Just in case you thought we spent all our time hiking to waterfalls and hanging out on amazing beaches, I thought I would share some of our “real” life with you.
Breakfast dishes & an empty cupboard in attempt to fix the rattling pipes. Doesn’t get much more real than this.
We’re currently at a small Army Corps of Engineers campground about an hour south of Grand Rapids, MN. We ended up here on Tuesday afternoon after an epic dirt road construction detour took us 40 minutes in the wrong direction. Instead of driving back to the forest service campground on Birch lake where we planned on spending a few quiet nights, we decided to keep driving and ended up here. It worked out well in the end because now we’re only 3 hours from the Twin Cities where we have an exciting weekend planned with a concert at the zoo, a baseball game, a dinner out and shopping for a new computer- yay!
Bedroom window view
It’s a pretty nice campground located on the outlet of Big Sandy Lake. There’s two distinct sections of campsites separated by a dam where way back in the late 1800s a lock was in operation to let boat traffic through. Today the lock house is a museum of sorts with native american artifacts and interesting plaques about the history of the dam.
Lots of history around here
We choose a spot on the south side of the dam where the sites are squeezed into a narrow strip of land with water on either side. The sites are really close together, but since there’s only one other camper over here we decided to go for it. The campground is not in tip top shape due to the flooding in late June. At first glance it looked like we had our own dock. But upon closer inspection it appears that the flooding did away with the most important part.
Our very own dock- or not
Oh well, we probably wouldn’t have gone in the water anyway because frankly…it was kind of yucky. There’s lots of green slime everywhere and signs on the beach saying no swimming because they treated the water with some sort of chemical. Poor Phineas will have to stay dry for the next few days. The sites along the water are pretty small (probably why all the other RVs are in the north section of the campground), but we didn’t let that deter us and here we are wedged in between two trees. Tim has become fearless when it comes to backing and now there’s nowhere we can’t go!
A tight squeeze
The mosquitoes are positively ferocious around here. Even a few minutes outside is risk to life and limb. Look closely at this photo and you can see about 20 mosquitoes hanging on the outside of the screen trying to get at us -yikes!
haha…you can’t get us
We layered on the bug spray and tried to go for a walk on the nature trail, but it was closed due to flooding. No swimming and no hiking- I guess it’s inside projects for us.
Tim working on an outside lighting project
sewing project #1
Fresh pineapple!
Pipe insulation to quiet our rattling pipes. It kind of worked, the next step is a new water pump.
Smoothie making. This one is pineapple, kiwi, banana!
The truck tailgate makes a good workbench
Raincoat hanging on the fridge. Hmm… we’ll have to find a better place for this.
Newly installed light in our clothes wardrobe
There you are…a taste of our real life. Because even full time travelers need to have a few down days.
Phineas tucked into his “safe” spot next to our bed
