A Week in Clear Lake, IA
Camping & Hanging out in Clear Lake, Iowa | Week with Family & Work Trip to NY | July 2026
I won’t lie — the last week of our trip to Northern WI/MN was pretty rough. Besides the oppressive heat dome that had moved in the area for the entirety of the week (and then some), Curtis also got the second worse case of poison ivy he’s ever had. Personally if it had been me, I would’ve just amputated my limbs at that point, but being much stronger than I he chose to endure it. These factors could have had us deciding to give up early and just go back to family in Iowa, but we were stubbornly holding onto the fact that since Vanlife is something we chose to do, we had to stick it out and not fall back on the hospitality of others when things got hard. Maybe it’s not a good thing to be proud of, but I am proud that we were able to somehow stick it out and not go home until the day we said we would!
After waking up in Deer Creek, MN, we had breakfast and then continued our drive South. Today’s main goal was counties because there wasn’t anything that we wanted to see that was worth being out in the heat, but also Curtis had a meeting and work to do which gave us an excuse to find an indoor space in the afternoon. We managed to get a good line of new counties on our way to Mankato, then spent the afternoon inside a coffee shop. After successfully avoiding the heat, we made a plan for the rest of the week, then because there was a Culvers nearby we also stopped to get free custard before continuing on our drive.
We decided to spend the remainder of our week in Clear Lake, Iowa, because it had 1. A lake where we could hang out all day long for free, 2. A legal free spot to spend the night, and 3. Culvers, for more free custard and air conditioning when the afternoons got to be too hot. We drove an hour South to our chosen camping spot, which was the parking lot for the Buddy Holly crash site out in between corn fields. The sign at this spot specifically invites travelers to rest overnight here, and we were unbothered both nights that we spent here. We had actually driven by this spot in 2021 when finishing Iowa counties, but didn’t get out of the car to walk to the actual crash site. When we arrived tonight, we decided to get out and walk to pay our respects (we also needed to stretch our legs because we hadn’t walked at all today) however we quickly found that there were 10 million mosquitoes that were also occupying this sacred cornfield, so I ended up running both ways to try to avoid them. Besides that, there was also an off putting chemical stench in the air, and given that we were in Iowa (you know, the state with the second highest growing cancer rate and with all the nitrates in the water…) we could only guess at what we were breathing in and how it might kill us.
We spent the next two entire days at Clear Lake State Park, surviving the heat and humidity thanks to the shade and the cold water from the outdoor showers. At this point, Curtis didn’t think it was wise to swim in the lake with all his poison ivy, but it wasn’t the worst idea when you think about what’s in Iowa’s water. Not to mention the kids who got in the water and two seconds later screamed “MOM!! I JUST PEED!!” …yeah, we’re good with just the occasional soak in the outdoor shower. Curtis had meetings, we worked, wrote, and got lots of reading done. I guess I can look back now and say these were both productive and relaxing days, and fun to spend time in a town in our home state that we really hadn’t visited before, but I really wouldn’t want to go back and relive them.
After our second day here, we decided to forgo sleeping at the Buddy Holly Crash site for a third time and instead drove a half hour East towards Nora Springs where we found a different free spot to sleep. There’s also a longer trail that under better weather conditions would have been fun to hike or do some sort of hiking/kayaking adventure, but we’ll have to save that idea for another day. For now, I’ll remember it as a place where we had a restful night of sleep with no weird smells, and where Curtis had a meeting that ended with a promotion the following morning!
The next day, it was finally Friday, the day we said we’d go to see family, and so we returned to my parent’s home in our hometown. There we gladly settled into their air conditioned home, sanitized and laundered everything in the van that could possibly be contaminated by poison ivy oils, and Curtis prepared for a solo week long work trip. We had decided that he would fly out and back and I would stay with family for this one, because it happened to be the week my sister was due to have her third child!
Curtis left on Sunday, and our newest niece arrived on Monday. I was very happy to get to see her a few times before we had to leave again, as well as her very proud big brother and sister. Despite his poison ivy, Curtis had a productive work week in New York, and had a little extra time to explore Syracuse. He found it to be a much more enjoyable area in the summer than in January, when he had last traveled here. He returned on Friday night, and we had one more weekend spent in the air conditioning before getting back on the road. We celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary, and I reached level 80 in PokemonGo. Both equally monumental achievements. With that, we said our goodbyes and prepared for the beginning of Curtis’ fall season, starting with a road trip to the East Coast!
