Eau Galle Corp of Engineer Park, Baldwin WI

On the weekend of October 22 took the grandchildren camping at Eau Galle Corp of Engineer park near Baldwin Wi. Had fun with lots of leaves for the kids to play with and then Lud's son Kevin joined us for a tour of Crystal Caves located in Spring Valley WI

Orr, Minnesota

From the Hinckley campout Lud and I continued on to Orr. He drove the motorhome and hauled the boat and I drove up Tinkerbell (Our new to us Chevy Tracker) It was a wonderful time up in Orr. This is a special place for us as the kids and us have been going there for many years. The weather was not great as it was very windy and we were unable to go out on Pelican lake a couple of days. The fishing was also not great but we caught a few. To bad we could only stay for 8 days as Lud had to get home for a doctor appointment. Hopefully next year we can stay longer.

Hinckley August Northwoods Campout

Arrived at August, Northwoods campout which was held at Hinckley Grand Casino campground. Had a fun time, 27 campers attended, this was the most camper at a Northwoods campout ever. There must be a lot of gamblers in the club.

Itasca State Park

Left today for Park Rapids area for June Northwoods campout. What a beautiful area. Haven't been there for years. Stayed at the campground Camp Itasca which is right across from the North entrance to the state park. Had lunch at Camp Douglas Lodge in the park. Very Pretty. On Thursday had bad weather. That is the day that Wadena was damaged by three tornados. Thank goodness they didn't come where we were as there wasn't really a very good storm shelter at the park. Also toured a log house builder and got to tour the owners 1.5 million dollar log home. Wow.
Had supper at a logging themed restaurant. Very nice time in Park Rapids. Had not been in the area since I was pregnant with my 24 year old daughter.

On Sunday June 20th along with Charlie and Barb (friends from the Northwoods), left for Father Hennepin State Park where are friends the McKenzies were park hosts for the month of June. Stayed there thru the 24. Had a very nice visit with our friends. Lots of food, bonfires, and good conversation.

Chicago, Illinois for Adams Graduation

Well the good news is that I am now a mother of a doctor. Wow!!
We left Minnesota on June 1 to attend Adams graduation ceremonies on the 3rd. Everything was going along fine until just south of Madison, a semi trailer blew a tire right in front of us and threw a six foot piece of rubber back at our Motorhome. It caused some damage which we will have to take care of when we get home. After Lud did a little pounding and a two hour delay, we were able to continue our trip.

We stayed at a very nice campground in Sycamore, Il. It is about an hour and a half from Chicago. This was the closest campground I could find. After lounging around for a day and touring Sycamore we attended a reception on the navy pier on the 3rd of June. Since my son got the time wrong and it took much longer than expected to get to Chicago we did not spend much time at the reception but it was nice to meet some of Adams fellow doctors. Got home that night at 11:30 and had to be back on the road at 6:30 the next day.

On the 4th we took a better route into Chicago and got there in under two hours. The graduation ceremony was really fun and it really sends a chill down your spine when you hear your kid introduced as Doctor Adam Sunderland. Mom got a little teary eyed. After the ceremony we all went to a Greek Restaurant and had a family style meal. Yum. Adam was impressed with the pen I gave him that I had made at the woodshop at Winter Ranch. I bet he didn't get anything like that from anyone else but he still probably liked the check better.

The ride home from the graduation ceremony was unbelievable it took us almost three hours. I don't know how the people living in Chicago can stand that commute. Thank god Adam is moving to Detroit where the traffic is suppose to be much better because everyone has move out.

Our return trip on June 6th to Minnesota was uneventful.

Home

Arrived back in Hastings in late afternoon. Took a quick tour of the house everything seems to be in order but needs a good cleaning. Have mixed emotions about being back home. Will miss the interaction with fellow campers and all the activities we participated in. I still would love to sell the house and go fulltime. Houses are so much work and this one is way to big for just Lud and I. Lud still isn't convinced about selling house though.

Can't wait until the first campout at Mooselake on May 21. Hope our leaving for the campout isn't screwed up since Lud is on Jury duty for the next two weeks. Who would want that crabby man on their Jury lol.

Milwaukee, WI

Arrived in Milwaukee on Monday afternoon and camped at the State Fair Grounds RV Park. Nice park and convenient to downtown Milwaukee.

On Tuesday we met Megan at her apartment and got the grand tour. Said hello to my grandson, Beamer the Cat and then walked over to a cute but expensive restaurant near Megan's apartment for a nice lunch. Was good to see her.

Leaving Milwaukee on Wednesday for Home.

Chicago

We are staying at a really icky campground in Yorkville, IL. It could be really nice, with a creek running through and the Fox river running right by the edge, but it is full of oldddddddddd icky trailers. Some of them appear to be abandoned. They need a salvage company to come in here and clean up the place. We have been here since Friday night and leaving tomorrow morning. The reason we are here is that it is the closest rv park to Downtown Chicago. We drove to Chicago today and visited with Adam and Kristen and went out to dinner with them. This is the first time we have been to this apartment and it was so nice to see them since it has been since Thanksgiving that we saw them last.

Tomorrow we are driving to Milwaukee to visit Megan. We are also seeing her apartment for the first time and having lunch. We will be leaving for Minnesota on Wednesday.

St. Louis, MO

Arrived in St. Louis Tuesday night and left Thursday Morning. That left Wednesday to see all of St. Louis. Wow were we tired Wednesday night. Things we saw: Old Courthouse that Dred Scott case was heard, walked around Busch stadium, took the pod to the top of the Arch and toured Budweiser brewery.

Sunday we are meeting Adam and Kristen in Chicago. Tonight we are camping about 40 miles south of Chicago

On the Way home

Finally left winter ranch on Tuesday April 13. Made it to San Antonio the first night to the cummins dealer to fix our generator. Stayed in their parking lot for two nights. But the good thing was that we got to visit the riverwalk and the Alamo. From there we started our trip to Tennessee. Arrived in West Memphis on April 17 and are staying at the Tom Sawyer RV Park until April 20th. This park is right on the banks of the Mississippi so have seen many large barges and tugs floating buy. It is a very nice campground.

On Sunday we took a tour of the city and visited such sights as Sun Records (where Elvis recorded his first album) Beale Street and it was packed. Went to St. Judes and Danny Thomas Gravesite, Drove past motel where mlk was shot, and drove by Graceland. Also stopped at the Peabody Hotel to watch the ducks walk from the fountain in the lobby to there penthouse home. This happens twice a day. Before the tour we went to a crawfish festival. Those purple bags in the truck are full of live crawfish). They charged $15 for a bucket. We didn't have any.


Today we toured Graceland, had dinner at Pig on Beale Street and then walked down to the motel where mlk was shot.

Leaving Tomorrow for St. Louis, MO

This and That

Our neighbors behind us at winter ranch, Gary & Lois Anderson and Sharon's flowering cactus garden

More international ferry pictures

International Ferry near Sullivan City Texas

This is the international Ferry located near Sullivan City, Texas. It cost 50 cents each way to cross from Texas to Mexico and back. The interesting thing about this ferry is that it is the only rope pulled ferry in the us. There were four men pulling the ferry across the rio grande. It didn't seem to take a lot of effort on their parts, but that's easy for me to say. It held three cars and then as many walkers as would fit. On the Mexico side there really wasn't anything to see. You can take a taxi to a small Mexican town that is about a mile and a half from the river. If you buy booze at the two duty free stores on the Texas side you need to carry it with you on the ferry and at least touch Mexican soil before bringing it back into Texas where you need to pay about a two dollar fee. The ferry was really quite busy with probably a dozen cars waiting to take the ferry. Most of the cars on both sides had Texas license plates but there were a few Mexican registered cars also. We went to the ferry with Marge and Mighty Janke. Didn't buy any booze as their sellection was very limited since it was the end of the season. After the riding the Ferry we stopped at Peppes on the River which is a popular restaurant/bar right on the Rio Grande. The whole time we were there, helicopters were constantly flying over looking for illegals trying to cross the Rio Grande.

I am getting so ready to hit the road but probably won't be leaving Texas for another 2.5 weeks.
Need to finish up with the Dentist, but at least Lud & I will have beautiful teeth when we leave Texas. The park is really starting to get empty, but at least Bubba & Mrs. Bubba left today. Most of the activities have ended so we need to entertain ourselves. The people behind us invited us to go with them to McAllen Food and entertainment day on Thursday. For a certain amount you can graze all night. Right up my alley. We are also going to try next week to go to the International Ferry in Sullivan City. You can buy your booze cheap and then take a ferry that is pulled by hand across the rio grande for 50 cents. Hopefully we won't get shot by the drug cartal.

I have one more week of ceramics. Need to finish up my projects fast.

Texas Flower

Look at this cool flower on one of the plants I bought at a bargain price.

Pet Parade on St. Patricks Day at Winter Ranch

On St. Patricks Day Winter Ranch and Trophy Gardens hosted a pet parade. There were over a hundred pets signed up. A lot of the dogs sported their best St. Patrick Day costumes. Including a poddle with Green ears.

Of course since Missy does not play well with other dogs she was not included in the parade.

Megan's Visit

For the last seven days we were honored with our daughters presence. She flew into Brownsville on Tuesday and keep us very busy for the next week. We biked, walked swam, bowled, played card games, went to the flea market and hardly had a minutes rest. My but hurts from bowling and my guads heart from biking. Other than that we had a great visit. the weather was very cooperative. Mid 80s and sunny almost the whole time. Megan worked very diligently on her tan.

We plan on staying here 3 more weeks so that we can finish up getting our teeth fixed. I had seven crowns done and Lud had a new bridge put in. We have one more trip to Mexico to get the final work done. Hopefully the drug cartal will stay out of Progreso so we can get there safely. There has been alot of trouble in some of the other border towns but so far progreso is okay. The park is emptying fast every day another couple of motorhomes leave around us. It is kind of nice to have the extra room but still am starting to get the travel itch. I think we are going to head east and go thru Tennessee on the way home then stop in the Milwaukee\Chicago area to visit the kids and plan on arriving back home around the 1st of May.

My kids had very good news in the last few weeks. Adam was accepted into a residency program for orthopedic surgery (doesn't find out where until tomorrow) and Megan got accepted into a Masters Program at UofW Milwaukee,

I have done a ton of ceramic stuff this winter, got a nice tan and just thoroughly enjoyed myself. As we were sitting outside last night at 10:00 p.m. I told Lud that I didn't want to go home until I could do that there.

Daily life in Texas

I have learned very fast the pace of a retired person. Sleep in, stay up late, read, crochet (monday morning), play dominos (monday & thursday nite) 500 (Sunday nite. won $1.75 last sunday. Good return on my money since it cost $.25 to play) meet lots of new people. Spend most of the afternoon at the flea market (Wednesday) since I needed a domino holder.(Ran into some people from Minnesota) Helped Lud build a step because the site is so unlevel the front is much higher than the back which raised the steps to get into the motorhome. (this took approximately 2 weeks to build. Don't want to do anything to fast) Had happy hour with our friends that have a camping site next to us. (They just got back from Minnesota. They went home for x-mas. They won't do that again!) Watched the people behind us install their new park model.(That was good for all day entertainment) Then got a tour of the new digs. Very nice.

Have yet to use the pool or hot tub since it has been unusually cold down here. Been riding my bike around the park. At first since it has been years I damn near killed myself. Put on the brakes to fast and almost went over the handle bars. You should see the nice bruise I got on my stomach.

We evicted our person that was babysitting our house. The last straw was she apparently burned up the garage door opener because she didn't notice that the garage door was frozen to the ground and keep pushing the button. The next door neighbor is going to watch the house now.

Well that's the life of a retired person. The motto is apparently, don't do anything to fast, it can wait until tomorrow, next week, next year etc.