Friday, December 26, 2014

A Month in Minneapolis ... Twin Cities Time!

Dakotah Meadows Campground in Prior Lake, MN
   
      We stayed at Dakotah Meadows RV Park at the Mystic Lake Casino on the southern edge of the Twin Cities in Prior Lake, Minnesota from July 7 until August 12.  George lived here for many years and had lots of business to attend to as well as lots of family to visit.

George's two beautiful daughters, Patti and Kathy, are happy to see us!

      The casino has lots of activities and concerts going on.  We missed most of the events, with the exception of the Rib Fest, as we were quite busy working, getting further settled into the Camelot, attending to some maintenance issues, and spending time with family.

Fun evening including dinner at Mystic Lake Steak House with the Lukeharts, Lee and Janet

      They say that Minnesota has two seasons -- winter and road construction!  With family in every direction, we found detours on top of detours and we were apologetically calling in late for several occasions.

Remembering Mary Lou, George's wife of forty years, at the tree planted in her memory in French Regional Park
Spencer found this teeny-tiny frog

      Friends and full-timers, Lee and Janet Lukehart, were also in the park, and we greatly enjoyed spending time together.  Lee has assisted the RV Driving School so much with improvements to our database.  We enjoyed a fantastic dinner at the steak house inside casino (after learning it would be an hour and a half to two hours' wait for the seafood buffet) before their departure.

     George's former classmate, Greg Walsh, and his wife, Kathleen came out for a visit, and we met George's sisters and brother-in-law for dinner as well.

      Tom's Mobile RV Service technicians came out to the park and assisted with some of our issues -- rewiring the driver's seat chair so we could turn it around, reattached a loose air intake tube in the engine compartment, and made some observations for further needed repairs.  George replaced two chassis batteries to get our engine started and will probably replace more later.


Dinner hosted by George's in-laws, John and Judy Rys, with Jim and Joanne Spevacek

George treated by Lindsay at ModernPoint Acupuncture 


      We contacted a couple of mattress companies to help us decide how to rectify the excess length which prohibits us from pulling in the rear slides without raising the storage compartment door beneath it first.  Valerie never was able to find a satisfactory number on the Select Comfort, so we continue to look for a good permanent remedy to this annoying obstacle.

      Fleetwood RV in Decatur, Indiana has us scheduled for the larger service items following the RV Dreams Educational Rally in Goshen, which we are eagerly anticipating http://www.rv-dreams.com/rally2.html.  Valerie is currently scheduling appointments for private lessons in the area for early to late September.

      We will post some photos of our month-long stay here with captions, but will not bore you with the details, especially since we have lots of catching up to do on this and Valerie's other blog.  Our next stop is Des Moines, where George agreed to meet a newbie (novice RVer) at the dealership, where the timing just happened to be right, as we planned to drop south into Kansas City.

Grandson, Max, entertained us in his role as Danny Zuko at the Ames Center in a production of Grease

We enjoyed Grease so much we returned for a second night to the Play's the Thing Productions' performance
Dinner with the family
Rainy day walk across the bridge to the Polish Festival
The pedal pub looks like fun


Kathy and Patti looking for Uncle John

Kids performing 'the Chicken Dance'

St. Mark's Catholic Church in Shakopee
Rib Fest 2014
Rainbow over the Camelot
Family Camping Weekend
Grand-dogs Tucker and Sailor are loving it!
Tucker and Pippa have an occasional friendly dispute
Birthday boy all smiles after the McCartney concert

Sunset at Mystic Lake and the Dakotah Meadows Campground