Back From A Great Weekend With Pictures

I have been promising some pictures of our seasonal site near Wells, Minnesota. This is a Faribault County Park with 30 camp sites. It is called Pihls Park, named after the gentleman who donated the land to the county some years ago.
What impressed us the most about this park was the super quiet and laid back atmosphere. The manager, Mary is a great person and very accommodating.
The sites are huge as you can see in these pictures of our camper and no other rigs breathing on us. You can click on the pictures for a larger view.


And a few more pics to show distances between units.



While the park itself is about 20 acres, it is surrounded by woods and a very nice lake with a fishing pier.

Here are a few general pictures so you can get more of the cozy feel of this wonderful park.





The campground is mature and offers 110v and 30 amp electrical service and water. There is a dump station on site so hauling the "blue-boy" wheeled waste tank is not a problem at all.
Their rates are $20 per day or $175 per month May through September. That monthly fee even includes utilities. I know that there are several seasonal sites still available for next year in case you know of someone who appreciates peace and quiet.

I Was Able To get To The RV

Ah, a sure sign of Spring. I was able to get to the camper on Sunday. Enough snow had melted enabling me to open the door to the camper and poke around for a while.
I had been hearing a beep coming from that direction for the past few weeks and figured it was a low battery warning for the smoke detector or the carbon monoxide detector. It was the later of the two, but both devices are now at full strength .
Everything else in the rig looked pretty good. I will know for sure when I am able to drain out the antifreeze from the water lines and fire up the appliances.

Can you tell I am getting Spring Fever?

You never know what you will find after putting something like an RV to bed for at least five months. Any one of a number of problems can crop up.

Speaking of problems....how about these "issues"?















I can only imagine some of the choice words uttered or screamed during those "events"!

Mountain Lake,MN

We had the day off on Wednesday and decided that a road trip was in order. We piled into the truck and off we went. As usual, we had no idea where we were going. We got to the end of our country lane here at Coyote Ridge and literally had to stop and decide....turn right or left. Left it was and we we were off to who knows where.
We took all back roads, mostly gravel, and saw lots of new areas, or new to us anyway.
For years we have passed by a town called Mountain Lake, MN and never pulled off the highway to check it out. To say the least, we were impressed.
Mountain Lake website
We discovered a very nice city campground that has water, sewer and electric hookups for only $20 per night. It was very clean, well maintained and priced right. Looks like we will be adding that campground to next season's must do list.
We stopped and had a late lunch at the Parkside Depot Restaurant in Mountain Lake. The owner, Ron is a swell guy and a real train nut.

Do yourself a favor, next time you are anywhere near Mountain Lake, stop in. The train atmosphere is great and the service and food outstanding.

More Pictures and Weird Grave

Recently we camped in Western Minnesota near the South Dakota border.
We went geocaching near Cottonwood,Mn and found this beautiful lake, right in the middle of town.


Sometimes a person just needs a few more arms and hands. I was trying to control two dogs who wanted to go opposite directions while I was trying to follow the directions on my handheld GPS unit.

Shortly after that picture was taken, I had to be cut free from the tangled lines from the crazy dogs!

Now for the part out the weird graves.

One of the geocaches we were hunting for said the location was near a lake and was located at the private site where they buried their beloved dog. That seemed normal enough. With a little looking in the woods near the waters edge, we found the dog's grave.


Now the weird begins. Just a few feet from the dog's grave we found another grave site, or what appeared to be a grave site. This one was for a child.


I sure hope it was a memorial as opposed to an actual grave. I always thought humans had to be buried in approved graveyards.

In reality, it was a very peaceful site, so why not?

Tune in again for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Some Of This & Some Of That

You can probably tell by the headline that this blog will be a virtual potpourri of stimulating topics!

Just a few updates....We are very excited about the news that our youngest son Andy is coming home for a visit in mid June. He lives in Seattle,WA and we haven't seen him forever. It will be nice to see him again.

The Toss For The Red Cross beanbag competition will be held this Saturday at Jaycee Park in Mankato,MN. We are expecting up to 128 teams to compete. That should be a VERY fun day. Bag Toss Link

This past weekends rain really greened up the new sod Ben and I put down Friday. It is just beautiful. We rolled it Monday evening after fertilizing it on Sunday. Now we can watch it grow.

Sunday afternoon Sue worked her magic making homemade soup. This time it was wild rice soup...and it is delicious!


The weather appears to be warming up and my thoughts are turning to de-winterizing the camper. I do indeed like those prospects!

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Great Little RV Show

Sunday afternoon we went to a small RV show sponsored by Gag's Camper sales in Mankato.

It was held at the National Guard Armory.


They had several units outside that were nice, but not what we were looking for.

That story changed when we got inside...once again we felt like kids in a candy store.

It did not take long to find our favorite...here are a few inside pictures.

Click on pictures for larger images.






We were VERY impressed with this new company...Open Range.

This company is up and coming and appears to have a grip on the fact that if they are to survive they will have to builder lighter and stronger units. The Open Range company builds units of this size (38 feet) that are 2,000 pounds lighter than others of comparable size.

Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"