Day 24 July 30

Hanging out in Cold Spring.

A day in St Cloud for shopping and a movie and a day just relaxing....

Day 20-23 July 26-29 Still in Cold Spring Mn

We are still in Cold Spring enjoying the family. A few days of camaraderie with the Levins and Johns before quiet descended on TJ's at the Lake. Some play on the beach, swim in the lake, a wedding shower, 

We are trying to get the trailer in for a repair estimate, if only it would quite raining long enough to get it done. Hopefully tomorrow or Thursday. We are hoping to get it sealed up on the 6th, then be able to head out to South Dakota. Does not look like there is any major damage but then again we do not play RV repair folks, at least not yet...

I guess we need to get on with the route planning and notifying folks out there that the crew is headed their way. Leroy is very  bad about that......

Some pictures....

Enjoying the sand

Rose at the Engagement Shower

Forget car racing, how about bulls

Pool party, a really large pool

The RV park

Day 19 July 25 - Fun day at the Lake

Great day with his family.  What a nice bunch of people.   

And what a perfect spot for a little girl to play in the water, slide off the waterslide into the lake, catch fish off the dock and play in the sand.  Rosalie is in heaven and, of course, everyone loves her.  Just a very relaxing day (except for Leroy, who had to go into town to get repair stuff for the “underbelly of the beast”, go to the bank, stop at the store, and, by the way, do these five loads of laundry while you’re at it.

It's a big one

Making the princess's bed

Isn’t retirement wonderful?    

Day 18, July 24, On the Road again after a very late start

First half of the day was spent with Leroy trying to repair all the ripping and tearing apart that had happened the previous day. 

Got to an RV dealer and bought some specialized (and expensive) tape that would hold the underbelly together so we could continue our trip.

Got on the road about 3:00 and made it to Cold Spring, MN about 7:00 to his sister’s house.

Got settled in, some fun time with his family, I got Rosalie in to the camper at 10:00, finally got her to bed at 11:15 (boy, was she wired) and let Leroy head back across the street to be with his family ( was it about 2:00 am when he got back to the rig?) but he deserved some serious winding down time.

Day 17 July 23 - DISASTER STRIKES!

Our first calamity on the road. 

Last night, Rosalie decided she was big enough to brush her teeth by herself, which was, of course, in her own private bathroom in the rig. 

I agreed and congratulated her on her good job of brushing teeth.  What I neglected to do was check that she had turned off the water and unplugged sink.  Much to my dismay, at 7:00 the next morning, I heard Leroy saying *&%*@^!* or something along those lines and knew that something was not right (duh).

The water had not been turned off nor had the sink been unplugged, so it ran for about 10 hours under the trailer, soaking the insulation, probably warping the wood frame and etc, etc.    But Leroy, our champion, rose to the occasion, got underneath the rig, tore out the insulation, ripped apart the “belly of the beast”  and hopefully, saved the day.

Nope no picture of the near sinking. Too busy trying to get it dried out. In the end it was not all that bad, could have been much worse. As we did not get perfectly level the water hit an area about 2 feet wide by 10-15 feet down the side of the trailer. It did take a bit of surgery and will require more.

The flood remediation worker

The lovely assistant

Day 16 July 22 - leaving IA, heading to Minnesota

 Good day for travel, took our time, made it to Garden City, Mn, just north of the border. 

It’s beginning to cool off in the Land of 10,000 lakes.  Nice camping spot, the campgrounds for the County State Fair, lots of trees, surrounded by a river, very few neighbors in the camping area.

Day 15 7/21 - Touring Winterset

We know you are dying learn about Winterset Iowa…

It’s the home of the movie set for Bridges of Madison County

and

birth place of one Marian Robert Morrison, later to be known as john Wayne

We had a nice breakfast to the Northside café where Robert Kincade (Clint) offered Y  (Meryl) a seat at the counter. Susan sat in the fourth stool from the front., the same place where Clint Eastwood sat. It has not been washed since :o) .

Then after a serious noon thunderstorm we head back to the campground/park to drop off some excess chocolate milk for the child. Then off to visit covered bridge that is in the same city park and then the stone tower over look. Nice view the surrounding country side.














Of course we stopped in to see the house where John Wayne was born and spent about three years. He was in about 150 movies over his lifetime, many of them were represented in the home with pictures of John and fellow cast members.   Interesting tidbit about John…he was born in 1907, weighed 13 lbs at birth and was delivered by a midwife at home to a very slender mother….that man was destined to be successful in life after overcoming those odds.





After that we headed out to see the bridge that was the focal point of the movie. It was of course covered. It has not been in service for quite some time but apparently out lived most of its peers due to extra structural supports that had been built in by the designer.

On the way to the bridge we noted that the local county fair was wrapping up today so we stopped in to check it out on the way back from the bridge. A small fair by some standards but there were lots of animals exhibited by the local 4H and FAA clubs. The kids were apparently enjoying the mud fights. We missed the fights but did see the aftermath as the kids were totally covered in mud.


Rosalie enjoyed the kiddie area, we all enjoyed the animals especially the pleasant aroma in the pig barn.  She did learn to milk a cow, although it was a cardboard bossie.

Day 14 7/20 - Road Trip to Winterset, Ia

What’s in Winterset, Ia you might ask? You’ll just have to wait until the next blog entry to find out. Today is another travel day.

Where does milk come from? A stop at Shatto’s dairy farm for some bovine libation. Shatto was another of those factory tours we found by Googling. Unfortunately we missed the only tour of the day, But, we did see them milking, though not up close, were able to say hello to the cows, a couple calves, the barn cats, as well as purchase a few items from their store. Ten years and still going so we thanked them and wished them continued luck in the business.

Lunch stop at a nice little city park in Lamoni. A previous birthday party left behind enough sidewalk caulk to keep Rosalie busy drawing while the oldsters made lunch.

Turned off the freeway heading to Winterset. It turns out we arrived in the small town of St. Charles just in to time to almost run over a parade. As we were headed into town a bit past 6 pm we noted something  a bit odd down the street. A bunch of flashing lights, tractors and  people lining the streets. We figured it was not for us. But the road was blocked so we pulled over and partook of the local parade for about 45 mins or so. Stocked up on candy, learned about a local B & B from a very nice talkative native lady then made our excuses and headed out.

 

Pink Power

Arrived in Winterset at the city campground.  Park was almost full to capacity due to a Good Sam get together. This was the first camp ground we went to without reservations so were a bit concerned all day. It’s a city run camp and of course today was Saturday, no city folks answering the phone so we could not even try to find out how busy they were. The fall back spot was 30 miles back the way we came at a casino. But we are here and did find a spot.