Road tripping

 The long 4th of July weekend is over.  I’m so sad. I really enjoyed my 4 day mini vacation.  Let’s see what did I do all weekend?  I spent quite a bit of time in the car, hence the “road tripping” title.  After work Wednesday we got an oil change…exciting I know!  Then we went for a little ride around Chaska, Carver and Jordan.  I wanted to see if the Minnesota Valley SRA campground was open.  We had quite a bit of rain a while back and the river was near flooding in Shakopee so I thought it might affect the campground. Surprisingly, it is closed for the season.  I’m not sure why and the DNR website doesn’t say why.

Thursday we went to Boston Market for lunch and took it to the local park and had a picnic. Not your typically picnic fare but it was cheap (50% off family meals). There is a really nice park by our Boston Market.  We walked around the park and enjoyed the warm air.  After that, I had to go to the 4th of July Celebration in Eden Prairie.  We played our annual concert. Normally we leave afterwards but my friend, Jenny, convinced us to stay for the fireworks.  So we stuck around and watch her kids play in the new playground in the park.  The fireworks were not bad, the show last about 25 minutes.  After fireworks there was a massive traffic jam and it took us almost an hour to get home.

Friday morning we went to the DMV at the courthouse (and stood in a very long line) to renew Eric’s driver’s license and to renew the tabs on our car…$332 later we came home with stickers and a piece of paper saying Eric can drive.  Man the State of Minnesota likes their taxes!  

We packed up the car and slowly made our way to Rice Lake State Park in Owatonna.  We definitely didn’t take the most direct route, we went through towns I’ve never been to before. We decided the weather was perfect for camping.  We met DJ and Ethan there.  We walked down to the lake (which they are drawing down :( this summer so no canoeing) and that was about the extent of our hike.  We made burgers on the open fire…I am very impressed at my outdoor cooking skills. And of course the delicious s’ mores later. We didn’t stay up too late which is unusual. Sleeping was very comfortable.  The weather was perfect.  We awoke to the birds chirping and the massive amount of daddy long leg spiders covering our tent. Thankfully they were on the outside! We packed up our site and headed to Mankato.  Danielle asked us to come see her new place.  We went out for lunch and then spent some time at her new apartment. It was nice, the typical starting out apartment.  We left there in time to make it back for 4:30 Mass.  Of course it wouldn’t make sense to take the most direct route so instead we decided to venture into Le Sueur; you know the home of the Jolly Green Giant.  Not really out of our way but it was nice to finally see what the town looks like. After driving to Mankato for over 10 years and seeing the sign for Le Sueur, I finally drove through the town.  It was cute.

Yesterday was a day of relaxation. But it was stinking hot we decided to get wet to cool off. We went to the water park at Valleyfair and hit all the slides, lazy river, raging rapids and of course the wave pool.  We were there about 2 hours.  We were starving afterwards so we went to Eden Prairie to Punch Pizza (delicious!).  After a couple of hours of watching TV, I treated Eric to Dairy Queen.  We got a car wash too and decided to “dry it off” by going for a ride.  Well the ride didn’t start off that great because the concrete on Hwy 169 exploded which put us in a very long line up of cars going very slowly.  Then we drove down to Jim’s Apple Farm for some candy.  I found maltesers…my favorite!   Look a whole box:  

Isn’t it disappointing that is the only picture I took the whole weekend!  And it is blurry! I’m really losing my photography abilities! We took the back roads back home and ran into a thunderstorm. So much for drying off the car.  LOL!

As you can tell the long weekend involved two things, eating and driving.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way!