World United States Minnesota Prior Lake

Bill and Helen's Fulltime Travels Here we go again and again

Prior Lake Jun 26, 2009

We were all set up in Prior Lake at the Dakotah RV Park by 2:00 on Friday afternoon where we will be for the next three weeks. It is a nice park with cement pads and a lot of things nearby. It is a little costlier than we like to pay but we couldn’t find anything we liked well enough to stay for long term and sometimes you have to pay to be where you want to be. It was nice to put things out knowing that we won’t be leaving here for awhile. If we are just staying for a day or two, I don’t put my pictures out or knick-knacks.

Saturday was a day spent at Best Buy finding a new printer. Our old one just quit on us. When we got home, we spent the rest of the day setting it up for wireless on bout of our computers. It shouldn’t have taken that long but it did…..

Sunday was Father’s Day and Bill’s two daughters came over to see us along with Son-in Law Raleigh. While we were having our lunch we were joined by our friends Ken and Sandy that had just come from the FMCA rally in Albert Lea, MN. These are the same friends that we have introduced you to when we were in Quartzite, AZ back in Jan of 2006 , again in Yellowstone NP in July of 2007 and a few times in Florida when we went to the beach to meet them.. It is so nice to have them in our home area so that we can play tourists with them.

Monday was an awesome day on the Mississippi River in the historic district of downtown Minneapolis. The only drawback to the day was the extremely hot and humid 94 degree day. It kept our walks limited to the shady area’s but it was still a lot of fun….. Three of us had a lunch of walleye that was outstanding. Ken ordered a flatbread that looked fantastic…… It was served on a double rack with ½ on each rack but the way they placed it, all Ken saw was the top half…. We noticed that he had stopped eating half way thru and Sandy finally told him there was more on the bottom layer…. We still laugh about it cuz poor Ken was still hungry and he was wishing he had ordered the walleye….. We stopped at the sculptor gardens at an art museum so they could see the famous sculptor of the spoon and cherry…. We hope to go back to the downtown area again and ride the rapid rail. Our drive back to the RV Park was via the Lakes and was a nice way to show them a beautiful area of Minneapolis and some of the older homes that are pretty special.

Tuesday we were visited by Grandson Jacob and his darling girlfriend Shawndra…. We went to lunch and they came back here for the rest of the afternoon. What a couple of sweethearts…. There is nothing that makes grandparents prouder than to see the grandkids grow up into such fine adults…… Later on I made taco soup and Sandy made a beautiful salad which she brought over to our place and we stayed inside in the air conditioning….. Next we hooked up the Wii which they had never tried ‘before and wound up bowling, playing tennis and baseball before we noticed it was an hour after all of our bedtimes….. Time goes by so fast when you are having fun.

Wednesday started out raining so we figured it would be a good day for Ken and Sandy to see the Mall of America so off we went…… It is always so much fun when you take someone to the MOA and into Camp Snoopy…. Until you see it you can not imagine what it is like…. Then we started thru just a few of the 528 stores before we were exhausted….. Our lunch was at the Rain Forest, an unusual restaurant that you have to see to believe….. They are across the United States but only in large tourist traps…. Oops, I mean tourist areas….. We were shocked at how much the prices had risen since we were here last but we all found a lettuce wrap that we could share… We ordered two orders of that and it was delicious. The guys each ordered a cup of soup to go along with it and that filled us up…… By the time we came out of the mall, it was hot and full sun again….. We drove home during the rush hour traffic that is awful on I-494. Sandy and I went to the casino to cool off and both got lucky so we ended the day very happy.

Yesterday we drove to the historic town of Hastings and stopped along the Mississippi River to read about the 1800’s wooden circular bridge that finally had to be replaced…. What a shame that they tore it down. …. It was awesome.

We drove the scenic route to the St Croix River to the town of Stillwater….. Our first destination was to the most wonderful German restaurant we have been to…. Sandy agreed that it was indeed a very special place….. I had my favorite jaggerschintzel (sp) and it was wonderful…. Everyone loved what they ordered….

Next we drove to the wonderful area on the river that is the historic area of Stillwater…. I have shown you lots of pictures before but I will add a few this time too….. It is so cool….. The lift bridge on the river crosses over to Wisconsin so as we stood under it we just had to call our mutual friends Garry and Jenny to tell them we were looking at their beloved State….. Sure wish they could have been here sharing it with us….. We topped our afternoon off at the local ice cream parlor where we all pigged out… Ken beat us all with his four scoop hot fudge sundae…. Sandy and I had the kids portion of the turtle sundae and bill had a Carmel double rich malt with extra malt…. How sinful but how wonderful.

So far, today has been a lazy day….. We sat around until noon before going to the grocery store for a few things and about 2:00 Sandy and Ken brought over a wonderful chicken and noodle dinner that we ate outside on the picnic table….. I added the vegetables and some watermelon and we are stuffed…. We ate early because they have live horse races tonight just a few miles from us and we plan on going there as soon as I finish posting this…..

Later………….