1 of 10,000 Lakes

I've got my eye on you! Coolest salt and
pepper shakers ever, from Cracker Barrel.

We woke up bright and early after a fairly good night's sleep in the Cracker Barrel parking lot. We decided to eat breakfast there to thank them for the parking spot. Nice of us, but in retrospect, way more expensive than just paying for a campsite. LOL. But the ladies there were so sweet, asking the kids about the trip and giving them each a map to keep track of the trip. The night was fairly quiet after about 11 p.m., but I kept tossing and turning because I kept waking up worried about getting the trailer out of the parking lot, which was completely ridiculous because there was plenty of room, but these are things you worry about when you are driving over 50 feet of vehicle. Wow, I'm impressed with myself when I put it that way.

Getting ready to cross Mississippi

More of the Mississippi

I don't want to jinx us, but I feel like we are definitely getting the hang of the trailer, driving, parking, setting up and packing up. I'm sure we'll do something stupid again in less than a week, but the driving has gotten WAY less stressful. We can each do 3 or 4 hours with little fatigue. Much better than the 30 minutes I managed on day 1 before I had to quit because my neck hurt so much I felt like I need a chiropractor in the next town. Talk about tense. Tonite, no neck pain! Yay!

And in other news of impressiveness, I backed the trailer into a parking spot at the campground tonight. That was a first. We have only down "pull-throughs" until now, because they seemed easier. You just pull in forward and pull forward and out the other end the next day. But the campground we wanted tonight only had back-ins, so we went for it. We have a pretty good system (thanks to Uncle Harry), where I drive and Jim directs me. It worked great tonight. We got it in in one try, straight and level in a spot that was just long enough to fit the trailer and the truck. Big smooch and a high five! :-)

View from our campsite of Lake Okebana.

So today was mostly about getting miles behind us. We did cross the Mississippi, very impressively wide river. And we went through Wisconsin and most of Minnesota. We are settled for the night in this great little municipal campground in Worthington, Minnesota. It's right on Okebana Lake, which we can see from our campsite. They have great bike trails around the lake, and we got here early enough to have time for a bike ride. I'm tempted to stay another night so we can kayak, but we are also really anxious to get to Yellowstone, so we are heading out in the morning.

Oh, and let me tell you... Wisconsin isn't nearly as cold as Minnesota! Wow! We are all bundled up in sweatshirts and blankets, sitting outside enjoying the chill of an August evening. If it weren't for the ice fishing in the winter, I'd be tempted to stay here.

Campsite all set up.

Relaxing after dinner.

For Julie

 On that note, we could get used to this life. Anyone want to contribute to our early retirement fund, so we can just travel around the country in an RV for the next 10 or 20 years? Seriously, this is pretty awesome so far. We could all get used to it. The kids are handling the long days in the truck like champs. Very little fighting and almost no whining. This is good stuff.

How cute is that?!?!?!