2022 Camping Retrospective

 Whitewater State Park, April 22-24

We booked our first camping weekend on the 23rd of December, when it was cold and dark. Turns out our spring weather has been so bad, not much has changed by the end of April. We picked up Betty from the State Fair April 8th, and Andy figured out how to dewinterize. The cool rainy weather didn't stop us from enjoying a nice first camping weekend together. After doing a bit of research on making our own awning, I ordered a tarp (10' x 15'), 10' of 5/16" keder rail rope and 4 nice telescoping tarp poles. I sewed the rail rope to the tarp, and we have a nice awning for about $120 in materials. Menu hits were the two cocktails from the Vikre camping cocktail cookbook Meg got me for Christmas (maple blueberry reduction with bourbon, and greyhounds), woofem's with chocolate pudding (made with crescent roll dough instead of biscuit, which worked better and resulted in a thinner-walled cup), and a potato and sausage hash on Sunday morning (cooked in the new 12" cast iron skillet Joe gave us, with a lid on part time to soften the potatoes). On Saturday night I cooked a chocolate cake over the campfire and our chicken and parsnip stew in honor of Andy's birthday. The other event of note was when Andy fell in the river while crossing the step stones, getting completely soaked.

Espresso and banana bread break

Check out the new awning

Whitewater State Park, April 29-May 1

We came back to Whitewater for a second weekend in a row so Andy could be in a fly fishing class from 5-7 PM both Fri and Sat. The weather was pretty gross all weekend. Gray, cold and misty, except the prolonged times in which it was real rain, such as the entire Sat fishing class. We cooked dinners in the camper, brats and beans Friday night and chicken fajitas Sat night. On Sat we hiked a bit at nearby Carley state park- there were a couple of crossings over the river, and the river was so high we had to find a detour to bypass one that was submerged, adding 30 min to the hike. We were tired of the weather, so on Sat afternoon we went to the Whitewater winery and each enjoyed a flight. Their Driftless white wine is actually really good, so I bought a bottle to bring home. Sat night, the cup holder adhesive in Betty gave way, dumping a cup of red wine into our sheets and memory foam mattress. Andy came back absolutely soaked, and we just threw his wet clothes in the bathroom. We left about 9:30 Sunday morning, after seeing the weather was going to stay awful. We stopped at Cabela's in Owatonna, where dad dropped some serious $ on new fly fishing gear (he ended up returing the rod a couple months later, realizing he could use his existing one). At least it's a nice hobby. More clean up than usual after this soggy weekend.

Fri night fishing class, they went to the river for Sat night

Hiking at Carley state park

Whitewater Winery- Better than sitting in the rain

Camper Stolen- May 21, 2022 

At 5 AM on a Saturday morning, I awoke to a scraping sound right by our garage and ran to the window only to find that the camper was gone, having been dragged by its chains, with the tungue jack down, across the neighbor's lawn. We immediately called the police, and they found it upside down less than a mile away. It was stolen with a stolen truck, so the likelihood of catching the thief is low. This set off a 2 month process with the insurance company (Horace Mann) to get the right expert to determine if it was totaled (it was) and ultimately reimburse us for essentially replacement value. Only 10 months old, and had been used only 5 times.

Such a sad sight

After the tow truck righted it

New T@B

There was a shorter queue for T@Bs right now than there was in 2020-21, and we were able to order then pick up a 2023 on Aug 20, in time to keep our Labor Day booking at Lake Vermilion. We needed to buy a few items to replace those lost or destroyed in the theft, and added enhanced security measures, but we were pretty ready to go. We've named it Horace, in honor of our insurance.

Bringing the new one home

Lake Vermilion State Park- Sep 2-5

With traffic and a couple of stops it took us 6 hours to get there, but the new campground is lovely. We also visited Ely, Tower, had a great BBQ lunch at Neighbor's outside of Tower and did a self-guided surface tour of Soudan mine. Andy brought the kayak and enjoyed some fishing.

Lopjoy for supper

Flandrau State Park and Oktoberfest, Oct 7-9

New Ulm is an easy 90 minutes away. We left Harriet with Will because we knew we were going to New Ulm's downtown Oktoberfest and didn't want to leave her untended for hours. We stopped for a German dinner at Turner Hall (sauerkraut soup!), then made it to the state park, which is IN the town of New Ulm, and clearly a long-standing one, filled with great CCC structures. We booked a few weeks ago, so had a spot with no electricity. Temperatures dropped into Sat morning, so they were in the low 30s, but we were comfortable with our furnace on. As the sun rose on Sat morning, a remarkable thing happened- as the frozen leaves started to warm a bit, they started dropping en masse and we heard them plinking on our roof like rain and watched out the windows at the yellow leaf drizzle. It was mesmerizing. After a blueberry pancake and Spam breakfast, we headed into New Ulm. A quick stop at the tiny farmer's market, the 11 AM parade (Andy accepted a shot of sauerkraut), a craft fair, beer garden with bands, we bought ourselves German wool alpine hats from Guten Tag Haus, watched the sauerkraut-eating contest, ate a German lunch from food trucks, then drove to the Morgan Creek Winery where I had a flight of bad Minnesota wines (but the views sitting outside were lovely) and then we went to Schell's brewery for beers, then we went back downtown for a soft pretzel (because they were out at Schell's). Then we went back to camp with the intent of cooking dinner, but we just couldn't get motivated, and besides, there was one more German restaurant we'd been wanting to try, so back downtown to have dinner at Kaiserhoff. My chicken spaetzel soup and Ray's salad was just the thing, and Andy had more sausages, German potato salad and sauerkraut (of course), plus apple strudel. We had a quick breakfast Sunday (more Spam for Andy) and left camp about 9 to get back home and help Will move into his first apartment.

Fri dinner at Turner Hall

A cold breakfast

Sauerkraut shot at parade

New hats, and I'm enjoying a Schell's sangria beer

Lunch

Setting up sauerkraut eating contest

Morgan Creek- not-so-great MN wines, lovely setting

A quick hike in Flandrau before heading back for dinner

Dinner at Kaiserhoff

Later that day, the hitch sees more action for moving Will

We wanted to bring the camper back to Elk River RV for a few things before we store it Oct 30 (fan handle broke off, bathroom door opens and flops around during travel, panel behind toilet is loose) but they don't have any appointments, so I guess we'll have to manage those in the spring.