Saturday morning at the spillway but had no bites at all. After lunch we went back out in search of a place Julian remembered from the first time we were here. We didn’t find it, but decided to fish off the fishing docks on Spirit Lake. It was beautiful there, but the fish weren’t biting there either.

Sunday morning we went to a location our neighbor at the park told us about. It was on the south end of Upper Gar Lake. It was windy and still cold and we never got a bite. We left when the little “tween” girls came to fish. They just kept getting in the way, so we gave up. It wasn’t like we were fighting over the multitudes of fish, so what the heck.

Our campground had cable and we had three different CBS stations, each carrying a different NFL game. We were thrilled to find the Denver Broncos playing on one of those channels. We got to watch the entire game and if you saw it, you know that it came down to the final second – literally. What a finish! We sure enjoyed it.

OK, back out to the spillway on Monday morning. It wasn’t as cold, but the fish just weren’t there! So we went home and had lunch. Julian just wasn’t satisfied, so we headed back to Sawmill Park at Gar Lake in the afternoon. And we were really glad we did. With some patience we finally caught a few fish. Between us, we got one small walleye, two sheepshead and two small perch. It was fun, but there was nothing to bring home and eat. But here’s a picture of the first sheepshead I caught.

You’ll just have to trust me that we caught those other fish.

Today is moving day – we’ve come about 230 miles west into central South Dakota. The town is Chamberlain, which in fact is smaller than David City, Nebraska, where I grew up. We are parked right on the Missouri River. It’s very cool here. We’ll be exploring tomorrow and I’ll post more information and pictures after we get to Rapid City, SD.

In the meantime: Happy Trails! (I know ours have been!)

P.S. Karen, you should try The Outrigger restaurant when you get there – it was great!