A driving and camping tour: Heading (eventually) to the southwest

Today we are driving in a fierce headwind from Iowa to Missouri. We have had cold weather (high 40’s and low 50’s) ever since we left Michigan on September 19. For some inexplicable reason, today it is 89 degrees with a strong south wind. It makes the driving difficult for Dave, especially since the road doesn’t always go due south. We also had a period of bad road surface. I’m not sure what caused it but it made the truck bob. We are quite sure it was the road because when we got off the U.S Highway and onto a tiny county road, the bobbing stopped. Now that we are in Missouri we are back on U.S. 63 and it’s fine.
We were in Minnesota visiting my family from September 21 through October 1. Then we headed down to Des Moines, Iowa and camped at an campground run by the Army Corps of Engineers  on the Saylorville Resevoir near Ankeny, Iowa. There we were able to connect with Cecil, one of the riders we got to know on our Coast to Coast southern bike trip in 2015. Cecil showed us the High Trestle Trail bridge. The Des Moines area has a great network of paved bike trails. Our plan for the day was to bike on the High Trestle trail to see the biking bridge. http://www.inhf.org/what-we-do/protection/high-trestle-trail/
The High Trestle Trail bridge is unique. It is a half mile long and has arches built to be representative of the coal mines that used to be in the Des Moines area. I would like to see it at night at some future time. This trip it was too cold and misty to really want to go out in the late evening to bike to the bridge. It is a distance of about 2 1/2 to 3 miles from the little town of Madrid (pronounced “Maa drid” with the accent on Maa). Cecil was a great host in showing us the area.
During our ride we saw some great big flocks of white pelicans from the High Trestle Trail Bridge high (13 stories high) over the Des Moines river! They were flying in a formation called a “kettle”. It was difficult to get a photo of the immensity of the size of the kettle, there were easily 25 or more birds in each of the kettles we saw and a hundred in the flock hanging out on the shoreline. One informational sign I saw said the Upper part of the dammed Saylorville reservoir is a globally important bird habitat.
Now we are heading down to an RV park near the Katy Trail. We plan to stay in the Boonville MO area for several days. I am interested in seeing the area especially because my paternal Great Great grandparents came to this area from Alsace Lorraine France and Germany in the mid 1800’s. I also hope to find out more information about my Great great grandfather’s murder in 1874. There is a larger town nearby (Columbia) that has some newspapers on microfiche from that era. As well, there are cemeteries and headstones in Boonville. I’ll let you know what I find.
It is really great to camp on the Katy rail trail and have a sense that my ancestors rode on the train that went right by our campsite. We had a nice sunset that I could see through the trees. Although my picture doesn't look too impressive it seems like I haven't seen the sun in weeks!