Cold Spring, Minnesota

We have been in Cold Spring, Minnesota, from June 8th and will leave on Monday, August 1st. Most of the time we stayed at the El Rancho Manana RV Park, located about 5 miles outside of Cold Spring. Sorry for not publishing any posts, but we truly have been busy with family. I have three sisters and two brothers living in this town, and Lavern (Pennsylvania) and Ron (Minot, North Dakota) and their spouses also visited here during this period.

As a way of catching up with them, we met every Friday at 9:30 am at Perkins for breakfast. Those who could make it did so. Most of the time, there were four or five of us present. Learned stories from them that I hadn't heard before.

We will break our unwritten rule about not including people on our blog as we just spent the whole summer with relatives. So here are some family pictures, together with regular blog pictures.

Dorothy, Mary, Lavern, Tim and Ann at Perkins Restaurant

Ann and Danny at Perkins

The weather was strange, strange even for them. Most days were hot and humid, with heavy thunderstorms, lightening, thunder and even hail a couple of times occurring almost every week. At least twice, we had to get into the shelter at the RV park for tornadoes in the area.

We visited the Granite Quarry near St. Cloud. Intended to get back there, but didn't. Here is a  picture we took while at the Quarry.

On the outskirts of town is a beautiful chapel, called Assumption Chapel. The original chapel was built in the late 1850s as a petition for relief of a grasshopper invasion that destroyed many crops. The original chapel was later replaced with a granite one.

Stations of the Cross

We were treated to an afternoon at Terry and Lynn's home on the lake. They picked us up in their pontoon as they live right across the lake from the RV Park at which we were staying.

Tim on the pontoon

Two sets of loons (mother, father and baby) live on the lake -- one set at each end.

Baby Katelyn and her father, Travis

 Sun going down on the RV Park side of the lake

Double rainbows over corn field

Beautiful clouds nearly every day in Minnesota

Visited my cousin Chris and his wife, Kathy, and their two granddaughters one day

Had lunch in Minneapolis one day with my nursing classmates (Judy, Mary Ann and Alyce)

Kasi and Dan put on a great brunch when all seven of the brothers and sisters and their spouses were able to get together one Sunday morning.

Lavern and I are the same age from July 15 to July 22 each year, as we are 51 weeks apart in age.

The siblings: Ann, Lavern, Mary and Dorothy

Dan, Ron and Tim

With their spouses (Jerry, Kasi, Mike, Bob, Pinky, Jan, and Dave)

 

 Amber and Adam and boys

Piper and Praire or is it Praire and Piper?

Neil and Ashley with their kids

Dan and Kasi's backyard

 

Chanti found an empty DQ cup with a little chocolate left in it

Jerry entered a local run and came in second in his age group.

 

We leave this area tomorrow and are heading to two different spots in northern Minnesota. 

Continue to live the life you love!

Cold Spring, Minnesota

We stopped in Fargo for one night after leaving Minot and had breakfast with Sean, Rachelle, Danika and Daniel. A nice but too short of a visit. We will be back to see them at the end of our stay in the Cold Spring area.

Since our reservation at El Rancho Manana didn't start until June 10th, we stayed in front of Dave and Dorothy's garage in Rockville, Minnesota, for three nights. All the pictures posted on this entry are from our walks in the beautiful Eagle Park.,

We have been busy visiting with family members since we arrived. It is like we did in Minot. No obligation of "having to" visit anyone, but making time every few days to see someone. We are actually located 7 miles outside of Cold Spring.

Now for the bad news. Our second air condition (the one in the bedroom) went out. We can't get an appointment until July 29th to get it fixed. On top of that, our new air conditioner (the only one still working) is dripping water inside the roof of the motorhome. Jerry has been busy wiping it up. Since it is Saturday, there is no one to call.

Now, about the weather. It has been nothing but high temperatures, high humidity, and thunderstorms off and on since we got here. Right now it is 85 degrees. We can't believe how fast the weather can change from one minute to the next --- and how dark the skies can get when a thunderstorm is coming through.

Here are our pictures from Eagle Park. By the way, there was an eagle high up in one of the trees with her young ones.

The park has numerous species of plants and flowers that are all named on cards attached to the plant or flower area like the one above.

Tried to capture the dark skies as they moved in the other night. You can still see the blue skies in the distance.

Just to remind you, we are not posting pictures of family members though we are spending time with them. We save that for Facebook.

Continue to live the life you love.

Minot, North Dakota

It took only one day to get to Mandan, North Dakota. Spent four days there 

and attended Kyle and Trisha's wedding.  

 Trisha & Kyle

Yes, you are seeing this right. It was a fun wedding.

After the wedding, we drove to Minot, ND where we expected to spend a couple of days with my (Mary) brother and sister-in-law. That was nearly two weeks ago and we are still there. 

Here we are in the driveway of Ron and Pinky's place in Minot. 

They have full hook-up for us, which makes it hard to move on.

We have had a great time catching up with them. Each evening, we ate with them with Jerry cooking every other night, and they making the dinner on the opposite nights.

 Over Memorial Day weekend, we joined their family at Craig 

and Joanne's cottage at the lake. Here is Jay doing the grilling. 

Tried to get to the Roosevelt Park Zoo here in Minot nearly every day, 

but it was either too cold or rainy. We finally made it yesterday.

Here are some of the pictures we took while at the zoo. Unfortunately, 

I inadvertently messed up the settings on my camera.

Penquins in Minot

Leaving on Monday to continue our trip on to Cold Spring. 

Will stop somewhere along the way and arrive on Tuesday.

Continue to live the life you love!

Rapid City, South Dakota

It took us six hours to drive from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Rapid City, South Dakota. We usually don't like to travel that many hours in one day, but this trip was a pleasure. There were hardly any other vehicles on the road, except for some trucks, and we seemed to have the road to ourselves.

The weather has been near freezing at night and cold during the day. Most of the time, it looked like it was going to rain, but it didn't.

This is our fifth time in Rapid City. Since we visited most of the tourist sites in our last visits here, we decided to check out the Bear Country U.S.A. notwithstanding that it might rain.

 

We drove through the park and were told to keep our windows up. 

The animals roam free within the park.

There were brown, black and grizzly bears in the park.

These baby cubs were so cute.

 Sometimes we had to wait for the bears to get out of the road.

The park also had red foxes, white wolves, buffalo, and other animals.

Because we still have a bit of a drive before we get to Mandan, North Dakota, we are cutting short our stay here and heading out tomorrow. It will take us two days to get there. We will be attending a family wedding, so we will post the next update to this blog later.

Continue to live the life you love!

Gypsum, CO and Cheyenne,WY

Spent three nights in Gypsum, Colorado, and three nights in Cheyenne, Wyoming, as we make our way to North Dakota. Gypsum was uneventful. Rained most of the time.

The ride from Gypsum to Cheyenne took us past Vail, Colorado. We never expected to encounter snow, slush, fog and ice. Kind of a white-knuckle drive for Jerry, but we made it to Cheyenne without any incidents. Thank God.

Cheyenne was also cold and very windy. Took some time to visit the Wyoming State Museum and also get Starbucks Frappaccinos every day since they were half price after 3 p.m.


Here are just a few pictures we took along the way:

Parked in Gypsum, Colorado. Took this picture during the time the rain stopped for a couple of hours.

 Driving through Vail, Colorado.

Entrance to the Wyoming State Museum.

Jerry standing next to a dinosaur femur (thigh bone). See the small human femur to the right.

The bead work on this Indian head dress is phenomenal.

A caricature painting of all the Presidents, including Obama.

We drove 300 miles from Cheyenne to Rapid City, South Dakota, yesterday. It was a beautiful trip. We are staying at the Rushmore Shadows RV Park until next Thursday when we head out for North Dakota.