A Bit of Slow Mo for the Snow

Here in northeastern Wisconsin, we got probably close to a foot of snow overnight.

When I went to the local daycare today to pick up our grandson Clayton, the daycare worker had all of the older children out playing on this huge mountain of snow by the parkinglot. First I took a couple pictures.

Then I remembered that my video camera app on my Motorola phone recently updated... And now it has a slow motion feature!

So we lined up all the kids at the top of the mountain and told them to jump off!

The resulting video is hilarious:

We actually filmed it twice 

because it was so much fun!!

and here is one more time at regular speed

I had to play it over and over for the kids
as they came off the hill,
 watching on my tiny screen on my cell phone.

I promised I would put all three on You Tube
so they could get their parents to watch it this evening.

Anyhow, as I was saying, we got a lot of snow overnight----

Even with all of this snow on the little tv antenna

we were able to still get in our local stations. 

Notice even the icicles on the far left.... hahahaa

The snow was stuck tight to all of the tree branches and shrubs.

No wind to knock any of it off....

It was like a fairyland out there. 

The morning was not quiet, instead it was busy busy busy with the noise of snow blowers running around the neighborhood and people with snow shovels hard at work.

School was delayed 2 hours so the rural roads could get fixed up before the school buses had to get through.

Now, in our small town, if you are a student and and live two miles or less from the school, you don't get the benefit of riding a bus. You have to either walk or find transportation or if you're lucky enough to be a high schooler, you can drive yourself.

The two neighbor girls had to get their driveway shoveled out to get to school, because it was two hours later today. Their father had left early for work and his car was the one in the driveway parked closest to the street.

We noticed the girls brushing off their vehicles which had been parked deeper into the driveway, and trying to get ready to leave to get to school. They were frantically shoveling as fast as they could, trying to get a clear shot for their vehicles to reach the street.  (*I think they slept in the extra 2 hours instead of shoveling snow*)

Both Steve and the neighbor on the other side saw their dilemma. They each brought over their snow blowers and helped the young ladies get their vehicles free and out onto the street. Off to school they went!

Back to this evening-----  sorry, I jumped around.

As I said, it was grandson Clayton's turn to come over after I picked him off the big snowy mountain at daycare.

He came to spend the evening and help us out with cooking supper. He asked if we could make his favorite type of tater tot casserole, but he would like to make a few changes.  He asked if we could put green beans in it. And use the cream of mushroom soup.  He said that's the way they do it at the daycare! So look who's teaching me how to make his favorite casserole....

How cute. Here he is learning how to divide the meat up into thirds. (Yes he washed his hands first, and also afterwards).  We used one third for each pan, and the last third was frozen for a different meal.

We decided to make 2 pans. One his way for our dinner that evening. The other one would be made with our normal cream of celery soup, and get frozen or a future meal for Steve and I at some later date.

Then he broke the frozen green beans into little pieces. Those he spread around on top of the meat and seasonings. Finnegan was carefully watching in the background in case anything fell on the floor.

Now he slathered on the cream of mushroom soup over his casserole... And the cream of celery on ours to be frozen later.

The last step was to carefully line up all of the little tater tots in rows.  He enjoyed doing this and the oven was preheating while he was working on this step.   We had both the tater tots and the tater coins, so he layered them in patterns.

We covered the pans with tin foil and put them in the oven at 400° for about half an hour. Just look at this little guy, waiting to see his finished supper. I think he was hungry after playing so hard on that Snow Mountain!

While the supper was baking, I convinced him that it would take a while... so I got him back down to the she shed to work on some fun stuff.  Soon he was helping me crank a sock on my sock knitting machine.

The timer went off and we checked on our casseroles.  It was time to take off the tin foil and let them "brown" a bit for about 10 more minutes.  He was REALLY hungry by now, he said.

Next job was to set the table, 

 and he carefully lit the candles 

under supervision. 

The timer went off again, and now dinner was ready to come out of the oven. He was pretty proud of his success.

Just look at that! 

What a wonderful meal made by talented little boy.

He wolfed down two big helpings and some bread on the side. I guess he is becoming a "growing boy" soon to turn 8.  Bottomless pit and all that stuff.

An added surprise was that he got up and cleared the table on his own, taking all of our dishes and helped bring everything into the kitchen.  Then he got to use the pewter candle snuffer and put out the flames.  Such a proper meal with a sweet little boy with manners and thoughtfulness.

Thank you Chef Clayton!!!

CAMPING VACATION - Day 7 - The Nice Guys and the Sinkhole!

This Dubay Campground in the Portage County Park System (Wisconsin)  is very nice --- and we slept quietly through the night. It was wonderful to pull up the windshield shade and see the beautiful view of the lake out in front of us. It did get cool during the night, and even the heater kicked on a couple times.

The weathermen were wrong again! Now they said it's NOT going to get up into the mid-80s for the next few days. Instead it's going to be in the low 70s. Now go figure for that!

I baked a cinnamon swirl coffee cake for breakfast and spent the morning sewing. Steve puttered around with a little of this and a little of that. It was very relaxing and we figured we would just spend the day messing around or walking the dogs.

Really, our whole reason for coming to this campground was so we could plug in and run the air conditioning. It was supposed to be in the id 80's.  It's a very nice place and I'm glad we came.

Actually, before 10 a.m. we paid for another night!

About noon, we saw a big fifth wheel pull in and move into a site three spots away from us. The nice couple came out and approached us at our campsite. It turns out that they had reserved all four campsites in that row for Friday and Saturday night. They had come early on Thursday as well as one of the other couples was going to be there on Thursday. So those two sites were already reserved for Thursday night. and the other two sites not until Friday night.  (one of which we were on)  But now it turns out, the other two couples who were joining them, were able to come already on Thursday instead of Friday!!

That posed a predicament, because we had already paid for Thursday. They understood that after they talked to us, that we had already paid and it is self-registration and it was in an evelope in the  the self-pay post.  They were hoping we were leaving today and not paid for another night.

They said that was okay, they just would tell their friends that when they came they would have to spend the night in the flat parking lot nearby, and not unhook, and wait for us to leave on Friday.

Steve and I discussed it, and decided that not only would it not be fun for them to not have all four couples together, we would kind of be in the middle of their Gathering.

So being the "Good Guys" that we are, we walked back over to their site and suggested that if they wanted their friends to have the site for tonight already, just pay us back the $24 and we will move on to the next campground on our list that we had already considered trying out. (It was only 19 miles away).

They gratefully jumped at our offer! Now they could call back their friends who had figured they would be spending the night in a parking lot. We chatted for awhile about places we like to go, campgrounds we like to stay at, and had a lot of nice things in common. They were grateful, and we didn't feel bad about giving up our site to them.

Their friends weren't due to come in until after 5 p.m. so we did not have to rush to pack up. We really only need about 20 minutes to get roadworthy, and then hook up the Tracker and leave. We gave them a good honk honk of the big air horns and waved to them as we headed on out. They waved back with big grins on their faces.

Sometimes it's nice to do nice things...


We drove on over to Jordan Lake, another county park within the same district as Dubay Lake. Even the price is the same for the campsite that we picked out. So the $24 they gave us went right back into an envelope for the new campsite at this campground.

We chose site 13 which was around to the back of the loop, and there's nobody else around. Well, except us and some mosquitoes!! There are more mosquitoes here than there were at any of the campgrounds we have been during the last 7 days. I think they were waiting for us?

We had seen a couple rummage sale signs on the way to the park, so after we unhooked the tracker we backtracked a little bit and nosed around. Didn't find too much of anything other than a big Nesco roaster for $5. I already have one, but maybe one of our daughters or son needs one. Or it's nice to have an extra for large family gatherings.

I made up a pan of tater tot casserole for supper, and also did some sewing on my quilt squares.

This is a long chain of pieced together 4 patches. 

I set up the sewing machine inside on the kitchen table.

We decided to take one last walk around the loop with the dogs for the evening. As we came back to the motorhome Steve happened to glance underneath at the front leveler. (we have 3 levelers on our rig, two in the back and one in the center of the front two tires, like a tripod.)

He always puts the levelers on these big 12 x 12 planks. It's a wider surface than just the leveler footprint itself.

Here is a pic of one of our rear levelers so you can see just how large the plank is...

As I was saying....  we were coming back from our walk, and Steve glanced underneath the front of our rig.

He took one look and said "WHAT THE HECK?!!" Our whole leveler base and the 12 inch plank were gone from view down into a sinkhole!!!! I kid you not, they were gone down in at least 12 inches underground!!!!

Steve tried to retract the leveler, and it was hung up with the plank wedged in the hole on an angle. By using a crowbar as leverage and another two planks as a fulcrum, he was able to guide the leveler back up while I held the button in retract mode. Then he was able to crawl under and dig out our plank. Good thing we have retrieval ropes on them tied to an eyelet. (See in the pic above). The ropes are actually to help pull them out without having to get on your knees or get dirty especially if it's a rainy day when you're pulling up camp.  He was able to pull it out of the hole with the rope.

The two front tires seem to be on firm ground. It's just that one area in the middle that seems to be soft. Probably with all the rain that they've had lately, an area underneath washed away and made a small sinkhole.  We hope it's small.


If we are not here in the morning, and if somebody on the news said a big blue 1996 Safari motorhome fell down in a hole, then you know where we went.

Sweet dreams!

Our Last Day at Pancho Villa State Park, NM

Yup, it's true, our Tracker is FINALLY finished!  I posted a short blog a while ago from my cell phone, with two photos of the Tracker and the engine.

We are more than pleased with the repair job.  Art Miller did a good job, and he was frustrated a few times about the wrong parts being delivered etc. to get the job done.  But it is finished and we were able to go over the list and pay for the work done.

• turned the crank shaft
• new piston rods
• new piston rings
• new rod bearings
• new main bearings
• cylinder head reconditioned
• new oil pump
• new water pump
• new clutch, throw-out bearing, pilot bearing, pressure plate
• new belt
• new gaskets, oil, filter
• new antifreeze coolant to our radiator

The engine is very clean now and they even did tiny things like replaced some wires and clips, even replaced our missing cap on AC fill nozzle for the freon. And he came in with a final price $100 below his estimate, and we were quite pleased with the work. The bill was $1,500 plus tax.


We put on over 80 miles tonight to make sure all was good.  It ran perfectly, and we are going to be able to move on in the morning!

For supper, I made up a pan of an old family favorite... Tater Tot Casserole!

1. mush ground beef in the bottom of a pan 
2. sprinkle chopped onions or dried onions
3. spread a can of cream of celery (or mushroom) soup over the hamburger
4. arrange frozen tater tots on top
5. season with Lawry's, pepper and parsley flakes
6. cover with tin foil and bake half an hour at 350
7. uncover and cook 15 more or until brown and bubbly.

OH, we did have rain yesterday... it poured twice for a good 15 minutes and then some drizzles.  The most rain we have seen our entire six weeks of vacation!

Our sweet RV neighbor Hazel took out a recumbent trike to let Steve air up the tires

 and we got to give it a spin around the park.. 

what FUN! 

I peddled around and got the hang of it. 

strange to kinda steer from the rear, like a boat! 

Steve took a turn around the park too,

and got a kick out of this big boy toy!

On our way back from our Tracker Test Drive, 

we saw the amazing clouds hanging low over the mountaintop,

actually covering the summit.

and this sunset just breathtaking as it was reflecting off the clouds....

Our final night for a sunset here in Pancho Villa State Park did not disappoint us, and it was in it's glory as it went down by our site....   it almost felt like an eerie space ship!

Our plan is to get north tomorrow as far as we can and start heading east at the northern end of NM into TX, OK and then into KS.  We hope to hole up for a day or so with friend Rosie in Bethel, MO. Then the final mad dash home to Wisconsin, where hopefully all of the snow and ice are GONE!