July 28, 2012

When we returned home from the fair Saturday we had “popcorn & movie night.”   Everybody showered early and we watched ”Cars” from Grandpa’s movie collection (the kids stuff was just too weird).  On Sunday headed back to Bunker Hills.  (Sunday evening was “Cars 2”).

Oh, I do need to correct one error from my previous post.  The playground we stopped at was in Dennison Minnesota not Dundee.

On Tuesday we moved to Frontnac SP near Frontnac Station Minnesota, which is southeast of Red Wing.  It is a beautiful area with high bluffs and deep valleys cut out by glaciers.  The park is rather large but only a small portion is developed.  Again there lots of trees which make it a challenge to back into a site but they are very nice once you get landed. 

After getting set up we took a drive to Wabasha hoping to find the homes of the moron and the puttz across from the old “Glitner” place.  Unfortunately most of the film was made elsewhere (Debbie knows the details if you are interested).  The writer was from Wabasha so the names of the places are real.  There is a Slippery’s Tavern but it looks nothing like the movie.

Wednesday we took a drive to Red Wing and found a nice restaurant for a very late breakfast.  Next we visited the Red Wing Boot Museum.  It was quite interesting.  They still make boots here, there are two large facilities along with factories it two other locations that I don’t recall.  Unfortunately only their work boots are made in the USA, their other shoes and boots are imported.  Next was a visit to the Ufa Da Shop.  As usual our return to the park was by a very indirect route.  Whenever we’re ready the GPS gets us back to our campsite.

When we got back Darby and I took a hike, only about a mile or so but there was a steep drop down the bluff to get a good view of In Yan Teopa Rock.

On Thursday we took a ride around Frontnac.  It is actually two “towns,” sort of separated by the park.  Frontnac Station is along Hwy 61 and was originally a trading post operated by James “Bully” Wells. In 1854 Israel Garrard came to the area hunting a never returned home.  He purchased 320 acres from Wells and following the Civil War platted the town of Frontnac with two brothers and a step-brother.  Their graves are at the far end of one of the strangest cemeteries we have ever visited.  It is situated on a long narrow strip land between two creeks with graves on either side of the road.

At one time the town had a resort / hunting lodge but today all that is there are a number of old homes on nice big lots platted by the brothers.  It is surrounded Frontnac SP on three sides and Lake Pepin (Mississippi River) on the east.

On Friday we moved to Rice Lake SP.

July 26, 2012

I tried to do a little writing yesterday but was unable to access my new blog.  I spent considerable time “online” downloading all my important email so I didn’t have much time to play around with the blog.  Today I’m using the word processor to get my thoughts down and hopefully get them transferred over, we’ll see if it works.

We left home Sunday July 14 about noon or so and drove to Lake Shetek near Currie Minnesota.  We’ve visited here twice before.  It is a nice park and has a new loop of full hookups that is quite nice but does lack shade in most spots.

The previous week was quite hectic.   Along with the usual getting ready to go we finally pulled the pin on upgrading our TV in the camper and bought one.  Of course the old one was mounted in the steel bulkhead in the front of the RV so there was a design / build process involved in the installation which I do enjoy but it was time consuming.  The TV is great but we now need to work on the audio and trim around the rough edges.

Monday we took a ride to Worthington, we’ve passed through here many times but never seen what the town has to offer.  The southwest side of town butts up against Lake Okabena so there is a nice city park and some beautiful homes there.  The town seems quite prosperous.

We took county roads back to Currie so we drove through several small communities.  We both find it interesting to speculate on how folks make a living in some of these places and wonder why one community looks to be quite prosperous and the next looks to be near death.

Tuesday we made the trip to Bunker Hills.  We did stop at the BP in Mankato for fuel and Propane.  Seems the fry cook there is in charge of filling propane tanks.  This one was training her backup and almost knew how to do it.  She couldn’t get the hose connected and forgot to close the vent valve but other than that she did ok.

Tuesday evening we got another really good look at P&L’s new camper then went to dinner.  Wednesday morning they dropped off the kids and left for their concert.  Wednesday and Thursday were rainy and cloudy so we did not make it to Bunker Beach as we had planned so we settled for a couple trips to the park and watched movies.

 Friday we moved to Nerstrand Big Woods near Nerstrand, MN.  It’s an older park with lots of trees so the sites are tight to get into but nice when you get squeezed in.   The restrooms / showers are new and quite nice.  The park offers a number of hiking trails.  We took a short (less than ½ mile) hike to Hidden Falls which the kids enjoyed but no one thought to bring a camera.  Connor is fascinated with maps so he carried his own and we talked about various locations as we passed them and looked at the compass.  This kept his interest on the way to the falls but that was good enough.  He wasn’t interested on the way home.

Saturday we took a ride and found a playground in Dundee then ended up at the Rice County Fair in Fairbault.  We went through the horse barn, watched the horses in a pole race, saw a tractor pull, wandered around the midway and went on a few rides.   We ate fried cheese curds, mini doughnuts and had some fresh squeezed lemonade before going back to the camper. 

Well I’ve gotten pretty long winded so I’ll close for now and see if I can figure out how to get this posted.  Next time I’ll try to include some pictures.

Traveling with Darby

It has been suggested that I start a blog while we travel rather than journal in a word processor so this is my first attempt at blogging.  We'll see how it goes.