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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

WITH THE LACY'S AT LAKE LBJ, KINGSLAND, TX

October 16 – 19, 2010

Before we leave Waco I must mention that the name is pronounced “Way-co” and never “Whack-o”: Got it? And from the Texas Ranger Museum; I’ll bet you didn’t know that the western “White Hat for good guys / Black Hat for bad guys” came from the Texas Rangers who started with the white hats as a sort of uniform way back in 1823 and has continued to the present day.


So it was off to the Lacy’s compound on Lake LBJ (That’s Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson for you non-Texans) near Kingsland, TX. We arrived before noon and with several hundred acres to choose from, we found a parking space right in front of their large metal building where we had an electrical hookup; cell-phone and internet service was good as well as our satellite TV. “Life is good!”


Jerry and Gay Lacy greeted us and after settling in, we took off for a light lunch at a little Mexican restaurant in Marble Falls called Janie’s.
The Horseshoe Bay Wooden Boat Show

Jerry drove us off to a Wooden Boat Show at the exclusive Horseshoe Bay Resort on the south shore of Lake LBJ. The boats ranged from the 1920’s through to the 1970’s and many were the famous Chris Crafts.

A very pretty Chris Craft
 Most were inboard powered and many featured picnic layouts complete with a bottle of wine with glasses. You could just see the many hours of loving work put into restoring and maintaining these beautiful power boats; but since the 70’s the fiberglass hulls are so much easier to maintain that the wooden boats have all but disappeared. There were probably thirty boats on display and we enjoyed inspecting them all; it isn’t often that you get a chance to see such a gathering.


We headed back around the lake to their home, and after a little rest, Fran and Gay got together to fix dinner: Fran’s special barbecued baby back ribs, beans, corn pudding (which Fran forgot to add the cornmeal so it wouldn’t set up properly), fruit cobbler and ice cream, all cooked in Gay’s brand new kitchen! We sat around and chatted until the mosquitos started eating their dinner on Fran, and then retired for the night.


Fran, Jerry and Gay Lacy at Trade Days
 Sunday dawned bright and clear and promised another beautiful Texas day, perfect for touring the area and showing off the Hill Country. We headed out for the monthly Trade Days flea market in Fredericksburg, about an hour’s drive away. We first visited Fredericksburg in the mid-90’s for a Revconeer rally and enjoyed the little “German” town, with several German restaurants and numerous boutiques and stores to wander in and out. It is also the home of the Museum of the Pacific, which contains individual museums devoted to Admiral Nimitz and another for George H. W. Bush. Although we didn’t go into it this time, we could see that the museum has expanded in size since the last time we visited there.



Gay Lacy shopping at the Trade Days Market

 We spent a couple hours at the flea market, in which Fran found a cute pair of Indonesian-made wooden sandals decorated in purple beads. Unfortunately, they were too small, so she didn’t buy them. Awwww!.




We continued our drive and Jerry soon found a back road called the Willow City Loop.

"Take me back to my Sweet Texas Home"

This is about a 20 mile narrow roadway through Hill Country ranches with canyons, water fjords, cattle crossings and often makes for quite a challenging drive through private ranches that showed off the beautiful countryside, particularly in the spring when the blue bonnets are blooming. We stopped at a very ornamental ranch gate that said “Take me back to my sweet Texas home.”
Glad that Barbed Wire is there!


Further along this route we found a longhorn bull that fortunately had a barbed wire fence to keep the bull in (or the people out!).









Feeling hungry, we headed to Llano and Coopers Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que where ribs, brisket, chicken and sausage are cooked/smoked in huge outdoor smokers/ovens.





Our Cook/ Server
Meat is purchased by the pound, so as you walk up to the smoker to look at the meat, you tell the cook/server how much you want and he cuts off a chunk for you. Inside, the servers slice the meat and sausage and you can add any of the side dishes they offer.
Fran with Gay and Jerry Lacy finally eating!



Beans are complimentary, as are bread and HOT pickled jalapenos. Delicious! Even though it was only 4 p.m., the place was crowded and people were lined up out the door.



Just up the street in Llano is The Living Stone Co. with a huge outdoor display of granite from all parts of the world in almost every color and texture one could imagine.

They also had on display a gravestone engraved with a check for one million dollars and titled “I did take it with me!” Good for a few chuckles!


"If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it"

The road along Lake LBJ passed by the Lacy’s friend’s new construction, a beautiful and very expensive home along a waterway where he had bought an existing house, tore it down and built this beautiful new home, taking advantage of the gorgeous trees along the waterfront.


 While the house is not quite finished, it is nonetheless an outstanding place. We didn’t bother to ask the price. (If you have to ask, you can’t afford it!) So that completed our tour of the Hill Country, but we had only scratched the surface; we saved the rest for another day.


For those of you who don’t know, Jerry and Gay’s house is a labor of love and is a house within a house, or a house within a metal building. Jerry has been doing most of the work himself and for folks who know Jerry, he is a true perfectionist. The kitchen is surrounded with seven foot dual paned windows with one of them having the outer panel cracked into hundreds of pieces, although none of them have broken out. This would make an interesting display at a modern art museum. In the evening all the cracks pick up the light from inside the kitchen; very beautiful! And it all came about when Jerry was running his lawn mower and it threw a stone at the tempered glass window--------crack!


On Monday morning, Gay, in anticipation of the big family reunion the following weekend, tried out her new appliances and made an excellent breakfast of pancakes and bacon. We sat at the table gabbing for several hours and suddenly, it was after 2 o’clock! Gay and Fran took off to do some shopping in Marble Falls, and a few hours later, Jerry and George drove in and we all met at Francesco’s Italian Restaurant for dinner.


Our next stop on Tuesday would be at the Escapees Tra-Park at Pecos, TX.


See you there folks! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye!



Saturday, October 30, 2010

CORPS OF ENGINEERS MIDWAY PARK - WACO, TX

October 13 – 16, 2010


We found the COE Midway Park online and since we had only briefly passed through Waco last year we wanted to explore the city in more detail. Little did we know of all the interesting places there are to visit in Waco. When we arrived at the COE Midway Park Campground we were somewhat concerned that there were too many trees to get a TV satellite signal, but not to worry, our MotoSat found the satellite through the trees and the Verizon cell phone worked well so we had TV and Internet as well.
Fran at the Texas Ranger Museum



On Wednesday, when we arrived, we first headed to the Visitors Center and found it next to the Texas Ranger Museum. The museum has to be one of the most interesting places to visit of all we have visited; it is huge and can take most of a day to do it justice. A 45 minute film gives an excellent overview of the Rangers history.



The Rangers started in 1823 with 10 men hired by Steven Austin to help maintain law and order in Texas and to help protect the settlers from attacks by the Indians in the area. They were soon augmented by another 10 men and eventually numbered many hundreds.



Roll 'yer own!

Surprisingly, many of the early Rangers were also surveyors who were sent out to settle boundary disputes. Today, there are about 144 Rangers doing investigative work; most famously, they were instrumental in the shootouts that resulted in the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde and Baby-Face Nelson in the 1930’s. One of the legends involves Capt. Bill McDonald, when the Mayor of a border town asked for help to combat the violence from across the border during the Mexican revolution in 1910. When he saw only Capt. McDonald step off the train he exclaimed “We’re done for, I asked for a whole company and they send me one Ranger”. Well drawled McDonald, “There’s only one riot isn’t there”. That is the origin of the Ranger legend “One riot – one Ranger!”

 On Friday we started our day at the Dr. Pepper Museum, a three story structure in what was the original bottling factory. We were amazed to learn that Dr. Pepper preceded rival Coca-Cola by one year in 1892. It is fascinating to see the changes that took place in the bottling and distribution of their sodas. The original sodas were all made up by pharmacists in drug stores with fountains; they would keep trying different formulations until one became the most popular.

The original manufacturing plant at 100 years old
 Unlike Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper has never used any cocaine which was an original ingredient in Coca-Cola for .about 12 years. At a soda fountain in the museum we were introduced to “Dr. Pepper with pure cane sugar”. This is only available in Texas and does have a sweeter flavor. Needless to say we bought a 12-pack at Wally World.



Then it was off to the Baylor University campus which we did not expect to find in Waco. Since the school mascot is a bear, there is a Bears Lair to house two live bears in a zoo type facility.

The two Baylor Bears




This is a very nice campus open to visitors and right in the heart of the city. We then found the Robert Browning Museum building, a really beautiful building housing the memorabilia and writings of the famous poet and his wife. He is noted for numerous poems but probably the most famous is the “Pied Piper of Hamlin”.
The Browning Treasury Room





The museum is also noted for the 63 large stained glass windows throughout the building. While the building is over 100 years old it has been upgraded a number of times and looks new.


The Pied Piper of Hamlin Window






While we are not enthusiasts of poetry, the museum and library are too beautiful to miss.
Of course Waco does offer many excellent restaurants and theaters but with so little time we had to get ready for our next destination at the Lacy’s house on Lake LBJ. We certainly enjoyed our short stay in Waco and look forward to returning sometime.

See y’all ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bye!



CORPS OF ENGINEERS HICKORY CREEK at LEWISVILLE LAKE, TX

October 7 – 13, 2010


It was a short trip south to the Corps of Engineers Hickory Creek Campground at Lewisville, TX, near our friends, Elmer and Sandra Jenny, in Bedford, TX. We arrived on a Thursday and were pleased at the typical neat and clean COE Campground; if they provided sewer hookups they would be the best deal around, but unfortunately, sewer hookups are few.

Welcome to Hickory Creek Park

 We called our friends and made arrangements to have lunch together on Friday. Meanwhile, thanks to a list of good sites from Harris Benoit, we had reserved a site with a little view of Lewisville Lake and just relaxed in the beautiful Texas air.


Friday, we all met at Babe’s Chicken Restaurant in Roanoke, one of 9 branches of the chain, for one of their special chicken lunches. With all her health issues, we were really pleased to see Sandra looking so fit and in really high spirits. Lunch was delicious and we all enjoyed it, as we sat and visited for quite a while.

Elmer (Fox) and Sandra Jenny looking good!
   Fran and Sandra went next door to shop at a little boutique. They returned empty-handed, a rarity!




On our way home we spied what looked like a Thai Buddhist Temple in the distance, so we drove by and sure enough there was a whole compound with a number of Thai buildings and gardens.



Since there was no-one there and the gate was open, we drove in through the ornamental gate and looked around the compound. I had spent some time in Thailand some years ago, and while the architecture was somewhat garish and colorful, it was nonetheless very beautiful and quite similar to the Wats (temples) found in Thailand.



Unfortunately, while we did spot one Monk in his typical saffron robe, we never did find anyone to ask about this beautiful facility here in the middle of Texas.













If you should want to visit this outstanding monastery, the address is Wat Buddharatanaram, 13075 Sehepayak Rd., Keller, TX. (There is more information available on the internet)



Saturday, the Jennys invited us to dinner at their home and showed us the many home improvements they had made in the last year. Elmer (Fox) is always up to something to keep busy since he has sold his motorhome and does not RV any longer. After dinner we all settled back in their overstuffed recliner chairs and continued catching up on all the latest gossip. Sandra made her famous pork loin –delicious as always!


Somewhat reminiscent of our winter activities in AZ, we again met the Jennys for breakfast at Mimi’s in Lewisville on Sunday morning and we certainly never seem to run out of more things to talk about.


At Lewisville Lake
 Monday was a day off so on Tuesday we went to the Grapevine Mills for her favorite pastime, “window shopping,” and then to see the movie “RED”, which we liked and recommend to all our friends, much (non-bloody) violence but no sex (yuck) or nudity (more yuck).


We prepared to leave the Dallas area on Wednesday morning on another beautiful Texas morning, heading south to the COE Campground at Waco, TX.


See y’all down the road! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~George and Fran








Thursday, October 28, 2010

THOUSAND TRAILS LAKE TEXOMA, TX

October 2 – 7, 2010



Saturday we were off to the Thousand Trails Preserve at Lake Texoma which was new to us, and we were pleased to see it is one of the best TTN preserves we have visited.

Welcome to Lake Texoma

The weather here was such an improvement over that of the past few weeks, and we really appreciated it..We found a very nice site near the pool and family center, which were both open with the store and food service available. There is a beautiful adult pool and lounge down the road a’piece as well; and although it is called Lake Texoma, it is quite a way to the Lake itself. Sunday we found a Marina and the Pelican Landing Restaurant just a few miles away. The restaurant had a history of flooding at least five or six times and had been rebuilt each time. Why there should be flooding on a controlled reservoir is a mystery to me. 

On our way back to the preserve, however, we noticed a thumping in the left front and discovered a large lump in the left front tire of the PT Cruiser. The tread was separating and the tire was finished after only a year of service. We never did find out why it happened. An internet search found a Discount Tire shop in Denton, TX, and we made an appointment for Monday while I was tasked with putting on the dinky spare tire. No fun! Monday we had a new tire installed and lunch in Denton. 

Frisky bull?


On our way back from Denton we passed a field with some Long Horn cows so we had to stop to watch while one of the cows (bulls?) got pretty frisky.


At the entrance to TTN Lake Texoma
 On Tuesday we learned that most of the campers were only out for the weekends and had gone home; somehow we found that a bit strange but I guess most people are working during the week and their kids are in school. Pretty good to be retired!


We managed to have a lunch at the Pelican Landing before heading to the COE Hickory Creek campground on Lewisville Lake near Dallas!

See’ya!

Friday, October 8, 2010

TO THE OLD GERMANY RESTAURANT - CHOCTAW, OK

October 1 – 2, 2010


Our next trip was to Midwest City, OK (a suburb of Oklahoma City) to dine at the Old Germany Restaurant and to once again have one of their outstanding German dinners.

The nearest place to stay with the coach is at the Elk’s Lodge in Midwest City so we headed there and arrived on a beautiful sunny day to be the only coach in their campground. No sooner were we hooked up when there came a horrendous roar and a huge multi-engine AWACS aircraft came directly overhead on short final to land at the adjacent Tinker Air Force Base. How we didn’t notice RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!!!! the Air Base before, I have no idea but it was a training day and they were doing touch and go landings every few minutes,
RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!!!!
RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!!!! oh great! The Elks folks seemed to think that they would be finished by about 5:00 pm and that was right, thank goodness! Not only that, but they also warned us that the next day, Saturday, the Oklahoma University Sooners were playing the University of Texas Longhorns and traffic was going to be a huge logjam. “It’s going to take HOURS and HOURS, they said, so get an early start and you MIGHT miss some of it.” Oh-kay!



The Old Germany Restaurant

So we headed out to the restaurant, found a nice booth and ordered our favorite German dishes, Jaegerschnitzle with spaetzle and red cabbage, then to top it off we shared a TALL glass of Paulaner Optimator beer. Mmm-mmm good!!! Of course, schnitzel is usually breaded veal but many restaurants are using pork instead, that’s right it’s cheaper, but still good.
This is the third time we’ve been to the restaurant and it was just as good as the previous two times.

So there really wasn’t much else for us to do here in Oklahoma and after a good night’s sleep, we were off to our next destination of the Thousand Trails Lake Texoma Preserve just over the border into Texas. To our surprise, traffic was light and we didn’t experience even the slightest slow-down on I-35South. Come to find out, the football game was being played in Dallas, so if you weren’t already down there, it was going to be too late to start driving now!

See you in Texas ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye!






Thursday, October 7, 2010

TO SAM WALTONS PLACE - BENTONVILLE, AR

September 29 – October 1, 2010


It took a while to get down to Arkansas and Bentonville but we arrived in the afternoon and pulled into the big Walmart parking lot only to be greeted by large signs which said that overnight parking was not allowed. This was something of a surprise as Walmart policy is to encourage RV’ers to use their parking lots for overnight stays, both for safety’s sake and the added sales they bring. Sometimes however the local authorities will pass legislation to prohibit staying in parking lots to supposedly protect the local campgrounds.


Checking our Elks directory we found a lodge in Rogers, AR, that we didn’t realize was right next to Bentonville so we checked it out. This turned out to be a very nice lodge in a quiet setting and with a little help from a member; we found a 50 amp electric power connection. We were so impressed with the pastoral setting that we extended our stay for an extra night.


The Visitor Center in the  Original Store

The next morning we headed downtown to the Walmart Visitor Center on Main Street just across from the town central park with a large monument to the “Soldiers of the South.” It was then that we realized that we were truly in the South and that Arkansas was really a “Rebel” state. Unfortunately, the Visitor Center was being renovated and a temporary center had been set up around the corner. In a way this was quite nice as they could have just closed it up for a year while they did their renovating.


Monument to the Soldiers of the South

The center had a museum documenting the growth of Walmart from its inception to the present day. Sam Walton and his brother had owned a number of Ben Franklin stores in the area but decided to change the name to Walmart Discount stores in the early 1960’s and through hard work and incredible business sense grew their Walmart stores into the largest retail business in the world! Along the way he bought up many failing store chains and somehow made them profitable mostly by controlling costs and working hard to obtain the lowest procurement costs. His stores are now in most every country in the world and wherever they are they strive to be generous good neighbors. There have never been unions in his stores although the salaries and benefits certainly seem to be acceptable. The main headquarters building on Walton Blvd. is very large with a huge parking lot chock full of cars in front. We somehow expected Bentonville to still be a little Podunk town in Arkansas so we were amazed at the development and modern prosperous look to the city.


At the COE Horseshoe Bend Park 

Our friends Arnie and Barb Lane had recommended the nearby Corps of Engineers campground at Horseshoe Bend so we went out to check it out and they were right, it is a very beautiful lake with a typical COE park. They are all reasonably priced and very clean, of course they are all built around COE water reservoirs and projects. Unfortunately most do not have any sewer hookups, probably to help restrict the length of stays.


So with thanks to another Elks Lodge for coming through in a pinch we decided to make our next stop at Midway City, OK, to visit the Old Germany Restaurant in Choctaw, OK.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye y’all!


TO THE NELSONS - ELK HORN, IA

September 28 – 29, 2010



What a dilemma, do we drive by freeway, straight south on I-35 and then straight west on I-80 to our destination or could we take all the back county roads, zigzagging diagonally across the state for a shorter, more interesting route. What to do; on the freeways there are no school zones to worry about and on the morning of our departure the skies looked threatening, leaving our choice to use the freeways, a bit longer but perhaps, safer.


A Danish Windmill in a Danish Town

We arrived at the Danish Inn in Elk Horn, IA, just in time to greet our friends, Dale and Marge Nelson, and sit down to the excellent buffet. Dale and Margie are “snowbirds” who spend their winters in Mesa, AZ, where we often meet for Sunday breakfast and a few other activities. Dale is a perfect example of a fellow who works hard; and on mustering out of the military he settled in this Danish community where he worked for the farmers and saved his money, eventually buying farmlands of 200 to 300 acres as they became available until now he has amassed some 2500 acres in various parcels throughout the county.



Up on the John Deere Combine
 From the Inn we drove out to their nearby house where Dale and Fran guided our coach onto their driveway where we would spend the night. That afternoon we drove out to where their son, Jay, was harvesting a field of soy beans in their beautiful new green and yellow John Deere Combine. Jay stopped the rig and Dale asked if we would like to take a ride. He didn’t have to ask twice; Fran and I were thrilled at the idea of riding in this beautiful behemoth.


A Combine Set up for Corn
Gaining access to the cab requires climbing about an eight foot ladder to the fully enclosed and air-conditioned cab with a Plexiglas nose overlooking all the machinery. The rig is fully automatic with a GPS unit to guide the steering; once a 30 foot swath is cut the GPS will remember and guide the rig on successive runs, quite amazing. I was also amazed at the flexibility of such a huge machine; it could turn and spin-around, even with the cutting head up front. More gadgets, the unit will measure the moisture content of the product being cut; if it is too high you shouldn’t cut it until the moisture content drops to below 17%. Then another gadget will tell them the number of bushels per acre. Looking through the back window you can watch the soy beans filling the hopper which will signal when it must be unloaded. But then it was Fran’s turn to ride, while Jay explained some of the finer points of the combine to me. As an aside he mentioned that the combine cost $250,000 so they take good care of it. Fran was just as thrilled as I was at the end of our rides and it was certainly one of the highlights of our trip.


Dinner with the Nelsons - Geo, Fran, Dale & Margie
After a tour of the countryside which included a bit of history, we returned to the Nelson’s home for cocktails and a Danish-style dinner rounding out a fantastic day. After a good night’s sleep we met with the Nelsons for breakfast before we headed out to our next destination. We will be seeing Dale and Margie this winter when Elk Horn is freezing cold and under a few feet of snow.


Meanwhile we are off to Bentonville, Arkansas and the home of Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye, y’all!


TO WINNEBAGO MOTORHOMES IN FOREST CITY, IOWA

September 27 – 28, 2010



It was only a short trip to Forest City, Iowa, Home of the Winnebago Motorhome Factory where one of the first of the major motorhome manufacturers started building the ubiquitous Winnebago. Much like “Coke” or “Frigidaire,” their name has become synonymous with motorhomes. While we have visited almost all of the manufacturers in the past, this was the last factory to be visited. Our first question was: Where did the name come from? That was easy; Forest City is in Winnebago County, an Indian name, and the factory is near the Winnebago River, ‘nuff said. The next question was whether the factory workers were affiliated with unions. The answer was no, there are no unions involved here. The Visitors Center has a large area set aside with electric hookups for visitors’ coaches to spend the night, which we did.


The Winnebago Visitor Center
The Visitor Center has an extensive history museum to visit while waiting for your tour coach. The coach takes the visitors around to the many buildings that comprise this huge facility. Winnebago started building coaches in the early 1960’s and developed a philosophy of building as much of their coaches as possible. The only major components that they don’t build are the chassis; which may be from Ford for the gasoline powered rigs or Freightliner for the diesel rigs. Otherwise many of the parts are built not only for their own production but for other coaches as well. I was somewhat disappointed to learn that their insurance provisions would not allow us down on the main production floor and we were herded up to catwalks to view the work from overhead. Not as good as looking over the worker’s shoulder as we could at the Freightliner factory for instance.



Let's spend the night
All in all, we think that Winnebago build quite a good motorhome and serve the medium price range quite well. Unfortunately, with the economy as it is, their workforce has shrunk from a few thousand to about a thousand and output is down from about 10,000 units per year to 5,000. They did seem to think that they were adding more workers and increasing production a bit which is good news.


From Forest City we will be off to the Danish city of Elk Horn in southwest Iowa to visit our friends the Nelsons. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye, folks!


MINNEAPOLIS ---- YAH!

September 21 - 27, 2010


If you’re still with us we’ll get back to blogging our trip for you.


We left Pierre heading East on US-14, a nice two-lane highway through the rolling farmlands of South Dakota. Most of the crops here seemed to be sunflowers that follow the sun except on sunless days like this when they just droop. I was surprised at the many acres of sunflowers as I didn’t realize how much sunflower seeds were in demand to provide cooking oils and snack food. Still in SD we came to the little town of DeSmet where we had to slow to 45 mph, then to 35 mph and finally to 30 mph where we slowed to about 27 or 28mph. We came to a sign “15 mph when children are present;” not seeing any children we continued on past a police cruiser and then his lights lit up and siren came on – oh, damn! We’ve done it again; two years ago, I paid $650 for speeding through a school zone in Florida. This time, I told the officer that we didn’t see any children but he said there were children in the playground! I said that there was a 6 ft. chain link fence around the playground but that didn’t seem to matter to him. Well, after our registration, insurance and license were all shown, he asked me into his cruiser where he called in to see if I had any outstanding warrants. Coming out clean he finally said, “Alfred, I’m going to do you a huge favor and save you about $200.” Whereupon he said I could go. I thanked him and learned that if there are any kids in the whole State, you better slow down to 15mph! I also learned it pays to be very, very polite and respectful to the cops when stopped. Properly chastened, we continued on down the road and decided to spend the night in Brookings, SD, where we found a very welcoming Wal-Mart parking lot.



The Mystic Lake Hotel and Casino at Prior Lake 
 The next morning we continued into Minnesota under threatening skies where the terrain gradually smoothed out a bit and the crops were primarily corn and soy. Since Ethanol is all the rage now, the corn crops are in high demand. We were actually staying at the Dakotah Meadows Campground in Prior Lake, a southern suburb of Minneapolis. This is the campground for the huge Indian Mystic Lake Casino and is very well done having all paved streets, concrete pads and grass. Still no chance to get dirty! We arrived on a Wednesday which just happened to be a 5-cents-off-per-gallon-of-fuel-day (good deal), so we filled up the coach right there. Not more than an hour after parking and setting up, the skies opened and the rains poured down for the rest of the day, night and the following day. We were thankful that we didn’t have to drive in that rain and more than grateful that the coach stayed clean!


Our reason to visit Prior Lake was primarily to see Archie and Maxine Taxdahl, who are long-time Revconeers and had been spending their winters in Mesa, AZ, where we often would get together for Sunday breakfast and other activities. However, the years have not been kind to our 85-year-old friend and he is now suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and no longer motorhoming. He and Maxine are now living in a beautiful 4-story retirement home complete with a restaurant, a church and a YMCA with pools and courts built into the building and full-time medical staff available as needed. And while Archie may not have remembered just who we were, we all had a nice time over Maxine’s home-cooked dinner and we know that our visit was helpful to them and especially to Maxine. This could not be a nicer place for them to be with their children and several grandchildren living in the area. We may not be back to this area anytime soon but we were pleased that we could visit them at least once.


Mall of America

We also had to go back to the great Mall of America in Bloomington. This is quite a spectacular place with the interior amusement park filled with roller-coaster rides, Ferris wheels, and many other rides mostly for children but pretty neat none-the-less. It is all surrounded on four sides by the four-story mall shops and the movie theater where we saw “Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps.” Good movie! And, of course, Fran’s favorite sport is mall shopping where she gets an “A” for effort and where we spent at least a whole hour indulging in that sport.



Dim-Sum at a price

We had a nice few days in the Minneapolis area where Fran found a Chinese restaurant serving Dim-Sum. The Jun-Bo restaurant did not have the best ambiance but the food was surprisingly good, although about four times as expensive as San Francisco’s Chinatown Dim Sum. And believe it or not, we never did go into the Mystic Lake Casino.

Tuesday we will be off to Elk Horn, Iowa, so that is all for now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye!