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!