June 1: After a nice trip from Bismarck with many many more views of landscape bordering on Badlands rocks interspersed with big sky fields we arrived in St Cloud, Minnesota. I realized St. Cloud (named after a French saint) was close to Minneapolis (twin cities duh I’m slow) where I had visited when In a leadership course I took. The course included a mentor who was very helpful and a really nice guy. I hoped to connect at the last minute once I realized how close we were but he like me had semi retired and his contact number and email I had was for the old position at Health Partners. Oh well maybe another time.
The St Cloud campground was not so easy to get to using the RV Life GPS that supposedly was made for RVs to avoid low overpasses etc. Well this time it took us through the city at rush hour. Not the first time in traffic for us but in retrospect not necessary. The good news is that it brought us by a Great Clips (my hair was getting to look like the absent minded professor according to Jo) and several dispensaries (our endless quest for pet CBD which seemed to be helping Maddie’s hips and appetite). We checked in and because it was a two day stay we stayed put for the night. The weather being warmer meant no noisy heat pumps or gas furnace. Nice to sleep solidly.
The next day we called around and found a CBD store that sold pet CBD. We picked up the CBD and I got my haircut just down the street. A a nice haircut at that. I did get to talking (bragging) about my kids and Teen Challenge came up. Turns out she had just had heard them speak at her church the Sunday before. She had tried to get her Dad who struggled with alcoholism to attend but no luck. I encouraged her to get more info on Teen Challenge and continue to love on her Dad. As I told her it would be up to him to want to attend and by getting more info on the disease she might be able to support and understand what has been a really sad and frustrating experience for her so far. I told her we would pray for her and her Dad. For anyone reading this I would suggest you Google search Teen Challenge or Adult and Teen Challenge as it is called now. They are in every state and something like 80 countries, are a 501C3 relying solely on tax deductible donations and helped Zach find his way out of his turmoil. Great great organization that could use your help if you have the means and desire.
We decided to rest up so no museums and we had a chance to put down the rugs, open the awning and just hang out and read. Very nice. We did however go out for Chinese food. We really havent eaten out much and have had nice healthy home cooked meals most of the time but felt like splurging and throwing caution to the wind as we have had some pretty weird “Chinese” food in different places. Food was great, owner’s teenage sons waited on us and proceeded to do trivia on English royalty with patrons who we think were his teachers. Had to laugh when the husband said all he really cared about was that he remembered what he ordered not just trivia lol.
The next day I decided to skip the RV Life GPS and bravely using Mapquest. We made it out and onto I-94 very easily and quicker than getting to our campsite. yayyyy
Bill and Jo’s Road Trip 