Final Minnesota Blog: Going Home

Thinking about the devastation in south Texas, I remembered a retirement blog Dennis wrote in 2015: 

Leaving Pequot Lakes, MN

"When I retired and began to explore what I needed to be happy in retirement I began to look differently at all the stuff I had accumulated during my “career” life.  All of a sudden I was no longer in a collecting mode, but in a utilizing mode.  And I realized that to be happy I really did not need to utilize nearly all I had collected.

 But when we are on the road in our RV, it has pleasantly surprised me how happy we are in the approximately 300 square feet of space we have in our fifth wheel RV.  And I am not talking about being in the 300 square feet just for a weekend.  Sometime we travel for weeks at a time.  If it doesn't fit in that space we really do not seem to need it to be happy.  But what about all the other stuff we have collected in the other forty many years (actually we are closer to fifty years than to forty) of our marriage?  It turns out it is just stuff.

All of that stuff seemed like essential stuff at one time, and it may have been, but it is certainly no longer essential for our day to day happiness.  We are not ready to get rid of it, but we don't have to have it to be happy."

Our fellow work campers.
Our single guy did not make the pic

We are leaving Minnesota with a half heavy heart. We are ready to start home, but as Hurricane Harvey hit Houston we decided to leave 2 weeks early in order to be nearer home when we were able to get home. At this writing our home has not flooded. We are thankful for that, but lots of friends and unknown to us people are not so lucky. We have dear friends under mandatory evacuation who are riding out the storm near Austin, as is Tim (our son). On a map it is disconcerting to see our little area dry, but surrounded by water on all sides. We live fairly close to the Brazos. The levee is holding, but roads all around are under water.

We have enjoyed a nice summer - the purpose was to get out of the heat, which we did.  Sometimes I have complained about it being a little too cool, but then see the weather at home and get happier.

We are leaving some wonderful  new friends. It was a joy to work with them, eat with them, and just being with them.

Our new friends "seasonal".
Our next door neighbors

I gave my tomatoes, basil plant, and hummingbird feeder to one of the "seasonals."  She was happy to have them. I hope my hummer can find it across the road!

Sometimes you have to go out of your comfort zone to try new things and learn new things about yourself. We learned to truly like people that are very different from us. We learned we still love staying in our RV and seeing sights. We learned we have to be careful where we work camp not to have too many duties - we are pushing 70. Well Dennis IS 70.

We do look forward to getting home and helping with cleanup and doing whatever we can to help our community.

                                                                 Happy Trails to you till we meet again…

 

Busy Days and Fun Days

Good place to pull up the boat for lunch. 

We have taken the boat out a few times lately.  It is so beautiful and peaceful on the lake. 

We hope to go out often and enjoy the lakes while it is still boating weather.

Really really small fish.....

                                                     We did catch a couple of small fish.                                                     But the most fun is being out on the water and                                                                                enjoying the views.

           Zorba's. Another good place for lunch!


 We understand that summer in Minnesota is July, then temps start to fall again. We have already begun to see sumac leaves begin to turn a bright red.  

One of our camp hosts, Tim, lived up here for years and knows about everyone. Not far from here is a

poultry farm. They raise chickens for a lot of area restaurants. Tim is friends of the farmers and one day they brought him two chickens. He offered them to us to smoke on Dennis's smoker. Sooo good!

Ideal Corners is a small community a few miles from us. Every year they have a beef feed to raise money for the volunteer fire department. The local corn is in and we enjoyed beef, corn on the cob, coleslaw and watermelon. There were probably over 400 people there sitting at outside tables and visiting. These small communities are all close knit                                                                   and enjoy their get togethers. 

Our bunnies come every evening to visit! They are welcome unless they start bothering my tomatoes. 

It's August!

One day we made the two hour drive to Duluth, MN on Lake Superior. What a beautiful area! We found a beachfront and enjoyed the vastness of the lake.
 

The Canal area in Duluth is a tourist area with restaurants and shops. We ate at a recommended place called Grandma's.
Very good food and view. Then we walked out to a lighthouse.





We were surprised when a huge cargo ship happened up the canal.

We have seen draw bridges before but never a lift bridge. The whole bridge lifts up to allow ships to pass. It was fascinating to see it. We were told that the Great Lakes  can move longer ships than the oceans as there is much calmer water.

                                                        Concrete structure. People jump off into the lake.

.

A couple from Oklahoma was here recently. Dennis was visiting with them one day and she said she lived in Hitchcock, OK. In a surprising coincidence it happens that Dennis's first date was with a girl who later married and moved to Hitchcock.  In 1968, Dennis worked a summer between college semesters near there and she and her husband invited him over for dinner a couple of times. When Dennis told the lady from Hitchcock in our campground  her name, she knew who she was! It amazes me what a small world we actually live in.

Finally! First tomato - end of July.....

Concert in the park, boat ride and other things

On Saturday nights in the park in Pequot Lakes they have an outdoor concert. Since we are park hosts on Saturday we had not been. One of the other hosts - his name is actually Tim - keeps telling us to go and he will take over for us. So on Saturday we went! People bring their lawn chairs and find a space on the lawn. The band was good and adults, kids, grandkids, young and old enjoyed the evening. The weather was nice, but as the evening got later it got cooler and the locals brought out their blankets… This was the middle of July.

We had a big group in the RV park this past weekend. The sites are long and wide and so sometimes  people double up to be able to get in. One group had 10 rigs on 5 sites. All of the other sites were booked as well, so it made for a very full park. But everyone had a good time.   

We also met a couple from Oklahoma. I will tell a story about them in the next blog.

 The Greater Area Lakes Arts Council presents plays in the summer at Pequot Lakes High School. This summer's production was "Legally Blonde the Musical." We got tickets and went to the play. I was interested to see how they made a musical out of the movie. The music written for the play was good and the play was presented well. Some of the actor/singers were excellent and some just good, but all in all, we enjoyed it. The lead was a young lady without much experience but she handled the role well. I would like to see a professional team perform the musical. Broadway?

Todd & Jill (our bosses)

Korine enjoying the beauty

One afternoon the RV park owner and his wife took the camp hosts in their boat for a ride on the lakes and dinner at a local pizza place that has docks on the lake. We were able to dock the boat, walk up the hill and enjoy the pizza.  The weather was perfect and we all enjoyed an evening out and      dinner. The lakes are beautiful!!

Stopping to dip our toes in the water

 

One day was unusually cold !

 

          A fire is the only solution. 

July

View of golf course from our rig

Things are busy busy here!  Lots of 4th of July festivities.

We had some excitement one day. Our site backs up to the golf course. I was sitting outside when a lady came running from there shouting, "There's been an accident on Hole 3!" It seems her husband got hit in the head with a golf club. She called the paramedics and they came right away. The golfer is fine; (although, his son is not as he was the one who swung the club....) but got checked over by the paramedics, and told to watch it for a few days. He actually wanted to finish his game! But he was told to watch for signs of a concussion. They are camped here in the park. I notified the owner, and as it turns out, he was in a meeting with the Chief of Police at Pequot Lakes when the call came in that there was a medical emergency at his golf course. He hurried back to oversee the situation. Never a dull moment!

 

We got some rhubarb and strawberries at the Nisswa farmer's market and our other host lady made a strawberry rhubarb crumble. Yummo!  Great recipe:  Barefoot Contessa. Rhubarb is very popular in this area.

Line behind us waiting for breakfast

July 4th we went into Pequot Lakes for the Fireman's Pancake Breakfast. There must have been hundreds there from around the area. Pequot's population is only about 2100 but in the summer and during festivals it swells to more than 25,000.  Although, we had to stand in line for a while the breakfast was very good! Then we went to the park in the city to the festival. Booths were set up everywhere and people were lining the streets with chairs for the parade. We were told that the parade is the best in the area. We did not stay for it, but enjoyed the time at the festival.

Entrance to mini golf course

That evening we cooked out with the other camp hosts

 and enjoyed the warmer weather.

We also played mini golf again in the park. Everything is green and the flowers are beautiful.

Wild raspberries in park. So sweet!

Well, one day Dennis took the truck into to Pequot to get the tires balanced. I was outside and when I opened the door to go in, there was smoke billowing out of the electric panel. I called our neighbor and camp host friend and he came right away. He unhooked the electricity and that stopped the smoking…. Dennis was stuck as the truck was still getting the work done. I called a mobile repairman and he came out quickly.  It seems a capacitor had failed and that caused the smoking. In the end, no one could find the source of what caused the problem to happen, but a new part was ordered. He checked the rig all over and the only thing that could have made this happen is that a bird's nest was found in the AC unit on top. It could have caused overheating.  From the materials the nest was made from it appeared to have been built in the Texas Hill Country when we were there in the spring.

  We must have hauled it all the way to Minnesota!  

I don't understand all of the ins and outs but we were able to hook back up to use electricity and a battery charger was added to make the lights and fridge work… Dennis said if we had not been here it is possible the whole rig would not have burned down, but just the capacitor burnt out. It was a scary day.

I told the mobile repair man that he is the favorite person at an RV Park! They do a lot of business and it is good that they have a whole business coming out to parks to repair RV's.

We said goodbye to the Russian family who had been staying in our lodge suite. They brought us a gift and told us how much they loved their visit here. It was nice for us to get to know a family from another country. We did not discuss politics or religion. We just enjoyed  them. Families are the same around the world. They all work, raise children and deal with life's situations. The same as us. They enjoyed discovering our country and look forward to coming back. I hope they make it to Texas someday!

We are about half way through our time in Minnesota this summer.  Time really goes by quickly!

We have a beautiful tomato plant with tomatoes if it ever gets warm enough for them to ripen....

tomatoes, basil, chives & thyme