To keep things from being confusing (especially if you follow our real-time adventures on Instagram) – I’m a few weeks behind in blogging, here are some of our adventures from the week of August 9, 2015. 

After we were supposed to get our fresh water tank repaired (read more about the repair that didn’t work) we headed north to Bemidji, Minnesota to visit family. I had been looking forward to this so much. . . last time I was in Minnesota to visit family I was 9 years old (25 years ago!). My grandma and grandpa grew up in Nebish and Blackduck farming the land, surrounded by their brothers and sisters – also all farming the land.

Eventually my grandma and grandpa moved to Alaska – but all my grandparent’s brothers and sister’s stayed in the area. Over the years these great aunts and uncles had kids (my mom’s cousins) and they had kids and then they had grandkids – and  today there is a LOT of extended family still in the Bemidji and Nebish area.

The first thing we did when we got settled at the RV park was we went to visit my dear grandpa. Buried in the graveyard at the tiny catholic church where he and my grandma were married in 1954, it was the first time I had visited his gravesite. This meant SO much to me as my grandpa was a big part of my life growing up in Alaska – he was an amazing man. We tidied up his gravestone and left a baseball for him, as he loved watching baseball and would always sing, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” to his grandkids.

Something like this visit wouldn’t probably wouldn’t have happened without this cross country adventure and nomadic lifetsyle. It would be expensive to fly a family of four to northern Minnesota for this sole purpose.  But thanks to being on the road we get to do these meaningful things along the way.

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To keep things from being confusing (especially if you follow our real-time adventures on Instagram) – I’m about a month behind in blogging, here are some of our adventures from the week of August 5, 2015. 

After we said goodbye to our other Airstream family friends, we headed into downtown St. Paul for a day of exploring. Specifically we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota – which happens to have FREE admission with the Association of Science-Technology Centers program – a reciprocal membership program that rocks (we purchased a Museum of the Rockies annual pass and it gets us into museums nationwide!).

The Science Museum of Minnesota was fantastic. The kids really enjoyed the many exhibits – covering four or five floors in this massive building – it took the better part of a day to go through it all. The museum had everything from a news channel exhibit – where the kids got to be the news anchors. . .

to anchors away . . .exhibits about ships on the nearby Mississippi river. They also had exhibits about the human body, dinosaurs, Minnesota habitats and more.

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From left to right: Currently Wandering, Take That Exit (us!) and Up In the Airstream

When we first announced we were going to travel for a year in an Airstream we got mixed reactions. We get it – it’s not your typical choice for a family with kids. We’ve had lots of questions about the social implications of this lifestyle . . . would our kids miss their friends? Would we be lonely?

As I mentioned recently in a post addressing our most frequently asked questions – our social interactions have been anything but lacking! Although our kids aren’t in traditional school, they are interacting more with kids at campgrounds than they ever did in our old neighborhood. We have had the great pleasure of connecting with other Airstream families on Instagram (where the community is surprisingly vibrant and active) and we recently had the great fortune of meeting up with two of these awesome families!

It just so happened that all our paths intersected in Minneapolis, Minnesota and we spent nearly a week with the Curren Family from Currently Wandering and the Schrum Family from Up In the Airstream (instagram).  Between the three families we had seven kids range in age from 5 to 12 – and they all clicked instantly.

All three of our Airstreams were parked in a row – right next to the playground. The kids ran from trailer to trailer, playing soccer on the grass, having a blast on the playground and occasionally playing Minecraft. Normal kid stuff.

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To keep things from being confusing (especially if you follow our real-time adventures on Instagram) – I’m about a month behind in blogging, here are some of our adventures from the week of July 30, 2015. 

After making it through South Dakota (see all South Dakota posts here), we popped up into Maple Grove, Minnesota (near Minneapolis) where we planned to stay at least a week while we waited to get our fresh water tank fixed (read more about our broken fresh water tank here). The earliest appointment we could get for our fresh water tank was August 5, 2015 – but I convinced the service shop to take our trailer in a week ahead of time – just for a day, for a diagnostic appointment, because I had heard that if we needed to order a fresh water tank it could take up to three weeks and I wanted to get it ordered as soon as possible with the repair appointment in the future. Our diagnostic appointment was July 30 – and our fresh water tank was in fact, cracked – and a new tank ordered.

The fresh water tank was ordered July 30 – and I was to call the following week to get an estimated delivery date (we still had a standing appointment August 5, just in case). This means we had at least a week (or longer) at the Northwest Minneapolis KOA – plenty of time to explore the area and to settle in.

One afternoon we headed to the Eastman Nature Center at Elm Creek Park Reserve, in Dayton, Minnesota. It’s FREE admission to this center and we absolutely loved it!

Out in the front parking lot are they have Monarch garden that was full of beautiful Monarch butterflies! The site “provides milkweeds, nectar sources, and shelter needed to sustain monarch butterflies as they migrate through North America,” per the sign in the garden. How cool is that!?! It’s actually a certified and registered Monarch Waystation, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

The inside of the Eastman Nature Center is state of the art! It’s gorgeous and the displays and exhibits are fantastic. We just kept saying, “wow!” as we walked through looking and learning . . .

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