Going Places With Gabe & Ziva: Amana

Returning to eastern Iowa on May 17, we set up camp at the Amana RV Park just outside Main Amana. For anyone not familiar, the Amana Colonies are a major Iowa tourism destination. In 1855, German immigrants who had come to America seeking religious freedom moved from their original settlement in New York to Iowa, establishing seven small villages. Their lifestyle was communal; they had pooled all their resources to purchase the land and all worked together to farm, build industry and create homes. In 1932, they created a profit-sharing corporation, The Amana Society, Inc., to run the farms and the mill for the benefit of the shareholders: the community members. The villages were named a National Landmark in 1965. Today, The Amanas is a fun place to visit for a traditional German family-style meal, but also offers a championship golf course, a microbrewery and several wineries, boutique hotels, lots of fun shops and one of my favorite art galleries, a community playhouse that hosts live music and theater, and lots of celebratory events.

Our camp site

The RV Park is simple and bucolic, a huge grassy field with a few trees. Roadways and campsites are gravel. There are a couple of pole buildings, and a laundry room. The Five Seasons Cluster of dog shows is held here every fall, and AKC Obedience and Rally Trials each spring. Living nearby for most of our lives (and hanging out here for all those dog shows!), the RV Park is very familiar to both Doug and me. There is space for more than 450 campers, and manufacturers often hold Rallies here, gatherings for owners of a particular brand of RV or members of clubs like Escapees, for people who live full-time in RVs, or FMCA, the Family Motor Coach Association. Rallies are socializing opportunities but also typically include educational speakers on everything from cooking in a convection microwave oven and the critical and technical topic of tire maintenance and monitoring. Although the Amanas are just a few miles north of Interstate-80, they are nonetheless off the beaten track. The RV Park, in particular, provides space for large gatherings like the rallies and even the five days of AKC dog shows, that bring tremendous economic benefit.

Doug bought an owl

While in the Amanas, we got together with Doug's brother and sister-in-law, for a picnic and some shopping. Doug and I also dropped in on the Amana Renaissance Festival and Gathering O' The Celts held in the Main Amana City Park. It's apparently been a very long time since I'd been to the Festival. The last time, it almost felt like a few people had decided to get together for some cosplay; there were more families having graduation celebrations and picnics than there were gowned and armored folk.

That's all changed... the Festival has clearly become An Event. We got there at opening time on the first day, a weekday, and found parking, but those arriving an hour later were out of luck. There were 40-some vendors and five different "stages" for entertainment, plus a number of demonstrations of skills and historically accurate clothing and accommodation.