Thursday, June 12, 2014 It was a warm, sunny morning when we got up to make ready for our drive to Albert Lea, MN today. We completed our usual tasks in our morning routine and pulled out of the campground at 8:40. We had no wind in town, but out on the Interstate we felt the effects of it a little more. The drive today took us through the rolling hills and farmlands of central WI.
It was so nice to do this drive again with some of the most beautiful scenery in the state.
The weather forecast today told us we would encounter a cold front that is marching east from South Dakota. Yesterday it had the potential of producing strong winds and storms. We were hoping to get to our campground before running into any bad weather. One thing we noticed since being on the WI highways is all the dead deer along the side of the road. We never see that in Florida. As a former deer hunter, Bob reminded me that the deer are quite active in June and again during the rut in November, hence so many road kills. The countryside became hillier as we moved west toward the Mississippi River.
We crossed the river around 11:30 and ran into some construction on the bridge. We could see the water moving swiftly over the dam there.
Once we were over the bridge, we crossed into Minnesota.
The highway paralleled the river for a ways and we made the slow climb up to the top of the bluff. It was quite windy up on the top of the bluff, but the sun was out and there was no storm front in sight. The crosswind really did a number on the trailer, but Bob did a great job of driving. Auggie wasn’t bothered by the trailer moving around in the wind. He did what he does best.
We spotted a farmer with his team of four Belgian work horses plowing his field. We must be in Amish Country!
We came across a whole field of wind generators spinning in an open corridor on the bluff. It was the perfect spot to catch the wind!
We finally reached our campground at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds in Albert Lea, MN at 2:00.
They escorted us to our site and we proceeded to set up camp.
We were one of only three other campers there. It was grassy, shady, with plenty of room for Auggie to run. He loved exploring the area and we took him for a run. We relaxed a little and Bob cooked the brats on the grill for dinner. We had a delicious dinner of brats, potato salad, and brownies. All of my favorites! The wind howled all afternoon, but died off later in the evening. We took Auggie for his evening walk around the fairgrounds to check things out. We’ll sleep well tonight!
