Tag: Minnesota

WordPress work plus the cat

I really, really need to update my WordPress templates so they look more like a “normal” blog with search keys and date markers so I can navigate through old posts easier. I ended up buying a book on WordPress that I picked up at Barnes and Noble. Yes, I know I can find anything I want online, but I really like books. I can skip around easier, underline, and use an index among other tasks. So I am now going through the book beginning to end. I am still working through it from beginning to end, but it is slow going. The first chapters include material I already know, but I don’t dare skip something because I undoubtably will miss something important.

I did take a break from reading for a couple of reasons. First, it was our 40th anniversary on Sunday. We spent the night at Nicolet Mansion B&B in Jordan, MN, southwest of Minneapolis. It was a lovely evening, night, and breakfast. We had dinner at an odd restaurant – Suzette’s in Jordan. The exterior and much of the interior screams “Diner!” due to the block exterior and booths with blue vinyl upholstery. The appearance is quite deceiving, though the European reproduction paintings give a hint. The chef is Cambodia by birth but European-trained, and the food was fantastic. For dessert we had ordered a chocolate fondue at the B&B which was quite fun. Of course it rain a lot the day of the anniversary and today so we didn’t get to the Renaissance Festival or the zoo like we had planned. It was still quite nice.

Our other distraction has been my poor cat. She had one surgery to remove a growth that turned out to be a skin cancer. She then had a second surgery to make sure they had got it all, and she is still recovering from that.

Doesn’t that look terrible? It is basically almost half her neck covered in a bunch of huge stitches. It is in the wrong spot to protect by an Elizabethan collar, and she pulls off any bandages we put on top of it. It must be dreadfully itchy, and she tries to scratch it. Luckily we head back to the vet tomorrow, and hopefully the stitches can come out.

On successful note, Kevin got all the solar installed. Our sons didn’t come up, so he had to do it himself. I was fairly irritated about it, but he took it better than I did. Oh, and I got a new electric bicycle, but I will talk about that next time since I haven’t got much of a chance to ride it.

Fun times with family in Minnesota

My oldest son, Alan, and his wife co-own a great lake house in southern Minnesota. We took a family weekend there along with another son and my daughter and her family. Kevin and I obviously have more time so we took off early to do some sightseeing along the way. We spent some time in Northfield, MN, a lovely little college town. We wandered around the downtown area which was full of historic brick buildings and lots of artisan-type shops. We also visited their historic museum. One of Northfield’s claims to fame is that the bank was (rather unsuccessfully) robbed by the Jessie James and Younger gang. The “guided tour” was with a high school student who obviously was very excited to be able to tell about the robbery. The old bank teller area was still original, and the little museum is well worth the $4 or $5 fee (depending on age).

Northfield also has a great olive oil and vinegar shop. Alan had told me it was a great place that he bought things from regularly. We ended up with one cooking oil and one flavored oil for dipping bread in. I admit I don’t use enough vinegars to appreciate the options of those. I intend on using both for dinner tomorrow night! We also found a great Mexican restaurant, Gran Plaza. I had Pollo Loco with the best Mexican rice I have ever had! It is a bit silly to rave about rice, but it was really outstanding. It had been cooked with grilled onions, and that was certainly a help.

The days at the lake house were fun. Alan’s BIL is a contractor, and he just finished a bathroom remodel for them hours before we showed up. Very nice! Handy too since I wasn’t looking forward to having 7 adults and 3 children sharing a single shower stall. We chose the bedroom closest to the new bathroom – surprise! This is the way I spent most of my time. (This was at the end of the day; it was sunnier most of the time.)

On Saturday Kevin, daughter Cheyenne, and grandson Clay went to the Apple Valley view in souther Minneapolis area. They had a good time, but they all said Clay’s favorite were the goats.

Everyone except Kevin and me spent lots of time in the water.

Neither Kevin or I are overly fond of lake water, but we did enjoy some fishing and boat riding. We also had some great pizza at an artisanal place in Montgomery, MN. Yummmmm.

Most of the folks left Sunday afternoon, but Alan’s family, Kevin, and I stayed until today. We got lucky, and the rain that had been forecast to start last night waited until after we left around 10:30. We ended up having a classic Midwest pork tenderloin lunch at a place called the Elbow in Albert Lea. Good, fried tenderloin sandwiches are one of the things I missed most about the Midwest when we lived in Utah.

Other than the trip, Kevin continues to be busy on the motorhome. He completed the final cosmetic work on the EMS installation, the solar controller, and the Trimetric battery monitor. Now he just needs to get one of the kids here to help install the panels. It should be one of the next two weekends.

Made it to Spearfish, South Dakota

We left Ely on Thursday around 11:00. We had just over 200 miles to go, and we weren’t supposed to check in before 4:00 so we definitely took our time. The road wasn’t too busy which is good because it was narrow and windy. I was very glad to be on a wider state highway after Virginia. We did get to see some minor wildlife. Not far outside of Ely we saw a pond with two swans on it, definitely a surprise. We also had to slow down while a momma turkey hustled a chick across the road. There were more chicks and another adult turkey waiting for them on the other side.

When we neared Itasca Lily decided she was going to be adventuresome and see what was going on. Normally she hides under the recliner, coming out rarely to express her displeasure, eat, drink, and use her box. This time she climbed right on the dash and looked outside the window for 5 minutes or so.

I was hoping this meant she would finally get brave enough to come out more, but it didn’t. She hid all day today.

We got set up at Bear Paw campground a bit before 5:00. The campsite was plenty long enough, but the interior roads were a bit narrow. It took two attempts to get it backed in correctly. Then we just enjoyed the park. We took the Wildlife Loop, but didn’t see any wildlife. We did see lovely green forests though. We ended at the big park lodge where we had a lovely dinner. I had a wonderful walleye stuffed with wild rice, cranberries, and blueberries with a side of perfect asparagus. Kevin had pot roast that he said was quite good. Here’s a picture of the campground.

The campground had a number of vacancies on a Thursday in mid summer, something that is good to remember for a future weekday trip when we can spend more time.

We left the campground by 9:00 am. We only had 300 miles to go to our destination – the Walmart in Bismarck, ND. There weren’t a lot of choices; North Dakota gets vacant really fast. The Walmart was clean and quiet though it was hot. We easily got leveled and turned on the generator since tonight was definitely going to be a night for AC. I feel pretty good about the generator since it was definitely quieter than another camper’s Honda 2000. We watched the evening news, and I was in bed by 10:15. Of course there was a little noise from the campround’s sprinklers going off at 10:00, but I took a cyclobenzoprene for back pain and was out like a light.

We left Bismarck by 8:30, headed another 300 miles to Spearfish, SD. We are at a KOA with reasonable tree cover and lots of grass. Full hookups mean that I am doing laundry in the coach. Have I mentioned how much I love the washer and dryer there? Yes, it takes a lot longer than going to a laundromat, but I get to do other things while it is running. It is lightly raining right now, and I am sitting under the awning writing this. Pretty good gig! Tomorrow we will head up Spearfish Canyon for some sightseeing. We leave on Monday morning for our first Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Gilllette. We will be going to a number of information sessions, seeing entertainment, and visiting friends from the RVForum.com.

I am definitely feeling more comfortable driving the coach. My arms aren’t stiff and my shoulders aren’t sore because I am much more relaxed. I do have a sore back though because of the seat. It has this odd bump out on the seat back just about where my shoulder blades are. I have started padding the lower part of the seat, and that is much better.

The rain is getting stronger and a bit of a breeze is with it. I think I will go inside, or at least take the iPad inside.

A lovely few days in the north woods

I really like the Ely, MN area. We are staying at Fall Lake campground, and it is the nicest Forest Service campground I have ever been in. The campsite had room to spare for our 40’ motorhome plus parking for the Jeep. We backed in the site, so I have a lovely view of Fall Lake from the big window. 

The campsite across the road is a tent only site, and it has been vacant for much of the time so my view is unimpeded.

We had a fun time with friends from the RVForum plus friends I know in Ely. We had a nice visit in the motorhome with one couple, lunch with another, and we also spent time with RVForum folks at the Winton Roadhouse while Pat Surface was playing. He did a great combo of covers (Elton, Dylan, the Beatles, among others) plus some of his original songs. Note for the future the pretzels are huge and the honey mustard sauce was lovely as was the stout they had on tap.

We decided to head out a day early to make the travel days to Gillette easier. We snagged a site for tonight in Itasca State Park which should be fun. The next night will probably be in a parking lot somewhere, then into the Spearfish, SD KOA for 2 nights.

Some more pics from this stay.

Friends at the Winton Roadhouse.

The road to Lake One at sunset after the rain.

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Times like this is when I wish I brought my camera instead of just my iphone. The colors of the picture does not do justice to the real thing. The sky was orange/scarlet.

 

Finally finished a quilt and back on the road

A good friend of one of my sons had a baby in April. Knowing this was coming, I started a quilt for the baby in February. Then we decided to rush moving and buying the motorhome, and the baby quilt didn’t get done on time. 😢 Little Roman (it turned out to be a boy) was born in April, and he just got his quilt yesterday. It did come out cute though.

The pattern is called Irish Chain. The parents chose not to find out the gender, and they didn’t have a theme or color picked out, so I went with the simple two color quilt. The colors aren’t true in the picture; the red is a brick red and the lighter color is a creamy golden.

I quilted it with a variegated King Tut thread with red, brown, green, and cream.

I used a feather stitch on the binding. I really like the look of this.

We also took off today for a trip! We are headed to Ely, Minnesota tomorrow. Tonight we are staying part way there at the Hinckley Grand Casino campground. It is a really nice campground with asphalt pads and patios but with grass and trees or so, but nice. We had dinner at the Casino buffet because it was easy. Food was standard “nice” buffet, but not great.

We will stay in Ely until Friday morning when we gradually work our way to the FMCA rally in Gillette, WY. Then off to Hot Springs, SD for a few days. We haven’t decided what to do after that.

I did drive the motorhome well over half the trip so far. We stopped for a CAT scale weighing to see how heavy we were. The front axle was just barely under the 12,000 pound capacity with full tanks of both diesel and water. The back axle still has 800pounds of capacity, and we are pretty full of “stuff” so I feel very comfortable with the residual capacity. Getting a real axle weight means we could adjust the tires appropriately for the weight they are carrying. The front tires were 118 pounds each, so they got lowered to 110 pounds. The rear tires were about the same, and they got brought down to 100 pounds. Wow but does it handle better! Much less tiring to drive. The motorhome is still more tiring the the truck and trailer, but it was certainly better than the first 1000 miles we drove.

RVForum.com Rally in Lanesboro, MN

We met up with friends from the RVForum on Wednesday for a mini-rally at Eagle Cliff Campground just outside of Lanesboro, MN. What fun! The first night was good weather and we had a campfire. We got to meet a number of new folks, and that is always fun. Thursday wasn’t too bad with just some light rain/mist. We did some sightseeing and had lunch at a nice little place in town. Then it started raining in earnest! It rained all Thursday night, all day and night on Friday, and most of the day on Saturday. I really should hire myself out as a rain maker since it always seems to rain when I go to Minnesota!

We did get to spend time with friends Heather and Marshall on Thursday after they arrived, and we spent a lot of time with Greg, Lisa, and their three girls after they arrived on Friday. Also on Friday  we had the traditional rally potluck, and we also had the traditional too much food! Luckily the campground had an enclosed pavilion since it rained so hard. I got to do a little singing too, always a fun thing.

By Saturday around 7:00 pm the rain finally stopped. We had a great group campfire at Eric and Max’s campsite, the rally organizers. Sunday morning saw us saying goodbye and heading south. We had hoped to do some biking and canoeing, but the weather just didn’t cooperate.

We are making our way to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, and we drove quite a bit of the trip today. We are now camped at Indian Creek campground (Corps of Engineers) at Mark Twain Lake in Missouri. What a gorgeous place! Since it is a federal campground our senior pass meant we paid only $9 for a water and electric site. The campsite isn’t too level, but it is very large and heavily wooded. If they are open when we come back through in a week, we are thinking of staying here a few days on the way back to Iowa.

I remembered just as I started to write this post that I took exactly zero pictures at the rally. Sorry!