Full Circle and a Fork

The sun hiding behind the clouds after a rainy morning.

It's been more than two weeks since my last post, but not much has happened and so there hasn't been too much to write about. It's been a mostly quiet and restful period as we wind up our first year of full-time RV traveling right back where we started from in the Twin Cities (MN) area.

Parked beside the pond at Joel & Beth's

And what about this spring weather?! Mark and I left hot Mississippi in May and headed north, expecting to find cooler weather. For the most part, that didn't happen.The heat followed us up through Missouri and Illinois, and right into Minnesota, which generally has fairly mild weather in June. Of course we've had some cool spells too, but more hot ones than we counted on. We're still having chronic problems with our basement air conditioner. Only one of the condensers feels like working, and so the roof cooler has been our primary. Thank goodness we have that one!

Our first stop in Minnesota was Isanti where we spent a little more than a week on my nephew's property. Bless their hearts! In addition to a constant supply of water, they gave us a power cord with 20 amps so we didn't have to run our generator once. And what a gorgeous view! A public Thank You, Joel and Beth, for your wonderful hospitality!

Washington Lake Campground

This week we're in the Mankato/St. Peter/Cleveland(MN) area, camping in a little hole-in-the-wall park by Lake Washington, close to where Mark's daughter, Maegan, and her family reside. This park has more or less nothing to offer except a parking space with 30 amp electric. None of the spots have sewer, and none of the spots have their own water supply. Fortunately, we are close enough to one of the water spigots to run our hose. More than ever before, we are learning the art of water conservation. The park's amenities consist of two playgrounds for children, a building with toilets and showers, and a dump station on the way out. We wash dishes once a day: the wash water goes down the drain and into our grey water tank, the rinse water goes on the lawn. Showers are taken in the campground shower facility. Anytime we need to run the water -- to rinse veggies or dishes,etc. -- we collect it in a basin and toss it outside. Even still, the grey water tank filled up at the end of the first week and we had to close everything up and drive over to the dump station yesterday to empty it. We shouldn't have to do that again until we leave.

Yesterday, the park was practically full...Father's Day campers, you know. Today they've all gone home and it is nearly empty again.

Mark & Maegan on the back patio (Brian is lurking
in the background)...and the fly-eating dog, Gus.

So now that we've come full circle, what next? You know that wonderful passage of scripture:  "Man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his paths" (Proverbs 16:9 slightly paraphrased)? This past week we spent a good deal of time and energy making our plans for our next two months of travel. In the meantime, Mark has been toying with the idea of going back to work for a little while to build up our repair--I mean our fun money supply. He put feelers out to his old employer, Modus, a few weeks ago, and last week sent them an updated resume. Late last week he got a call. It sounds like he could very well be getting a six-month work contract somewhere. And that somewhere just might be Minneapolis. His dream job would be in Phoenix, Arizona (no surprise to anyone who knows Mark), but we're not holding our breath. In any case, we're sitting at a fork in the road and hoping to find out next week which direction we'll be taking. I'll update our itinerary once we know.

Taking life one day at a time and trusting God for the important stuff...that's really all we can do, no matter where we are in life, right? When you think of us, please keep us in your prayers.

In any case, we're hanging around here until the end of June. We have places to go and people to see.