Lake Benton, MN

We left Paullina on Monday, 6/10 and drove to Lake Benton, MN to spend a couple of weeks with family up in this neck of the woods.

Very nice lake here with a lot of good fish/fishing.

Our campground site is in the Hole in the Mountain Campground, an real nice  County Park.

My cousin, Gary and his wife Shirl, are camped next to us.  

They live in Lake Benton and ran a NAPA, hardware, and general store for many years before retiring last year.

We've spent a lot of time outdoors just talking, reminiscing, etc.  Friends we met last year (Chuck and Coleen) also brought their trailer out here for a few days so we sat out by the campfire several nights after having supper outdoors.

Couldn't ask for a better time together (except that Shirl kept getting bitten by the "buffalo gnats").   Small flies with clear wings that bite.  Shirl was the only one who was getting bitten????

Because it was flag day (6/14) (and Karen's birthday!!), Gary and several other Legionaires put up flags at the cemetary.

This past weekend was the 73rd annual Saddle Horse Holiday here in town.  The county has a special campground for those RV'ers with horses.  This was there view down to our campground (which you can't see because of the trees!!!).  The small house you see on the left is just up the hill from our site.

There was a lot going on including fireworks.  (We didn't get to see much because we went up to Minnetonka for the weekend and came back on Monday).

We've been together with my cousin, Claudia, who lives a on farm a few miles out from Pipestone (my home town - 18 miles south of here).  Had dinner with her at Langes Cafe, that has been open for 65 years and was open 24 hours a day (owner buried the keys in the cement when they opened), but now have had to shut down the overnight shift due to lack of customers.

We (Claudia, Gary and Shirl, and Judy and me) also drove over to Flandreau, SD (about 25 miles West of Pipestone) for supper another night at a nice restaurant over there.

A high school graduate of mine and her husband, Marlene and Larry, live in Pipestone and we try to get together with them as well.  Larry is into woodworking and has a nice supply of things that he has made for sale.  Over the years Judy has bought several things.  And we have been out to eat with them as well.  (Are you getting some sort of drift about what we do with family and friends????).

This one depicts Jesus life (kind of hard to see so if you want to see it in person, you will have to visit us!).

We did drive down to Pipestone and went to the National Monument. We only walked about half the trail due water from the falls still flowing over the walkway.

But it was a beautiful day for a walk and several people/families were out there as well.

 

The weather here has been beautiful, if not a little cool, but great for being outside.

Next stop - Minnetonka, MN

Appeldorn Reunion - Paullina, IA

The Appeldorn side of my family has been meeting each year for 93 years.  Judy and I attended way back shortly after we were married (1960's) and then never made it back until 3 years ago when they said that that was going to be the last one (90 years).  Well, they decided then that they wanted it to continue.  So, since we were on our way North anyway, we decided to attend.  There were 23 in attendance.  Here is a picture of the group:

It was fun - had good food, and did connect with many of them again.

We were at the County Park for 4 days.

Very relaxing.  Bugs kept us from being outdoors though.

A friend of ours (Elvira) from New Jersey had an uncle that lived here in Paullina and when they created the park, one of the benches was named for him.

We found a birds nest with babies in it.

Not sure where it came from as I don't think the mother would have made the nest there, but, maybe she did it before the summer crowds starting coming!

We drove into one day to check it out and found this old bus.

Went to church on Sunday morning before the reunion.  Beautiful church.  The pastor played all the hymns on the piano and sang along.  You can see the piano in the lower right hand corner.  He had a great voice.

It was great to stop there again, but 'movin on'......

North to (Minnesota!!)

Sorry about the delay in getting the blog started, but you need internet access and we have not had it.  Still don’t as a matter of fact, but I am updating in Word and will copy over to the blog when I can.

Before we left Plano, we attended Gehrig’s graduation from Belmont on 5/4 and then Emma’s on 5/25.  Here are the two of them.

We left Plano on 5/28 and drove to a casino just West of Joplin (Downstream Casino) for the night.  If you register, you can get a night free!  We spent all of $5 in the casino so we feel like we made out!

The next day we found a campground just north of St. Joe, MO.  Before we got there my sister, Judeen, called to say that I-29 was closed again from the MO. Border all the way to Council Bluffs, IA.  So we followed the detours and did make it to our CG a couple of hours later than planned.  That pesky Missouri River likes to play havoc here.  Very nice state park here (Two Rivers Recreation Area) but no dump station at your site.  They had been closed in May as well due to the flooding of the Elkhorn River which is West of Omaha.

My sister, Judeen and her husband, Jim, live in the small town of Waterloo, NE, and they came very close to being flooded out.  In fact, Waterloo was basically an island for about 3 days in early May, per this picture.

The blue dot is about where they live.

They had had an enormous amount of snow which melted in couple of days due to the warm temperatures and then two days of hard rain.

Anyway, we had a great time here.  I think we went out to dinner every night except Saturday night when we had Judeen and Jim, and their daughters and husbands  (Alison and Eric, and Katie (Tim could not make it) and granddaughter, Aliza out to the CG for a cookout.  Had a real nice time and good food.  Aliza loved to play with water and dirt, eventually mud!!

She had a good time playing Sorry with Judy and Auntie Allison.

What's a cookout without S'mores??

On Sunday we found a small Lutheran Church in Yutan, NE about 5 miles from our CG.  Afterwards, we had coffee and snacks with several members there.

On Monday we had planned to go to the zoo but it rained a lot over night and the next morning so we went to a place called Sheels which is a huge two-story store with sporting goods, outdoor activities, etc. 

Even a ferris wheel:

 Judeen and Katie and Aliza met us there.  Katie and Aliza rode the ferris wheel.

  There is also an area where the kids can play with Legos and Aliza loves that so we spent some time there watching her and the other kids.

Monday night we met Katie, Tim, and Aliza at a great restaurant/pub for dinner and drinks.  Great wings and pizza, fried pickles and onions, and cauliflower!

Tuesday Judeen, Jim, Aliza, Judy and I went out to lunch at Aliza's favorite place:

And, from there, drove a few miles to this:  Because I was a Veteran, we got in for a special price.

We drove thru but could get out to see some of the animals.  They had 4 or 5 eagles in captivity that could not be let go free due to various issues.  Beautiful, large birds.

There were elk and deer.

And many other birds. 

Aliza's favorite pastime was "cawing" to the birds.

A large herd of bison.  We only took a closeup of one to show the shedding of their coats.  It was interesting to watch them lay down and roll to try to get rid of the fur.

We saw and petted goats and tried to catch chickens!

They also had this town:

They would stand and stare at you as you stared back at them!

Interesting facts about how they live underground and who lives under there with them.  If you click on the picture, I think it will enlarge.

Wednesday afternoon we toured a couple of gift shops in Elkton and then went out to dinner at a place called Boyd and Charlies.  A good BBQ menu.

We had planned on taking this route out of Omaha to get onto I-29 to go north but it wasn't to be.

Instead we had to take another route North.

Thursday morning we packed up and left for Paullina, IA. in northern Iowa for a family reunion on Sunday.  We drove thru LeMars, IA that says it is the "Ice Cream Capital of the World."   Ice cream cones were on a lot of the downtown streets.  Judy got this one since it reflects "Girl Scouts."

We found our campground on the East side of Paullina and are camped here until Monday when we head north to Lake Benton, MN.