2019 Summer Trip

Bismarck ND - September 4-6  Wednesday-Friday Wednesday  - Neighbors  from our street in Arizona live here in Bismarck.  After we were set up at the Bismarck KOA we headed to dinner with Mark and Penny at their home. The salmon dinner was delicious, the company great, and it was a very relaxing evening catching up since we had seen them last April in Arizona.  They swear they are staying longer in AZ this year since the spring was still extremely cold in North Dakota this year when they went back.  Originally we had planned to go to the famous Medora Musical on Saturday but since the weather is predicted to be rainy Mark changed our tickets to tomorrow evening.  Thursday  - Today was filled as  we tried to get in as much sightseeing as we could before going west to Medora later this afternoon.  We hit:  Farmers markets at K-mart, and the Capitol building (aka: skyscraper on the prairie) where they were having a Dakota Days display (things made or grown in the Dakotas).  We

Labor Day Weekend, August 30-Sept 1 Erskine, Minnesota The short drive (81 miles),  to visit  our friends Tony and Julie, passed quickly and was typical Northern Minnesota, surrounded by state and national forests, Mississippi headwaters regions, and Native Reservations (White Earth, Red Lake, Leech Lake).  Tony and Julie have a beautiful house on Union Lake and after a bit of expert driving by the guys we were  able to snuggle  both of our campers in their  driveway for the weekend.   We slept in  our own beds but it was nice to be able to spread out and hang out with them.  It is easy to see why they love coming back to Minnesota for the summers to escape the Arizona heat but they have had a lot of cool rainy weather this summer.  For the next three days we had so much fun that we are wondering when we might be able to  visit again.  We toured Union Lake by boat,  huddled under blankets when we were going into the wind.  Stops at a couple of campgrounds resulted in a grea