Better Friends

Over the last two days, we have become better acquainted with the new member of our family, Ness2. She may at times be called Nessie2 or N2, but she is definitely now part of the group. We've done a bit of "washing the bugs off", a bit of "send in the warranty" forms, and some "fine-tuning the controls". We still have a way to go, but we've been taking this opportunity to do the New Motorhome Waltz.

Sunday was a day of rest...sort of. We had been instructed, on pain of starvation, to visit The Wharf restaurant in Cross Lake, MN. Since it's only a 30 minute drive, we headed out. As we got close to the restaurant, we noticed that cars were parked along the side of the road for a quarter mile or so on either side of the restaurant. The parking lot was of course full, and as we drove by, we saw that every table outside was busy and there were people standing outside, waiting for a table. Ok, not going to happen. We love to eat, but not at the price of waiting for hours!

Since we're 80 miles or so south of the headwaters of the Mississippi River, it makes sense that The Great River Road meanders through this area. We've traveled portions of the road, following the Great River as much as we could, but we have not explored around here. Since lunch was out, we hopped on the Great Road and checked out the countryside, finding mile after mile of hardwood forests, with large farms interspersed throughout. This is lovely country, and of course, there is water everywhere.

We finally found a cool restaurant on Gull Lake that caters to drive-up boaters as well as land-based traffic. Ernie's on Gull Lake provided us with a satisfying lunch and a great view of the boats dashing about on this huge lake. Feeling comfortably sleepy, we turned to home with the goal of "taking care of business" in the motorhome. We've made great strides in that direction over the last two days, but now it's time to move on. We've been pleasantly surprised at the quiet, low-density park we're staying in and will recommend The RV Resort Village at The Preserve in the future. If we can remember that long name, of course.

Tomorrow it's off to the busy Twin Cities, but with the anticipation of visiting family members. We also hope to have lunch with a couple that we met in Tucson this last spring. Dave and Sue live in the town of Hastings, just a few miles south near the Wisconsin border. They are good people with a beautiful golden retriever in the family, so we're looking forward to seeing them again.

It's been fun. New adventures tomorrow!