Thursday is my Friday!

 Inside the tent. This is how dark it gets! I do see some light when the sun comes up, but not much its just a lighter black! 

I got up with the sun at 7am this morning. I waited till it was light out before putting the tent away. I got it all done in about 30-35 minutes without any help. It's all inside the house till this afternoon when we load up and go! 

We decided to leave tonight and stay a night at a hotel in Duluth, so we will only have a 2 hour drive to our camping location Friday. I'm sure Thursday night we will stop to have dinner in Moose lake at Doc's. Its their BBQ feast night. 

We plan to cook most if not all meals since there aren't many restaurants in the area where we will be camping or they close early! I'm okay with cooking too! We will just find a spot by the lake and cook our food or at the camp ground. It will be crowded with other campers etc, so not sure how much we will hang out there?? 

I just need to get through today's work- morning and then we are off! 

I sent out Logan's care package to college yesterday. I made banana and pumpkin bread and added in candy, nuts and gum. I should have included beef jerky, but Target had small packages for $12, when I can get a large amount for the same price at Costco. I did find a pair of light gray joggers for Logan that I will send for his b-day along with other stuff.  He won't be home till T-day, so won't be home to celebrate his b-day. I'll have to send some mini bunt b-day cakes too. 

Fall baking

 I baked up a storm yesterday! Pumpkin pecan bread

Carmel rolls

And Banana bread

I dropped off bread and some caramel rolls to neighbor friends and then 

am mailing Logan a care package at college. 

This mornings temperature! I was nice and toasty in the tent. I had both heaters working and then got too hot, so I only had one running all night. Kept it at around 62+F 

This morning before getting out of bed, I plugged in both heaters and got it up to 72+F. Felt great! Glad I have pre-tested all option of tarp, heaters and extension cords before our trip to the North shore this weekend. It's only getting to the low 40's at night, so not as cold. We are prepared!! 

I'd love to go to Sauk lake, but we don't have electricity yet. So unless its at least 55+F at night, we won't go and 70+ during the day. 

I'm also watching Hurricane Ian, now at cat 5!! Kendra's grandparents are in Sarasota exactly where its heading with up to 2 ft of rain and ocean surge/King tides. They are staying put during the storm only 20 minutes from the ocean! Yikes. Also have tornado's and most likely will have zero power. They should get out of there!! Yikes!!

Sweater weather, everything pumpkin

 I saw these pumpkin scones with maple frosting (cream cheese frosting might be even better!!). Looked soo good! 

Here is the recipie

I'll defiantly have to bake more today. I have plans to make more pumpkin bread and maybe crackers. Might have to add these scones too. I should stop at the dollar store and pick up some bags to deliver some treats to the neighbors. I'll have to add that to my todo list! Maybe cute tags too and ribbon. 

I am determined to figure out this tent/heater situation. Yesterday, I added more tarp to the top of the tent to keep in more heat from escaping out the top of the tent screen. I also brought out the big heater, but now I need 2 extension cords because it's too much power from just one cord. The cord felt hot to the touch so I unplugged all but one small heater. The tent was still 10 degrees warmer inside than out, but I'd like the tent to be at least 70+F, not 60 or 58*F. So another test of the tent heater situation tonight! Plus, I noticed that the corner of the tent where the heater is located the tarp wasn't covering it up, so a lot of heat could escape. I fixed that this morning too. 

I booked our camping reservations for this weekend. Friday- Sunday. It will be a really quick weekend up north but should be super pretty with fall colors. We always miss the full colors going in October instead of September. Fingers crossed we will see red maple trees and it won't be all done. We grabbed the last camping spot so that was really good! Yikes!! This is the last planned trip of the season. I'd still like to go somewhere the next weekend till at least the end of October. As long as we can find tent sites with electric we will go. Most campsites close in MN and around us Mid October, so it will be all hip camps from here out! I'm always ready to travel!! Time to go new places too. 

New Ulm Weekend

 2nd year going to New Ulm in the fall. It was a beautiful fall weekend in the 70's with it getting down to 58*F at night. Perfect camping weather too. 

We decided to just choose our campsite once we arrived. There was 1 electric sight left if we wanted to plug in our heater. Since that was 99% RV's we opted for the rustic camping area that only had about 5 other campers all spread out. We picked I think campsite #83? Which wasn't very private, but had a good grass area and not too many trees, hoping for sunshine in the morning, which we didn't get. It was fine because we just went to grab breakfast at Mc'ds. 

The campsite for 1 night was $22 total without any extra charges. Nice and cheap for the night and in town at Flandrau State park. 

While we weren't in New Ulm during Octoberfest,  we didn't have the crowds either, The no-see-um bugs were out in full force, so we didn't enjoy that part. 

Morgan creek winery. They too had lots of bugs from harvesting the grapes. So we drank our bottle of wine, had the wood fire pizza and left asap! Excellent wine!!!

The pizza was sooo good too. Of course we were starving! 

Off to Schell's brewery for a drink and a shuttle ride. 

Finally got to see a peacock at the brewery. 

Looking a little German. Steve is 50% Swedish and 50% French, I'm pretty much 100% German mixed with 10% European mutt. 

Burgers for dinner and a fire back at the campsite. We actually purchased wood to burn! 

Stopped at Schell's new Distillery. They had a band (on break) and expensive small drinks at $10 each so we skipped that and left. 

A very pretty old building. 

Walking around New Ulm down town. 

Stopped 20 minutes south of New Ulm at this brewery Lost Sanity. Met the owners and had one drink. 

This guy deserves a thump for draining his gray water all over the streets. You're supposed to dump them at a designated area for free. Nope, not this guy, he let it drain all over the road on the way out of the camp ground. It's against the law. So of course, I took photos of his license plate, and emailed the park. Hope the person is fined and doesn't do that again. It pollutes and wrecks habitat in the park, plus is just gross! Imagine if everyone did that! We'd have poop and pee all over the roads. 

On the drive home, we stopped in Mankato to drive through the Buffalo. 

Right up next to the road. 

Stopped in Jordan and the biggest candy shop and bought apples and squash for a good price. 

I've always wanted to stop at this historical museum in St. Peters. Of course, it was closed on Sunday! grrr...some day we'll be able to check it out. 

Celina and Don went to the Vikings Game, had great seats, 23 or 26th row! Vikings won and Celina scored a goal at her fun soccer game this Sunday. Win/win!!

Next weekend, we are going to the North Shore, Lax lake for a biking/fall colors weekend. Must wear orange when in the woods!! Do I even have orange? Not sure?? Or bright yellow?? 

First day of Autumn

 The trees are starting to turn colors. Mostly the back yard trees are getting more yellow. It's officially the first day of Autumn. 69*F for the high today and 49+F for the low. 

Another night out in the tent and it was a bit chilly 47*F by 6am, but I was nice and warm under all the blankets. The hardest part of tent sleeping is getting out of the covers in the morning. Otherwise, I'm nice and toasty. I might add the heater tonight, or not? Friday its supposed to rain at 10am. I'll most likely put the tent away so I don't have to deal with a wet floor tent. Seems water always finds a way under and stays wet, making the tent musty smelling. I'm sure after the weekend away camping, I will put the tent back up. Just have to sleep inside Friday night. Not sure I really want to do that, but what's one night? 

I did not know!~

 I didn't know Home Depot also has 11% off! You go on line and enter your receipt info and they send you a gift card or e-rebate. I had 3 receipts to enter, so should be getting some gift cards in a few weeks. Nice! 

The weekend weather. Looks nice on Saturday 71*F and Sunday a bit cooler. Friday since we might get rain we plan to leave for our mini vacation early Saturday morning. I'll probably just pack the car up Friday after work so it's all ready to go. We are not staying at a Hipcamp since there aren't any in the New Ulm area. Just at the state park, which is cheap, I think $17 per night?? We pay any where from $50 to $30 a night to Hipcamp which is still cheap! We save our money for going out to eat, wineries and breweries or activities. 

Saw a bunch of Turkeys today in Prior Lake. I got this off my snap chat. 

87*F today and its September 20th!!

 We are going to have a hot 87*F summer like day! Night time temps are also PERFECT 65+F!!

It sure cools off on Wednesday, but I'm not going to think about that till tomorrow!! I'll just enjoy today and jet skiing on the river this afternoon. 

I tried to get a cute picture of Zoey in front of all the wild flowers. She was too busy panting to care! 

Steve and I got in a 2+ mile walk around the lakes at the local park with Zoey. She was so excited to go for a walk. She did pick up a few burs on her ears, so that's going to be fun getting them out. She definitely needs a trim, so I've got that on my todo list for Wednesday!

We are going to have a nice 70+F weekend weather, so I'm trying to figure out where to go? Most likely south since North is going to rain and be colder! I really don't want to stay home so I need to figure this out! I'll be working on that tomorrow. 

We had good news and bad news yesterday. We don't have to pay $500 to insurance since Steve's truck was not damaged when backing into the parked car. Bad news, we have to pay $3K for our neighborhood  road. We either pay in full, no interest charged or can pay over 5 years at 4% interest. Of course the full payment will be due at Christmas time. Great! We'll probably opt for the 5 years or maybe pay it off sooner but will make payments till at least summer. I just hate paying $3K all at once even if we would save 4%. Its only $60 a month which is a lot easier to stomach! 

I still haven't checked out the new paths around the area to bike. Waiting for my neighbor friend to join me with her e-bike. She wasn't feeling well yesterday so I just did the 10 mile loop by myself. 

I'm still sleeping in the tent in our back yard at night. Love the cool air and being under covers. Last night was a bit on the warmer side 65+F, so I had the fan on too. I sleep much better outside with Zoey. I've heard owls, Coyotes howl, raccoons and birds with lots of crickets. Love animal sounds as long as they are friendly. Thankfully we have a fence so no Coyotes will be outside my tent! 

Weekend with goats!

We spent the weekend camping with goats or at a Hipcamp with goats in Preston, MN

This guy wanted extra attention! 

 

All the baby goats

The grown up goats! We learned so much about goats! 

We had to do some 4 wheeling to get through their woods on the ATV trails to get to our campsite. 

They had 2 campsites and a cabin in the woods. All very spaced out! I was a little concerned about the falling black walnuts hitting my car. They were coming down every where and it was loud and they are BIG! Like base ball sized! We did find an okay spot to park that wasn't under one of those trees. We still covered the car with the inner tubes, extra air mattress and sleeping bags just in case. I didn't want to wake up to dents all over my car! 

We did some biking 10 miles along a new to us section of the trail. No electric bike this time, but it sure would have been nice to bike farther with it! We noticed more people had electric bikes then not! I think Steve is getting more and more convinced to just get one! Sure it's not a lot of exercise, but you can see so much more of the trails! 

Stopped at the winery and were all tasty. This place was called Sugar Hills. Very good wine and just opened 3 years ago so were still in the process of building a tasting room. 

Friday night we always go to the local brewery in Fountain and have pizza. This time a band was also playing and we shared a slice of strawberry rhubarb home made pie. 

The hip camp also had ducks and chickens. 

We stopped at ZZ tap in Campton. Had to get a cheap $2.50 beer and of course get some photos! 

Most delicious item, pork tenderloin fried with sweet soy/garlic sauce! 

Our hip camp map with all the trails and camp sites. I think we were in site #1 and 3 was the cabin. 

Our tent set up in the woods. There was dirt all around us, so glad I had all the carpets! It also didn't rain or things could have gotten muddy!!

Prime rib dinner we were waiting for at the Branding Iron restaurant in Preston. Sooo good! We shared a meal since we had an appetizer at another place before dinner. 

Friday!

 TGIF...

Yes, it's Friday! I have to work for a bit this morning and then packing up the car for the weekend, heading south to Lanesboro/Preston area for biking and camping. 

So many bills are due next week and I just paid mortgage. Good thing its a busy work week to make some $$$$. If only we could keep all the money and not have to spend it on bills, only on fun stuff. 

I have been trying to get motivated to workout again. Just riding my bike after work, planks, weights etc.. I don't seem to have my diet or working out figured out. It used to be so easy. Just got in the habit and just did it without thinking too much. I actually enjoyed it 99% of the time. I just need to do a little every day and not give up. I always do feel better for just getting outside. I just need to remember that and just go! Just do 1 mile or one quick loop and I can always add more..