Our decision to leave on Memorial Day or the day after was based on the weather. We decided to follow a storm on Tuesday instead of arriving in the middle of one on Monday. Our timing was such that we had to stop at a rest area for about an hour to allow a storm to pass through ahead of us. When we arrived at the fairgrounds in Des Moines, we found some very wet campsites. As a matter of fact, the sites were so wet that we ended up parking in the roadway across a couple of sites running our electric and water all the way back into the sites. It was a good thing that there were very few campers in the 600+ sites. Even some of the roads need to be repaired because of water washouts. What a mess.
It was a great stop for a visit to our friends Bob & Rita that we haven’t seen in a few years and we spent a few hours and a nice dinner catching up. Thank you, Bob & Rita, for such a great time. Oh yes, I did try to get out and play some golf but it was so wet they weren’t even letting the golf carts out on the course. That is something I’ve never come across. Another thing we learned that was a bit upsetting, after leaving KC, they experience and EF4 tornado south of the city.
After our 2-night stay in Des Moines, we again headed north for our next stop. This is our reason for heading over to this area of the country. Over the winter I have been in contact with my 3rd cousin William Lyttle. We share a great, great grandfather John Lyttle who with his wife Mary Hughes raised a family in Northern Ireland. We are booked into the Bunker Hills Regional Park in Coon Rapids a township located in northern Minneapolis. And yes, I did get a round of golf in at the Bunker Hills golf course the morning after our arrival.
Bill is residing in a retirement home located in Mounds View and we arrived there Friday night and met with he and his daughters and their husbands. What a wonderful time we had. I love meeting with family and getting to know those I’ve not yet met and be able to add them to our family tree. And hopefully add some stories. My intent is to get our tree filled for any of our future generations who might become interested in it.
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| Lyttles & Coopers |
Here we are, that’s the patriarch of the family, William, in the middle. There are some family members missing, but all in all we were able to get some information to flesh out the family tree. We did stumble upon one fact, that we may have some French Huguenots’ in the family. We will have to investigate further.
We had more visiting to do while we were here in the area. The next day we headed south to visit with Ron & Lynn to see their new digs in Farmington, which is about 50 miles south of us. Of course, we had to stop at a famous yarn shop in the middle of Minneapolis on the way. The new digs were perfect for them, close to medical and with all the features they were looking for. We hope them all good luck with the new home.
Speaking of 50th wedding anniversaries, we headed south again to attend Jerry and D’s. We got there just in time. Wow, do they have a lot of friends. I don’t think they ever got a chance to sit down during the entire 4 hours. What a blast we had with them, it was go, go, go all the time. We left with full tummies and 3 jars of jams, what a time.
Our stop in Illinois had us worried. We had called the campground and they had to go out and check to see if the site they wanted to put us in was dry enough. They told us they would call if it got worse, but for now it was ok. Nothing like worrying about sinking into the mud. When we got there, we were surprised that there was a problem. The campground was on top of a hill. They showed us 3 sites and we chose the best of them which was ok. That night we watched the news as they showed the Mississippi in Davenport, IA out of its banks and covering the railroad ties with just the rails above water. The scary thing was that they were running trains on those tracks. Just another example of the flooding we passed on our travels.
Our luck held because the rain seems to have been put on hold for a few days and the ground is still solid as we pulled out in the morning. Our next stop is to see our friends Mike and Karen in the Benton Harbor area. Yes, we finally made it to Michigan. We stopped at their restaurant on the way in, and had the rig parked across a few spaces out by the road. Then after a delicious lunch, Mike led us to their house where we are going to park for two days.
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| Mike & Karen's Restaurant in Sister Lakes, MI |
Mike has this smoker that you can’t believe, so dinner was some really delicious chicken off the smoker. The smoker automatically feeds wood pellets into the firebox and keeps the temp at a given setting. How cool is that. The next morning, Mike and I went into the restaurant for breakfast and then down to La Porte, IN for a round of Golf where we met up with Steve from the park. For you golfers, the name of the course was Briar Leaf and I would not recommend it, poor layout. Even with the poor layout, we had a good time. Anyway, we had told Mike and Karen that we were going to take them out to dinner for all of the wonderful things they were doing for us. So, Mike decided he was going to treat lunch at the course. He told me he was going to make sure we went to an expensive restaurant. On the way home he asked what I liked to eat. Well, here on the lake, the best meal is Perch. He told me he knows the best place. You got it; he opened his restaurant for us to eat what was undoubtedly the best Perch / Bluegill dinner we have ever had. We owe Mike & Karen big time!
Well here it is June 8th and we are pulling into Fisherman’s Landing Campground. We are back in our old site #44 and we have some friends we made last year who moved in next to us. We also have Al & Mary our good friends from Texas here as well. Life is good.
We will be here until the middle of July. So, the blog will probably start again toward the end of July. I hope you are enjoying my rambling.
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