Sauerkraut Days

Like Sauerkraut? How about a festival for it? There’s one in Ackley every year, so this year we thought we would head over to see what it’s all about. Our friends, Roger & Sandy, are staying in Hampton, which is close, so we took the camper up and stayed at Beed’s Lake State Park.

We had a schedule of events that told us at 5:00 they served free “wieners and sauerkraut” to anyone that was at the festival.  We thought we might as well be there to have something free, right? What we found out, though, is that not many other people were too excited about getting the free dinner.  The “wieners” were just hot dogs, which I don’t care for, but the sauerkraut was pretty good, although they gave each person about a cup of it!

They serve it out of a huge vat, you just walk up and they give you a platefull.

At 5:00 on Friday night in the big town of Ackley (Pop. ~1800), there wasn’t many people out.  They did have the band playing for entertainment.

I’m not sure what these were for, but there were stuffed people sitting on all the benches on the main street. It was funny to see the older townsfolk sitting next to them eating their free wieners and ‘kraut.

 

Al couldn’t resist it either.

We camped at Beed’s Lake State Park just outside of Hampton. Sarah told me to make sure and take the camera, and I’m glad I did.  The park has been there since the 1930’s, and had some great buildings, and a spillway at the end of the lake. Below the spillway it was like you were in an entirely different area. 

From the lake, the spillway looked like an infinity pool. You can’t hardly tell where the water stops and the trees begin.

I did catch a nice catfish below the spillway. Although Al laughed at me because I was fishing with a bass lure, and that’s not supposed to catch catfish. Hah!

The park rents out fishing boats for only $35 per day including gas and bait, so we didn’t even take our boat. Roger & Sandy rented one as well.

Al and I fished most of the day. We found a nice spot and caught bluegill after bluegill. I don’t mind fishing, but I’m not one to do it all day long. When they are biting like this, though, it was fun! And for the record I did bait my own hooks……..but Al took the fish off for me (although that was because pretty much every one that I caught had the hook so far down inside it that we had to keep it!)

Even though the temperatures the entire weekend were in the 90’s, and it was sunny & humid, it was a good weekend.It was nice to get out of our park and away from our campers for a weekend.  (And we made some GREAT fish tacos Sunday when we got home!)