All Work with Some Play

During our second week here at Camp Kingswood, we accomplished a lot and still had time for a number of social activities.  Wednesday we had a group shopping trip to WalMart and Sams Club (such a trip is social for us seniors).  Friday was our day off, and we took our out-of-state guests to the Mall of America to boost Minnesota’s economy.  On Saturday, we hosted 2 other Nomads couples for a picnic lunch here at the camp.  And on Sunday we went to a band concert in Excelsior.

Tomorrow is a “back to work” day, but we already have tickets (from the local Seniors’ Center) for a boat ride on Lake Minnetonka.  Hopefully, we will remember to bring the camera along for pictures.

Do we know how to have fun, or what?

Back to Work

We came to Camp Kingswood in Minnetrista MN on Saturday the 14^th  and will be here until early August, 3 weeks total.  We have been working with 2 other couples and a solo RVer, with another solo RVer coming to join us later this weekend.  This camp is in the western fringe of the Minneapolis metro area, and it is quiet out here (except for a nearby shooting range).  We have been doing a lot of cleanup work: windows, fans, woods, flower beds and hiking trails.

We’ve also had some non-work activities including just sitting and socializing, going to church and then out for lunch, getting ice cream at Culvers, and a trip into Mpls for dinner at Broadway Pizza and then a free performance by the River Rats – a water skiing club – on the Mississippi River.  We borrowed a passenger van from the camp and Bob gave everyone a good tour of the new 35W bridge and the U of MN football stadium on our way home.

We took time on Friday to take Sophia and Olivia shopping for their birthdays.  Grandpa and Olivia went to the Build-A-Bear store and made a nice brown bear named Sugar.  Grandma and Sophie went shopping at Justice and Sophie picked out a nice outfit and pair of jeans.  We then went back to their house and saw the pictures of their vacation to Colorado.  Great pictures!  They especially enjoyed the horse back riding in the mountains.

What we’ve been up to

As mentioned in our last posting, we had planned a vacation with David and Valentina to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Last Thursday we tested our AC, given the high temps most of the country was experiencing.  We found ours didn’t work, and we needed to replace the control board somewhere/sometime.  On Friday morning we left; as of Wednesday night, we have just returned and are now ready for a couple of days of rest.  We still don’t have AC, but we did receive the replacement control board. 

We left the cabin last Friday with temps in the high 50’s and encountered more rain as we entered Duluth.  We also had a scare with our laptop dying, and hoped it was just in need of a battery replacement.  We got a replacement in Duluth and hit the freeway for Minneapolis.  On our way we started to back up all of our data to be safe, but the new battery quit along the way.  Now we got concerned.  By the time we got to Minneapolis, the temps had gone up to 105-106 depending on whose thermometer you might believe.  We did have AC from the dash, while the engine was running, but nothing in the RV end. 

We picked up David and Valentina in Prior Lake and headed across the state to Pipestone MN on state and US highways.  Eventually the temps dropped about 30 degrees and we saw people at our campground that night wearing jackets.  It was a long day – a little over 400 miles, so we turned in right away and played tourist at the Pipestone National Monument on Saturday morning.  We had brought David and his brother here 32 yrs ago, and now he showed his daughter around.

Saturday was another long day as we left Pipestone by mid-morning and pushed on to Custer SD by the end of the day.  In 1980, the evening show at Mt Rushmore was pretty dramatic, so we tried it again this year.  It was different, and OK, but not as dramatic. 

Sunday David and Valentina took our car and did their own sightseeing while us old folks took the motorcycle and played on the twisty roads – Sylvan Lake Rd, Needles Highway, and Iron Mt Rd.  It was a great day.

          

          

We had dinner at a great little pie shop in Custer, while David and Valentina spent the night camping at Devil’s Tower

         

On Monday we got together again by mid-day and we had a steak dinner together.  In the evening we introduced them to geocaching, where they found one on their first try.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a little easier return home: taking the Badlands Loop in the morning and stopping briefly in the afternoon in Mitchell SD (where we met Brett and Jen and their girls on their way west for a family vacation to Colorado). We hope they have as much fun as we did.

Now we are back in the Minneapolis area, where we have some social and maintenance duties to take care of, before beginning our next Nomads project next week.

Finally Dried Out!!

The past week has been sunny and warm – and DRY!  The road to the cabin is open and repaired and the water level in the lake is down.  The mosquitoes have been out in full force!

We had a nice visit earlier this week with Paige’s cousin Tim and his wife, Pam.  We had a nice relaxing time and even got in a boat ride (you can do that when you put the boat in the water!).

 We’ve been back to town a couple of times since Paige’s mom has had some challenges recovering from the fall and then a low blood count issue.  She is currently in the hospital and hopefully will be released to Lakeshore rehabilitation center tomorrow or Tuesday.  She is maintaining a good attitude in spite of all that’s happened.

This weekend Brett, Jen and the granddaughters came for a visit.  It was so good to have them with us for a couple of days.  We were able to go swimming, boating, saunaing, made smores, and had our fireworks last night.  Brett and Bob worked on the finishing of the windows and walls of the porch.  Looks darn good now!

There was a regional handbell conference in Duluth the past few days.  Today they had over 400 bell ringers give an open concert this afternoon.  While Mom rested, we went to that – very impressive!  This comment coming from a couple of former ringers.

We’ll be spending time with Mom and then getting ready for a 5 day vacation to the Black Hills with Dave and Valentina.  Looking forward to that!

Flood Update

It has stopped raining, but the streams are still flowing into the Whiteface faster than the river can take it away.  On Friday we wanted to spend some more time at the cabin, but were there only long enough to drop off some stuff and pick up a few things.  The lake level is higher as shown here

Those ducks just walked off the end, they didn't have to jump down at all.

The access road to the point is officially closed to protect a small wooden bridge and water is flowing across the road.  The fire hydrant (in the shady area on the right) is just off to the side of a bypass road that is under water:

Here is the bridge that we need to take the motorhome across in a few weeks:

I hope the water is down by the time we need to use it.

Storm of the Century

It has been raining a lot here in northern Minnesota the past week, so the ground has been pretty well saturated.  We were in Duluth for the day last Tuesday and left to return to the cabin at about 5:00 PM.  The sky looked really black and the evening weather program showed radar images where the storm cells were NOT moving.  It rained all night and into the morning.  Many weather records were broken before the skies cleared.  We didn’t get as much rain as they did back in Duluth but here is an indicator:

Here is a typical view of our beach and dock:

And here is a similar view, taken Thursday morning:

For those who like to play with numbers, the state considers this reservoir to cover 5600 acres.  How much water does it take to raise the surface by about 4 feet?

Wednesday many roads in and around Duluth were closed due to washouts and debris.  Thursday we came back to town and saw a lot of damage.  More information can be found at the local newspaper:

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/photogallery/id/2245/

 Joyce had a little setback this week.  On Monday night she took a tumble at home.  By Tuesday morning she was bruised and in pain so went to the hospital by ambulance.  We met her there and stayed with her at the hospital while she had multiple X-rays and exams.  Bottom line:  she didn’t break anything (sigh of relief!) but will be using the walker again until the soreness subsides.  She came home today and we’ll get her settled in before we return to the cabin tomorrow.

Time Flys When Having FUN

And what a lot of fun (work) we’ve had!

We should explain our lack of recent blogs.  Most of our family-followers already know this, but maybe not our non-family readers.  We have been spending most of our springtime at the family cabin, north of Duluth.  It is peaceful and quiet here most of the time.  It is a good way to get “away from it all”, but this also means being away from cell towers.  We post blogs quite often when traveling, but we usually have a good cell signal on the road and we have been using our own Mi-Fi system for almost a year.  The trouble is that our cabin is located in one of Verizon’s few “can’t hear us now” zones.  Their towers are at least 20 air-miles away: south – ½ way to Duluth, or NW on the Iron Range.  As a result, we are in a hole in their coverage, and well behind our usual blog reading as well as blog writing.

Some things we have completed:

- got the dock into the lake
- stained a new window frame (with many more left to do)
- painted the sauna and garage
- trimmed some branches
- did a little electrical work and
- mowed the grass (after we obtained a replacement lawn mower).

All of this has taken place between rainstorms.  Although this area had a mild winter and early spring, and the lake's level was very low when we arrived, we have had a lot of rain, seems like about 3 days per week.  The lake has come up, to about its highest level ever, about 2 weeks ago, but is now back down to a near normal level. 

For Memorial Day weekend we had both sons and all 4 granddaughters here with us.  Since then, we also had a whirlwind trip to Minneapolis early in June.  We attended a couple of family gatherings on that trip: a dinner and a couple of graduations.  It was Paige’s mother’s first trip to Minneapolis since Easter of 2011.  Joyce was concerned about whether she could navigate well enough with her cane but she did great.  She was glad that she made the trip!  She met her Great-Granddaughter, Leah, for the first time; here are all 4 generations:         

We were also able to attend Valentina’s graduation ceremony from middle school.  She’s now a full-fledged high schooler!!

On Friday, we will return to Duluth to meet up with Brett and a couple of the granddaughters.  He will be running in Grandma’s Marathon on Saturday and will come up to the lake for part of Saturday and Sunday.