Here we are, on the road: We’re in Prior Lake, MN

Sunday, June 24, 2012 Lorraine’s report

If it’s Sunday, it must be time to write our blog so here goes. We are still in Dakotah Meadows RV Park in Prior Lake by Minneapolis MN. We have had a bit of excitement since last I wrote.

Father’s Day if you remember, I wrote about a storm that was coming towards us with lots of lightning, winds and heavy rains. Well, the storm did show up and was it more that they thought it would be.

It started about 10:00 PM with thunder and lightning lighting up the whole sky around us and across the whole horizon in front of us. The winds were gusting up to 50-60 MPH or above, and then the rains came. Chuck went to bed around 10:15, but I stayed up watching the local news.

About 11:15, I was getting ready to go bed when there came a loud pounding on our front door. I could hardly hear it because the storm was really raging by then. I opened the door and one of the Shokapee Mdewakanton Sioux’s firemen shouted that “We were advised to go to the storm shelter, the storm was getting bigger and coming on strong and we should head over to the storm shelter.” By then it was pouring rain so hard the fireman was soaked to the skin, even with his rain gear on. It was raining so hard, it looked like someone had taken a fire hose and turned it on full force above the rig and everywhere else. Rivers of water was flowing down the middle of our road, about 3-4 inches deep. Our door mat once again took a short trip.

I got Chuck up and told him what the fireman said, so we both started to dress. He said he didn’t think we needed to go, but we got ready anyway. A bolt of lightning had hit just over the left side of us, not real close but a short distance, but it was extremely loud and shook the rig; Misty jumped down from her bed and was acting strange and she was scared. She ran to the back of the rig then came back to me just shaking.

Chuck brought the car around front for me and we took Misty with us and headed over to find the storm shelter. We parked by the main bathrooms by the office and had to look for the shelter. A lady heading for it too told us where it was, so we headed to it.

About 25 to 30 other people had decided to seek shelter there with us. The rain, winds and lightning continued all night, but by midnight a bunch of us hardy souls decided to head back to our rigs to try to sleep. The storm front had gone through the area by then.

Chuck and I were soaked up to our knees from all the rain, but we finally were able to go to sleep after a bit. Our friends, Dave and Sandy, who parked right next to us with their rig, didn’t evacuate to the storm shelter. Since they lived here full time for most of their lives, I wondered if they thought the storm wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. The next morning I asked, and it turned out they had fallen asleep before the storm hit and slept right on through it, didn’t hear a thing. And here I was extremely afraid of the storm. since you can’t see in the dark.

So the rest of the week went by pretty quickly. We were with Dave and Sandy, so Chuck went with Dave and Sandy took me with her and we did our own thing. We had shopping, watering her plants, and mail to pick up. Chuck took care of things for the coach with Dave. We had the repairman over one afternoon to work on the hydro hot heater. It needed its yearly maintenance; a part broke or was broken by the repairman and the whole thing ended up costing more than we had planned.

Tuesday was another rainy wet, windy day. Lots of thunder and lightning, we had to bring the slides in at 3:30 am since the wind was hitting us so hard. After the storm front went through, the humidity was extremely high 95% with the temperatures hitting 96 degrees.

Wednesday and Thursday were gray cloudy days with periods of heavy rains, winds and thunder storms. The saving grace was that the temperatures were low 80’s-mid 70’s.

We’ve had fun visiting with Dave and Sandy. Most days found us doing our chores or running, eating and then home for games of 10,000. I’m not sure who the final big winner was, but I know Dave would come on strong and take over the lead when one of us was ready to go out to win the game.

Dave and Sandy had to leave on Thursday to head to a wedding in their family. Thank you both for all you did for Chuck and me; we enjoyed our visit with you both and look forward to seeing you again.

Before Dave and Sandy left they told us about a big oldies car show held yearly up at the Minnesota State Fair grounds in St. Paul. We headed out Friday morning to the Mall of America to try to find the bus stop that took you to the fair grounds. We found the bus stop, but no bus. So Chuck drove on into the fair grounds.

We were totally amazed at all the classic cars that were parked in the fair grounds. The evening news reported that over 11,000 classic cars from 1964 and below were present and being showed. Chuck and I walked for over four and a half hours straight and didn’t cover the whole event; maybe just 2/3rds of it? Not sure but I haven’t ever seen that many classic cars in one place. I think the Chevrolets were the predominant classic cars represented. The day was really nice but it did get hot in the late afternoon, 86 and high humidity. Chuck had put on sun screen but still burned his knees. Still it was the Best Car show we have ever been to.

I want to wish our son, Rick a very Happy Birthday on Wednesday, hope you have a great day! I miss you and look forward to the time we can be together again. Also that day is Richard and Sandy’s 3^rd anniversary, hope you have many more wonderful years together!

On Tuesday, our Granddaughter, Kaitlyn called to tell us she had lost her second top tooth; thank you for calling to let us know, Kaitlyn, we appreciate knowing.

That’s it for me, until next time,

Lorraine

6/24/12 Chuck’s report

First off, Happy Birthday to our son Rich. I think he is working two weeks on, two weeks off schedule and is on working now. His birthday is Wednesday, hope you have a good one even if you are working. And our friends back home, Richard and Sandy will be celebrating their third anniversary the same day, hope you have a good day too. Sorry we can’t be at either but will be thinking of you.

Boy am I glad the thunderstorms have stopped, at least we haven’t had any more since Wednesday. Sunday night we got evacuated to the storm shelter, heavy thunderstorms forecast. We stayed there about an hour or so before the storm died down some then came back to the coach. We were both soaked, the rain was so hard it was like walking through a fire hose spray. But at least there was no hail once again. Dave and Sandy didn’t go to the storm shelter and we were discussing it with them the next morning, seems they both slept through the whole thing, didn’t even hear the constant thunder. We would have given then a call had it been worse but this way they had a good night’s sleep, ha. Then again on Tuesday night we had another storm, this time we pulled in our slides and stuck it out. Not as bad as the one two nights before but the winds were from a different direction.

Lorraine and Sandy made a couple of shopping trips this week, to the Mall of America and other places as well. Both Dave and I found things around the coaches that had to be worked on instead, sorry we missed the shopping trips. And of course we ate good too, went out to the casino for a couple of dinners, had a couple home made here and one time to the Cracker Barrel.

Dave and Sandy had to leave on Thursday, they have to head North to attend a wedding on Saturday. We said our usual so long, see you later, it’s sad when we have to break up but we know we will see then someplace down the road, maybe even this winter depending on our schedules. Thanks Dave and Sandy for coming out and spending time with us!!!

After they left, the mobile service guy came by to service our Hydro Hot system. This is the diesel burner that supplies hot water for domestic use and where we get our heat in the winter. We haven’t had to use the heat portion for awhile but do turn it on at least twice a day for our showers so it gets used. They recommend getting it serviced once a year and we were a couple of months late on this one. It was making some noise and had diesel smell when it was running so it was time. They found lots of soot built up, no surprise there and the flame scanner was broke. They cleaned everything up, changed the burner tip, flame scanner and filter and it runs just fine once again. I can say they are really proud of the flame scanner, $210 WOW.

We’ve been having trouble with our MIFI from Verizon. I ordered a replacement to be delivered to us when we got here almost two weeks ago, it was returned without being delivered. I spent a couple of hours tracking that one down and reordered. After four days I called again, two hours on the phone once again and found the gal never put the re-order in. I wasn’t too happy but this time they were pretty good, they agreed to overnight it at no charge to us and this time it showed up. Only problem was it didn’t come to the coach but to the office, luckily I checked before I called them again. Anyway, the new one is installed, programed and works good so far.

Before Dave and Sandy left, there were three coaches that came in to the campground towing classic cars. Dave mentioned there was the annual “Back to the 50s” car show in St. Paul this weekend, sponsored by the car club they belong to. They have a very nice ‘64 Chevelle that they keep in the shop but they wouldn’t be able to attend this year. I volunteered to drive their car but for some reason they declined, go figure.

So Friday morning we took off to find the fairgrounds. We first stopped by the Mall Of America, there was supposed to be a shuttle to the fair grounds from there but we couldn’t find it. So we decided to just drive over and see if we could find parking. The traffic started getting bad about two miles before the place and all the side street parking spots were full. I was going to let Lorraine off at the entrance but found a side street parking spot about three blocks away, score.

Anyway, we went in and enjoyed looking at all the cars, well I say all but we didn’t make it down all the areas. Someone told us there was over 11,000 cars, the news said over 10,000. I know we saw lots and lots of good cars but seeing as how we haven’t won a lottery lately, I didn’t drool over any one too much. But if money was no object, there were lots of cars I would love to own! This show is for cars 1964 or earlier so no Mustangs. I really like ‘55, ‘56 and ‘57 Chevys and there were lots of them. The weather was sunny and hot and we walked a lot but it was well worth it, we both enjoyed ourselves.

Saturday we just took it easy, I think Lorraine said I took a 2 hour nap. We then drove back to the Cracker Barrel for dinner before coming back to the casino. We’ve been here almost two weeks and this is only the second time we’ve given the slots a try. But same results this time, neither one of us won, bummer.

The weather has been really nice, I won’t even complain about it being too hot when it gets into the 90s although the humidity can get high too. It cools off to the high 50s, low 60s at night and like I said, we haven’t had to deal with any thunderstorms the last few nights either. There is a pond just in front of us at the campground but I can’t say the bugs have been bad although I did get a mosquito bite last night. Overall we have enjoyed our stay here at Misty Lake Dakotah Meadows.

Although we haven’t had it too bad here, there is some bad flooding in the state. The worse of it is North of us, in fact, there is some flooding in the Grand Rapids area. There is also some flooding and lots of downed trees to the East of here, guess it must be the time of year for thunderstorms up here.

The folks that are having trouble here aren’t sitting around waiting for the government to help them, they are rolling up their sleeves and getting it done, not like what made the news after Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago. I haven’t even heard of a national organization raising money to help them out, you know, the kind that says for just $2/day you can help a family of four or whatever. I like this type of American attitude!

Our plans have changed a bit. We will head out tomorrow morning, earlier than usual, to get the dip stick tube replaced at a repair place just up the road. After that we will head to a KOA near Osseo to visit with my aunt, uncles and cousins for a couple of days. After that we had planned to continue North, I wanted to go to Grand Rapids where I was born then continue on to and through North Dakota to see the oil boom area. That portion of the trip has been changed however as we have a leak on the hydraulic jacks that I just can’t find. I called the factory in Iowa and they suggested we bring it in and let them repair it. They are about 300 miles to the South of us and they could get us in on our schedule so that’s what we will be doing on Wednesday after our visit with family.

We have reservations at Glacier National Park over the 4th, will still be able to make that stop. We’ve never been there but it’s been on our wish list for awhile, hope it lives up to our expectations. We will be there about a week before headed back to Washington for another round of doctor visits, our last for this year. Hoping for a clear bill of health and some visiting with family and friends before heading out a another adventure for the winter. I don’t plan on having to return back to a job this winter or next spring so we should be able to stay in warmer weather, yea.

Ok, time to add some pictures and get this posted. Lorraine took lots of pictures at the car show, I’ll have a tough time picking which ones to put here.

I actually had to go inside but only for about two minutes.