There and Back Again

Apparently this is turning into a travel blog, I only post when I travel, but I am not consistent even then. Oh well, no one reads it anyway. We left for Walnut Grove, Minnesota a little after 4pm on Wednesday to go camping for the weekend. Here we are crossing the Boone bridge, just getting started, its about a 10 hour drive.

It got dark pretty quickly, but the drive was not bad. We had planned to stay over in the Comfort Inn in Mason City, Iowa, but when I called about an hour out, they were completely booked. I called the Country Inn there and they said they had 6 rooms left. We arrived in Mason City about quarter til 12 right about the time a huge storm was getting ready to let loose, the lightning was streaking across the sky like crazy. There were 2 other people waiting to check in when we got in, and their computer was acting up, so it was 12:30 before we got to our room, just ahead of the rain. We slept well, got up about 9 and headed out again. .

It was a dreary day, but other than a heavy mist it didn't rain on us

It took another 3 hours to get to Walnut Grove, we got there just after 12:30 on Thursday. Matt dropped me off and picked up John and they went to get the camper we were borrowing for the weekend. I sat in the sun and got a bit of work done while waiting on them to come back. While waiting on them I heard a commotion at the campsite across from us, where Jim and Carol were staying. I went over, it was a baby mouse. This thing was TINY! barely had its eyes open. Carol wouldn't come near it, Lynn and I finally took it out in the woods, hoping it would find its nest. Matt and John came back with the camper and lunch
.

More nature at lunch, a chipmunk rushed Matt and he screamed like a little girl. Then I found a Cicada which hadn't come out of its shell yet.
It took us awhile but we finally got the camper setup.
by that time the Cicada had come out of its shell

It later got stepped on, I didn't take a picture of that.
Later that evening we sat around the campfire for awhile then headed off to bed.

A board was missing in the camper where one of the seats makes into a bed, so I slept on a smaller than twin size "bed". Every time I turned over during the night I felt like I was on a spit. It was also cold as a witches' tit! We froze our asses off all night. I actually enjoyed the push the button shower, at least it was hot!

Friday was relatively uneventful. We went into Tracy to get groceries and to the hardware store to get a board so I didn't have to play turkey on a spit again. Came back, attempted to make some pizza pudgie pies. Burned the first batch, Mark made his perfectly on the first try of course, we ate the burned ones anyway and made some more. Took a walk down to the lake with Charlotte, Amabelle was already down there swimming with Carol and some of the cousins.

Oh, I almost forgot all of my "injuries". I had smashed my finger trying to get a cast iron dutch oven out of the truck on Thursday evening. Friday, after getting the board for the bed, I was trying to get it in place ans cut my finger just above the cuticle, that hurt like hell. Then while building a fire for the pies, I shoved a splinter under my fingernail. That was the extent of my injuries, Ama burned her hand and fell once, a few of the other kids had minor falls but overall no major injuries to anyone. John and Ellen had to go to his 45th class reunion Friday night so we were left in charge of the dog. Friday night we sat around the fire, drinking beer and shooting the shit. It was not nearly as cold as the previous night.
Saturday I decided to cook breakfast over the campfire when I got up (well it was about 10:30 before I started cooking). It took me half an hour to get a fire started because the wood we had was green. Finally got it going, and cooked some sausage in a cast iron skillet. That was fine, other than the fact I almost died from the smoke inhalation. Then went to put the eggs in it, they were frozen. Well, only two frozen, the rest were just very....cold. finally got that made, and ate, along with quite a bit of ash. Jen and I then took some of the kids and the dog down to the lake for a walk
We saw some interesting 'artwork" on the benches.
Lucky Ama got a piggy back ride on the way back to camp.
Jen and I then went into Walnut to go to the liquor store. The lady there told us we smelled like camping. Got the booze (long island ice tea, Margarita, 3 kinds of beer and mike's hard lemonade). Came back, had lunch (don't remember what) and started drinking (yeah, it was about 2pm). None of us got really drunk but we pretty much drank solid the rest of the night.
Mark and Matt played some beanbag toss They won, Mark always wins at games.
Did some more campfire sitting Saturday night
Sunday we got up about 9 and started packing up. We left to take the camper back to Cottonwood about 12:30. We stopped at John and Ellens to work on their PS3 and computer, then headed back to the campground to say goodbye to everyone.
We got on the road a little after 3 heading back to St. Louis. 10 hours of corn fields
bean fields and wind farms later we got home about 1am. We didn't unload anything, we went directly to bed. It was nice to be home.