Minnesota

In late July we decided it was time to get out of Texas because:  1) it's always hot in August, and, 2) we needed to get away -anywhere!!!

We contemplated going to visit different places and then decided on going up to Minnesota where it will definitely be cooler.  We picked Lake Benton, MN because: 1) my cousin Gary and his wife Shirl live there, and, 2) they have a nice, small campground there.

So we left on Tuesday, August 4th, drove to Carthage, MO. (near Joplin) the first night, Council Bluffs, IA. the second night.  We stopped at Camping World in Council Bluffs to pick up a couple of things and had to buy these:

They were delicious!

On Thursday, August 6th, we arrived in Lake Benton 

Our campground is called 'Hole in the Mountain Campground.'  It is a county park.

We have stayed here before and like it alot because the sites are far apart, and, we back up to a 'mountain.'  That's us on the right and Gary and Shirl on the left.  They live in town but brought out their camper.  We kidded Gary in this picture about social distancing because he is by his camper while we are by ours.  (Actually, he was on his phone).

Notice all the trees and an old historical house in the background.

This picture is from behind our trailers looking out.

And this one shows the area behind our trailers.

And you have to have a fire when you are camping! (one of many!!).

Another county park is called the 'Horse Camp' and is up on the hills above our campground.  This is the view from up there down on the historical house.  If you look close, you can see our camper in the lower left.

There is also something called the 'Hole in the Mountain Prairie' that is south of town.

Every Saturday during the summer a local farmer brings in fresh vegetables to sell.  Judy and Shirl looked over the variety of vegetables that were there.

And of course, corn on the cob!!  We enjoyed it and other vegetables a couple of times while we were there.

We heard about a fire that happened at the Heartland Colony south of Lake Benton and went out to see the damage which was extensive.  The barn was in 3 sections and housed around 9,000-10,000 pigs. Two sections were completely destroyed and around 5,000 pigs.

We did go into Pipestone, MN (which is my hometown) for DQ, of course!!

We also went to Fort Pipestone to look around.  Turns out one my classmates works there and another one was there shopping so we had to have a picture!

We had company a few times while there.  In this picture Judy's sister Pam and her husband Steve came down from Minnetonka for the day.  Notice the jackets!!  We had a nice visit.

While they were there, we drove around to show them the sights.  We went over to another of the county parks - Norwegian Creek - that is actually on the lake.  Another of my cousins (on my mother's side) camps here during the summer, but they were in Wisconsin visiting friends so we did not see them.  But we did see many sea gulls on the way to their campground.

We also had a visit from another of my cousins, Wayne (Gary's brother) and his wife from Minneapolis.  That's Gary and Shirl on the left, Mary and Wayne in front, and Judy and me in back.  It was a great visit.

Wind towers are very popular here because the wind is almost constant.  There are a couple thousand towers running from South Dakota thru Minnesota to Iowa.  Lake Benton is called the "Windpower Capital of the Midwest."  The second highest point in southwest Minnesota is located just north of Lake Benton city limits and is commonly referred to as Buffalo Ridge which provides the most consistant wind speed, averaging 15-18 mph.

 

In Brandon, SD there is a large wind tower plant that we go by.  This is just a small portion of their on-site inventory.

We also saw a few on the highway on our way home.

We also drove over the Brookings, SD one day to see a dentist (another story but not for this blog).  Shirl said we would be going by "Touchdown Jesus."  We didn't understand what she meant until we saw this.

A farmer south of town used to raise buffalo for sale, but is now selling elk.  There are many more in another pasture.

We also got together with friends of Gary and Shirl - Chuck and Coleen - who live on a farm north of Lake Benton.  They have a camper and brought it out the first weekend we were there.  We have a great time with them as well.  They are on the left side of this picture.

We went out to their house one day for dinner.  They have a huge garden of carrots, zuchinni, peppers, tomatoes, etc, and of course pumpkins.

Another cousin of mine, Claudia, lives on a farm just north of Pipestone, and, we have gotten together with her as well.  She brought steaks out one day and we had them on the grill plus corn on the cob!!  Delicious!

On our last night we went out for Mexican food with Claudia.  This car was parked in the lot.  Nice, older Mercury Cougar.

We had a great time and were sorry to have to leave, but we did start our trek home on Monday, August 24th and arrived home on the following Wednesday.

We are still in TX now but are planning something for October.

More on that later...

Lake Murray, OK

On Monday, 7/6, we headed up north (all of 75 miles) to Lake Murray, OK to spend a few days.  Still hot up here but at least we are by a lake.

Here are a few pictures around our campsite.

This picture is the lake from the back of our site.

This is the front where the boat ramp is.

We had some 'friends' visit us every day!

Our friends, Dave and Nancy, came up for the day on Wednesday.  They brought up lunch and we ate at the picnic table and then sat out back and visited.

Later they drove us around some of the areas around the lake.

This is the Tucker Tower that was built by the WPA in during the 1930's and was originally planned to be used as a retreat for the OK governors.  That never panned out so it was a museum and is now a nature center.

Not sure what this was.

This is a rock that people swim out to and then sunbathe.  It's NOT something that Judy and I did!!

We had some campers come into the site next to us.  There were a couple of families.  They had a trailer, a tent, a seadoo and a pontoon boat.  

It wasn't a big deal but we do wish he would have pulled his truncks up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Friday it was time to leave so we backed the truck up and started to lower the trailer onto the hitch on the truck.  Unfortunately one jack would not move.

So we called "the guy" to take a look at it.  He wanted to remove our jack so he used his bottle jack to raise our trailer.

He worked at it for a long time and was pulling on our jack to remove it.  As a result, the trailer moved sideways and the other trailer jack landed on our shovel (that we taken out of our storage unit so he could work in there).

Fortunately, it did not hit the truck rails as you can see in this picture.

And it moved just enough so that the trailer hitch dropped between the truck hitch and the side of the truck.

This next picture shows where the trailer hitch came to rest.

Anyway, he jacked the trailer back up with his bottle jack and then went back to their shop to look for parts.  In the meantime I told Judy and if he can't fixt it, we are going right up to Chanute, KS where our trailer was originally made and have them fix or replace the jack.

The 'guy' did come back but could not fix it so we got the trailer lowered onto the truck hitch and took off.  By now it was 7 PM so we drove to OK City and spent the night at a campground there and then drove to Chanute the next day.

On Monday I called the service center and they could get us in on Tuesday.  So we had both front jacks replaced, spent another night there and then came home on Wednesday.

We are now planning another trip to get out of the HEAT here in TX!!