Minnesota Vacation - 2015

Day 3

We got up this morning in Osceola, Iowa and first things first, took the dog out. It was overcast, a little chilly, and very windy. It looked like we had gotten a very small amount of rain overnight by the dirty water spots on the windshield. We loaded up the car and headed out. We went back to the casino we visited last night, but this time only for the breakfast buffet...no gambling. Too early for that. The buffet was fair at best, but inexpensive. One weird item they had was a breakfast egg roll. Never seen that before, and it had no real flavor. I'm not even sure what was in it. One bite was enough.

We left and headed north once again and hit Des Moines about 44 miles later. We stopped in Ames, Iowa a little north of Des Moines and filled up. With a clean windshield and purchased snacks, as well as a bottle of water for the dog, we're off.

We hit some freeway construction on I-35, but no backups. Not surprising on a Sunday. We stopped again just before the Minnesota border at the last rest area in Iowa. Potty breaks for everyone, and once again, we're off.

It's always exciting to cross into Minnesota as we realize we have finally made it after three days of driving. We exit in Owatanna and head west on Hwy 14 towards Mankato and eventually New Ulm. After a total of 1286 miles and about 22 hours driving time, we arrive right on schedule at 3pm at Lawrence's brother's home out in the country amongst the corn fields. It's a big, beautiful multi-level place with a basement, which is where we stay. The basement has its own entrance doors leading out to the backyard and the lake and river flowing by. It's not what you would think of as a regular, dark, closed-in basement. It's really nice.

Lawrence's family from all over the area started arriving and there were lots of hugs and shaking of hands since we haven't been here in four years. Lots of catching up to do, and we did. We were sitting on the back patio watching a large, dark thunderstorm move our way, and when it arrived the temperature dropped very quickly into the low 60's with strong winds and heavy rain. We watched the three horses run from grazing towards the barn for protection. The numerous ducks wandering the property were fine in the rain.

It soon became dinner time, and for some reason I started to get an upset tummy. Bad enough that I excused myself to the basement to lie down for a while as others ate dinner upstairs. They had grilled German bratwursts, burgers, potato salad and watermelon. It must have been the breakfast buffet that didn't agree with me. Too much grease and that breakfast egg roll. I took some Tums and the tummy felt better soon, but I still wasn't able to eat much until hours later when I heat up a couple of small burger patties and enjoyed those.

Now it's getting late and I'm getting tired. It's still chilly outside and we need jackets. It's supposed to get into the 50's tonight, something I'm not used to this time of year in Texas. So far the only plans we have are this Thursday were going to an old fashioned ice cream social at a local church, and we'll do bingo at the casino one night this week, and this weekend we may go to Minneapolis to visit more family and stay the night with them. Other than that, we're here to just relax and unwind, and so far, we're off to a good start.