The flurry of saying goodbye

It's been busy days here in
Lake Ham-a-lot as we wrap up
our stay at Ham Lake Campground.

Now that I'm much older things seem to take a lot longer.

 

Wednesday night we went with the family to Cossettas in St Paul, an Italian deli-style restaurant for my birthday celebration.






Thursday we got a lot of things taken down and put away in preparation for departure.  Tables and Chairs were washed and packed in the back of the car, bird feeders taken down, that kind of thing.  By the time we were done with this I had another load ready for Good Will of things that just weren't working out so well.  There's no keeping anything that doesn't work.  That evening we went with Ted and the girls to a Saints game including a tailgater supper.

 

The hardest part was taking down Big Blue, our new EZ-Twist screen tent. 

It's massive and pops up very nicely, but taking it down required watching the video two or three times before we were able to wrestle it into its carrying bag.

Friday night was our date night with our daughter and son-in-law.  We started out with supper at Costa's, a Greek restaurant and then proceeded to our surprise outing.

The surprise was an evening of entertainment at a comedy improv club where we had a high table and chairs and enjoyed three hours of comedy.  It felt so good to laugh that hard.  It's unusual to do anything without the grandkids with, so this felt really special.


Saturday night we went over to the house to have supper with our family and friends of theirs (and ours) with their children.  Oh yeah, and the dogs.

There was Zeke the Wonderdog (our granddog) and his cousin, Duke who they are babysitting right now.  Then the family friends came with their two daughters and their dog, yet another golden retriever.

So we had six adults, four girls, three dogs and then another friend of theirs showed up with her son.  No more dogs though.  It was a big busy happy gathering.

Today on Sunday we will catch up on paperwork, laundry, cleaning and prepare for departure.  We'll go over for supper again tonight but then bring the grandkids home with us to be ready to take off in the morning for our first stop on the way to Canada...Gooseberry Falls.

It's been a lot of fun staying here for two months, but we're both getting itchy to leave.  We've been wanting to take the kids with us for a short adventure for some time to show them how the RV lifestyle works.

They've been warned about having to put things back right away as there just isn't a lot of leeway in a tiny area for stuff to sit around.  We'll show them the ins and outs of how you have to deal with water and sewer, packing up in preparation to roll and following the maps to know where we are.

Baxter (may here memory be for a blessing) playing cribbage with us...
she is not happy at all with the hand she has been dealt

The evenings will end with three games of cribbage, with Left Brain and I switching off each night to partner with a different girl.  The loser of that night's game is responsible for doing dishes the next day.  It keeps it interesting and will help to get those minds sharpened up for returning to school when they get back.  Now that Baxter is gone, I guess we'll need to teach George and Gracie to play.

Long Live the Queen of Hitch-Itch