We moved on today to Spring Grove Minnesota. I felt a little redundant this morning as Mike almost entirely hooked up the trailer by himself, he backed the truck on and everything; he probably found it easier than trying to interpret my hand signals!
Had quite a long drive through the southern part of Minnesota past hundreds of fields of corn, it's everywhere. This area of Minnesota is a little different though, more hilly and rocky than where we came from. It's very beautiful though but I don't think I could live here on a permanent basis, it's just too hot and muggy. I'm permanently shiny, I wonder how people wear make up here?
We are staying in a park just outside Spring Grove and this one really is perfect, in spite of the gravel road we drove on for about 6 miles to get here. It's very quite, with lots of grass, full hook ups, and wi-fi - what more could a girl ask for. Got all set up and then spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sunshine enjoying the mozzie free park. Now if it would just cool down a little we might get some sleep tonight.

Mike: Some women are easy to please! This is a great park though!

Drove north today up through Duluth and along the north shore of Lake Superior. The drive was nice, not too long and through some pretty countryside and across the Mississippi, at least until we got to Duluth. It's another large city, but one with lots of roadwork going on. In fact this whole state seems to have roadworks going on. I understand that the repairs have to be done during the summer before the bad weather comes but it doesn't make it easy for tourists to get around; even when they tell you on the radio which roads are closed and between where, as we don't know the area it's not really all that helpful. Anyway, after getting through Duluth we drove along the 61 which is right next to Lake Superior. It's a beautiful area with some gorgeous houses lining the roadside. The road extends to the Canadian border and then over it to Thunder Bay, about 190 miles altogether, but we only drove a short ways along it, mostly once again as we stopped numerous times for 10+ minutes for the road crews that were working on the road. We drove as far as Split Rock Lighthouse before turning back and eventually decided to stop at Gooseberry Falls State Park for a little bit of a wander. It is lovely, the falls were nice, one falls split into three different cascades.We walked around the park and viewed the falls and Tal-y got to drink the river and paddle a little bit which she appreciated since it was super hot and muggy.
We stopped for lunch at a viewpoint overlooking Lake Superior on the way back. The lake is massive, it is the largest fresh water lake in the world and holds 10% of the world's surface fresh water. It looks more like an ocean than a lake really and since it is so big it doesn't really have the character that some of the smaller lakes have.
On the way home we spotted a frozen custard shop, lush. I think this was by far Mike's best day of the trip.
Before we headed to the trailer we stopped off at Hinckley, if you're ever in this area these no need to stop, there's nothing here.
Took Tal-y for a run on the playing fields when we got back and she had a blast chasing the thousands of chipmunks that are here. They'd stick their heads up and chirp, she'd take off after them and stick her head down the whole, then they'd pop up behind her chirping some more. I think they were messing with her, but she had lots of fun anyway.

Mike: I'm ashamed, the chipmunks are smarter than my dog!

Took a drive to Minneapolis today, well actually to Bloomington first to check out the Mall of America. Wow it's a big mall, massive in fact with hundreds of shops. I read someplace that if you sepnt 10 minutes in each shop it would take about 85 hours to go throught the entire mall. That's without doing all the other stuff too like the minature legoland and fairground they have there. Really it's like any other mall, same shops just bigger but it has loads of stuff to keep kids occupied while you shop Jazmin! We wandered around for a while but didn't buy anything exciting, just ate lunch. Afterwards we drove back through Minneapolis through some cute neighbourhoods but it's just another big city with lots of people and lots of crazy drivers.

Mike: You could get lost in "Mall of America". Minnesota drivers are the worst

Oh wow, last night we had a 10-hour thunder and lightening storm. It started around 9.30 last night, I could hear the thunder rumbling in the distance continuously and then the lightening started. It was amazing to watch, just constant flashes across the sky. It wasn’t like the lightening I’m used to seeing with the forks flashing every few minutes, this was the whole sky lighting up every few seconds like someone turning a light on and off, and the thunder never stopped. It was really eerie and a little scary but awesome to watch. It went on for about 2 hours and then the rain came with a vengeance. It poured down and although rain always sounds loud inside the trailer, this time it was as bad as it sounded. Along with the rain came the wind and since we hadn’t rolled up the awning on the trailer before the storm started, at 12.30 a.m., in the wind and rain, in our Pj’s Mike and I were outside putting away the awning before it got blown away. We managed it without too much effort only to find that while the door was open a hundred skeeters had decided to join us for the night; I think this upset mike more than being out in the storm at half past midnight. We spent the next half hour swatting and squishing the bloody things, and I spent another half hour this morning wiping their (?) blood off the ceiling.
As the thunder and lightening, and the rain was still going this morning we didn’t rush to get up since very little sleep had been had. We finally got sorted out in between showers and the hitching up went without a hitch. We set off about 11, later than usual since we were headed the same way as the storm was travelling we wanted to give it as much of a head start as possible. There wasn’t too much damage at the campground, just a little flooding and some partially drowned trees. We drove to Hinckley in eastern Minnesota today, via Crosby. Crosby is a cute town on a lake (surprise surprise, this is Minnesota after all) where Mike used to go with his parents when he was a little boy. He couldn’t remember where exactly on the lake they stayed when they came here, but I’m just amazed he remembers coming here at all, it was a long, long time ago!
We drove around another huge lake, Mille Lacs Lake, it was massive and really choppy, it looked more like the ocean than a lake.
We got to Hinckley late this afternoon to another lovely resort. It’s over 600 acres with maybe 150 RV sites on it, most of which are permanent. The site has everything including a golf course and it’s own river and our site is very private and secluded. We got all set up and then while we were searching for internet access at the lodge the tornado alarm started going off. The sky had been clear and blue but by this time it was dark grey and the rain had started. We headed back to the trailer as we’d left Tal-y there and in the few minutes that took us the area around the trailer was already starting to flood as the rain was coming down so hard. We got Tal-y and then drove to the pool area where we had been informed everyone gathered while the siren was sounding. We got to spend about half an hour there soaked through to our undies but fortunately there was no tornado here; there were three of them that touched down a little ways south of us and did some damage but caused no injuries. After the siren stopped and the rain stopped the sky cleared and the sun came out. Except for the water that we had to slosh through it was like the storm never happened. It was a little scary and very surreal just waiting.

Spent the last few days in Perham, Minnesota at a beautiful RV resort. It was almost perfect, lovely setting on Big Pine Lake, plenty of space between the trees and other RV’s, and every amenity we need except internet; but for the lack of wi-fi we have had a lovely few days of relaxing and doing nothing very eventful.
Got here Saturday afternoon after a fairly short drive past a few of the 15,000 lakes that this state has. We did have a bit of an issue just as we crossed into Minnesota as Nell died; she just quit talking to us. As luck would have it it was just a temporary malfunction and pushing the reset button straightened her out in no time. I have to admit I was a little nervous about the thought of driving without her, I don’t think Mike and I would be still married if we didn’t have her to get us to all these places. After she got us to the campsite we got all checked in and then things started to go a little sideways, well actually a little backwards. The site they gave us was nice, among some trees, and my expert driver had little problem getting into the space. Got the trailer straight, blocks under the wheels, chocks in front of the wheels to stop it rolling forward as we were on a bit of a slope, and then on with the unhitching. As soon as the trailer became free of the truck, off it went backwards since there were no chocks in place to prevent that. I put my hands on it to stop it, what was I thinking, it weighs like a ton, and anyway it was rolling away from me not towards me! Fortunately it didn’t go to far and we have a jack for just this kind of occasion; we lifted it back onto the block, rehitched it to the truck and got it in place for the second time. Extra chocks were used this time and everything was good. The setting up only took us about an hour longer than normal, that’ll teach us for getting cocky. The remainder of Saturday was spent with glasses of wine in hand.
This part of Minnesota doesn’t have a whole lot going on besides lakes and fields of corn so Sunday we took a ride to Wadena, a little town just to the south of us as we needed to visit Walmart to get some bits and pieces. We found it eventually, I think Nell is still feeling the after effects of her little episode.
Monday we drove in the other direction to Detroit Lakes which is another small town on a lake. We went in search of a ladder to attach to the trailer so mike can clean the roof but didn’t have any luck getting one. Had lunch out before heading back for another lazy afternoon. We have discovered a new Mexican food here and in North Dakota, tater tots. Each Mexican joint calls them something different but they are just tater tots, weird, nothing like that in San Diego.
This morning, and I have the pictures to prove it, Mike cleaned the front of the trailer. It hasn’t been done since, well we’ve never done it, and it was disgusting; a lovely combination of dead bugs, road tar, and the white stuff that the roads are lined with. It took him forever to get it all off, he was even sweating, but it looked amazing when it was finished. Now just three more sides to do.
We are moving on tomorrow. Although the park is really nice, (Tal-y especially loves it as it has real grass) there isn’t anything in this area of interest. It’s been nice just chilling though.

Packed up from the time I got out of bed till we were ready to hit the road in exactly one hour and fifteen minutes, a new record I think. Mike managed to get online this morning before we left to check out ticks; looks like I'll be checking for symptoms of Lyme disease and something spotted something or other disease for the next seven days!
Drove for about three hours today to Jamestown ND; it's right along the I94 from Bismarck which we passed through. Cute place, at least as much as we've seen, and the campsite is fine too; Mike even made a friend this afternoon. Took a walk to Frontier Village which is just about a block from the campground. It's a little village that has old buildings that have been maintained as they were when they were originally in use; it's a neat little place. It also boasts the world's largest buffalo which weighs in at 60 tons - he's a big boy and ugly too. We saw some real buffalo too and got to see White Cloud who is an albino buffalo; apparently they are rare, but this herd has three of them so.... The white buffalo are very sacred to the Indians, and this herd with it's three whiteys roam across about 250 acres of land here.
The camp site has a restaurant called the chuck wagon. They gave us a menu and it's really reasonable but even after reading it five times Mike still couldn't find anything on it that wasn't a four legged animal at some point in time - Jaime it's just your kind of place my little carnivore. It's actually a little weird, they have buffalo roaming yards from the restaurant, are they next weeks burgers?
Off to a new state tomorrow, goodnight.

Mike:I thought about out running the Bulls but decided against it. Then I tried to encourage Becc to run into the field but that "brave" word came into use again.
I never saw soo much meat on a menu in my life.

Well today didn't start out so great. Why is it that morning people just don't understand the need that non-morning people have to stay in bed? Mike was not a happy camper cos I stayed (wanted to type lay/led but not sure which is right) in bed till after nine; seriously how many more times, I'M ON HOLIDAY!
When we did finally get going everything got much better. We went to Lake Sakakawea and drove across the Garrison dam that created it; it is one of the dams along the Missouri river. It is very impressive and I bet its really cool when they open the floodgates. After that we visited the Knife River Indian Villages which is a national historic site and really interesting. The whole place, it's a museum and recreation of an Indian lodge, is very authentic and educational.
The day took a turn for the worse later this evening when, wait for it, Mike found a tick on the back of his head, gross. I was making dinner and he asked me to check something on his head and when I lifted his hair up the something was wriggling; just the back end mind you, the front end was firmly attached to his head. What to do, I didn't want to touch it but I was very brave and took care of it since he couldn't see it. Out came a huge needle and the lighter and I fried the little bugger. We checked Tal-y, between her toes and everything since Mike blamed her for his little hitchhiker but she was clean. All my parts checked too and I'm glad to report that this family is tick free, at least for now.

Mike: For the last time, you are not on a Holiday! You are on a "mission", to see the USA! By the way I'm not sure "brave" is the word I'd use.