August 1 to 8, 2009 - Minnesota

We left Dickinson, ND on August 1st and drove across the state and just into Minnesota to camp at the Moorhead KOA in Moorhead, MN.  The trip was 305 miles and we had to detour through construction to get to the campground. 

Our spot was nothing special.   We stayed in this same campground in September 2003.  We had also not stayed in Minnesota since 2003, so we were overdue.

We had a whistle while we drove and found the passenger side windshield was coming out.  Something to get fixed in Indiana.

August 2nd we drove 247 miles to Dakotah Meadows RV Park in Prior Lake, MN, on the SW part of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.  This campground is part of the Mystic Lake Casino complex. 

We have a nice campsite, even if it is side-by-side hookups.

Our friends Bill and Helen were camped here, whom we last saw in Silver Springs, FL in March 2008.   We got together with them and had enjoyable meals at the Casino Cafe and Timber Lodge Steakhouse. 

Our original intent was to stay only two nights but before we left on the 4th we saw Ken and Ann were parked close by.  We hadn't seen them since Tijeras, NM in April 2008.  We extended for another night and the four of us went to Mall of America together.

Scenes from the Mall:

We had dinner at Johnny Rockets.

August 5th we were supposed to leave but Diane fell getting out of the shower and off we went to the emergency room.  She had dislocated her right elbow as this X-Ray shows:

It was very painful but nothing was broken and they were able to "relocate" the elbow and cast it:

Luckily Diane is left handed so she could still do some things.  But it was going to take weeks for her to recover.  We extended till Sunday morning when she could take the brace off. 

For a while Bill will have to do all the cooking, driving and most of the stuff to set up and tear down the camp.  But he knows how and also realizes he could be the one injured and Diane would have to do it all.

The injury also means we are not going to the Canadian Maritimes this year.  We are flexible and had already changed our plans to be in Canada a shorter time anyway, now we won't go at all.  Originally we were leaving earlier in July and pushing through to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan where we would cross into Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and head east.  We would have gone across the part of Ontario we did not visit in 2005, into Quebec, up to the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, down into New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.  We knew we did not have time to visit Newfoundland, so it was not in the original plan.  Once we were delayed, for good reasons, in Washington and after discussion with Bill's mother we changed our plans to swing through Ohio to visit Bill's grand nephew and were going to enter New Brunswick in Maine and come back to Maine, just visiting the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.  We will live and the Maritimes and New England will be there another year.

We did take advantage of being in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area a bit longer.  One day we drove to Mendota Heights to see the training center that we had both visited in 1988 for Cray Research, but at different times.  Bill worked for Cray and Diane worked for a customer at the time.

The surprise is the current Cray still has offices here:

And the Marriot Courtyard we stayed at is still across the street from Cray's offices.

This was a surprise, we thought Cray had completely left Mendota Heights years earlier.

We also found a nice Thai restaurant in Savage called "Spice" and they do have spicy food.  We liked it enough to have lunch their twice.

Now we are off to Indiana to catch up with our mail and to get our windshield fixed.  Plus we have friends camped there.  We need to be back here in a few weeks for another orthopedic surgeon visit and X-Ray, so we are not done with Minnesota this year.

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