Life at the Campground

Well, we are now getting into our normal "work" routine here at the CG.  

We worked on Wednesday, then had Thursday and Friday off.  I actually did some mowing on Friday afternoon so that we could say that the whole park has been mowed!!

We were almost full this past weekend as this is the festival of the Pipestone Water Tower Days.

This water tower has been around forever and is made of concrete.

They had a music and dancing Friday night on Main Street and then a parade on Saturday morning.  

They also had baseball and softball tournaments so we had a lot of families with ballplayers staying in the park.  

We got a rain both nights but fortunately the days were mostly sunny.

Sunday afternoon Judeen came over from Sioux Falls and we sat outside.  Harold (my 93 year old uncle) and his wife Edith also dropped by for awhile and then we all went to Pizza Ranch for supper.  Great place - salad and pizza buffet and also a fried chicken mashed potatoes and gravy and vegetable buffet. Everything is good!!!

That's about all for now...

Back at the Campground

Well, here it is Thursday already!!  We've been to Minneapolis for a long weekend and are now back at the CG.

We left here Friday morning with Emma and got to Pam and Steve's in time for lunch.  Lauren and Violet and Stephanie were over - Pam and Emma were playing a game with Violet.

That night we played some Farkle (a dice game) - had a great time.

On Saturday some shopping was done, and, in the evening, we got Julie from the airport.  Late supper and then more Farkle.  Zack was back from his trip to Alaska with his Dad so we quizzed him about all the places they had been.  (We are jealous - we want to go back!).

On Sunday morning, Father's Day, we got up, had some breakfast, and, Steve and I opened cards/gifts.  Steve got this folding barbeque thingy that looked like a Swiss army jack knife - had a spatula, a knife, and a fork (all were huge).  I got a rain jacket for use at the CG in wet weather.  And I got a special card from Emma.  Here is the front:

And the inside:

She wrote "Are you good?" because I have been teasing her all week about the use of that phrase.  She uses it to answer so many questions, such as:

Are you hungry?  No, I'm good.

Do you want to watch TV?  No, I'm good.

Are you cold?  No, I'm good.

Do you want your jacket?  No, I'm good.

And on and on...

Everyone uses it nowadays instead of "No thanks" or something similar.  I even use it but I guess I kidded her so much that she reminded me of it in the card!!

I did get some nice cards from Judy and Julie (thanks for the cherry licorice - it is gone!!).

Sunday morning we went to Lake Harriet for church service.  St. John's Lutheran was providing the service in the band shell.  

 A view of Lake Harriet behind the band shell:

It was a beautiful morning and the sun was shining:

The ground was wet so the blanket didn't work out.

It was too hot in the sun so we sat at tables with umbrellas but unfortunately we were too far to the side of the band shell that we couldn't hear much.  But we did enjoy being together!!

I guess Emma's goal was to find some new shoes so we went to the Mall of America.  First, we had to have lunch - and Tony Roma's was there.  Since we no longer have them in TX, we went there and had an excellent lunch (Thanks Julie for the Father's Day gift).  After that, we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, but unfortunately, Emma did not find the shoes she wanted.  But we had fun anyway.

Here are some pics of the amusement park in the Mall:

Took Julie and Emma to the airport around 5 and then back to Pam and Steve's for the evening.  Around 6 PM some clouds rolled in and a HUGE gust of wind came thru - a screen actually came off one of the windows.  And then it was mostly over - a little rain is all.  The next morning we got up to find a large tree limb had fallen from one tree and was lodged in some branches in another tree.  Steve and I got his pole extension saw out, and, while I held the ladder, he got up there and sawed a couple of branches and the big branch came down.  We cut all the smaller branches off and then dragged it across the street into a wooded area.  Had that branch come down about 20 feet closer to the house, it would have come thru the roof.

We had planned to leave that morning for Pipestone, but, because of the branch, we ended up having lunch at Culvers with Pam and Steve and Mia and Henry (two sweet neighbor kids that Pam babysits).

And Molly was able to join us as well.  So it was a great sendoff.

Looking forward to more get-to-gethers during the summer...

A First for Emma Today!

Today was a busy day for us - Judy and I worked this morning and then she did laundry after lunch (in case you are wondering this was not a first for Emma!!).
Later today we drove to Lake Benton where my cousin Gary and his wife Shiryl live.  They have something on their property that we cannot find in Texas:

"RHUBARB"

We met Shiryl at their house and cut some rhubarb - some for us and some for this weekend in Minnetonka.

Anyway, Emma jumped right in and started cutting stalks along with Grandma and Shiryl.

We got what we needed and then drove back to the CG and cut up the rhubarb:

Grandma washed the rhubarb and Emma and I put it in bags.  

Emma was a big help so we treated her to supper at Lange's Cafe.  This cafe opened in 1956 by the Lange twins and is still run by the family.

Last week when we were here, Emma wanted breakfast even though it was supper time so she got pancakes.  She liked them so much that she got them again tonight.  She only stopped long enough for me to take a picture.  There wasn't much left when she was done.

Tomorrow we leave for Minnetonka and will be at Pam and Steve's for the weekend.  Julie will fly in on Saturday night and then Sunday night she and Emma will fly back to Dallas.

It has been a great pleasure having her here and she will be missed!!

Biking Around Town

I forgot that Emma and I went biking on Monday afternoon.  We went up to the recreation center and rented a couple of bikes - $5 each for all afternoon!  Such a deal!!

We rode all around town  but after about 45 minutes, our buts hurt from the bike seats, so we rode back to the center and turned the bikes back in.

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride and we did have fun!!

Pipestone National Monument

Today Judy and I worked from 8 to 11 and had the rest of the day off.  We had a cold front come thru early this AM and the temps dropped considerably to the low 60's.

After lunch we headed over to the monument to walk the trail and also see how pipestone is mined.

Here is the entrance:

This is the stream that is down from the falls that has been running good due to all the rain we have had.

 

We spotted a deer prancing around in the background (didn't get a picture).

This is part of the walkway thru the park.

Rock formation showing the head of an Indian chief.

Same chief from the other side and on top of the rocks.  You can't see it very well here, but the Indian braves used to leap across to win the Indian princess.

Here is the falls from a distance.

 And up close.

Judy and I are at the top of the falls.

And Emma was down there getting wet from the mist of the falls.

View of the falls from above.

And Grandpa and Grandma down below.

 More scenery.

After the walk we visited the gift store where you can watch one of the tribe working with the pipestone.  On a scale from 1 to 10 the pipestone rock is about a 2 1/2 which makes it possible to saw, drill, and sand the rock into peace pipes, arrow heads, crosses, turtles, etc.  Unfortunately there was no one there working at the time.  Only Indians are allowed to work the pipestone.  We did watch an excellent movie about the history of the area and how the Indians considered this sacred ground.

When we left, it started to rain, but we went to DQ anyway and had some good blizzards and a chocolate-dipped cone.  

We are now back at the CG and the sun is coming back out again.  Tomorrow is supposed to the sunny again.  Yeah!!!