Camping Weekend Issues

Heather and I decided it was time that we attempted camping alone. I'd never been alone camping, always with my family or with our big family campout, but figured it couldn't be too terribly complicated. We hooked up the jetski, loaded up the Trailblazer and we're off! That was the high point of the weekend....

We headed down to the Missouri River near Platte at Platte Creek State Park. That choice was probably mistake number one, but how are we to know? There were several sites under significant amounts of water. Some of the sites had no flat ground, except for the area where you'd park a camper and vehicle. So, we arrived to site Number 2. Here is the view from the bottom of the hill it was perched on.


And from the top of the hill.


As you can see, there is no flat ground. So, we drove around immediately after arrival and looked for a new site, and we found one, but it had one drawback we didn't notice until later, but at least we had a site with flat ground. So, we go settled in. We set up the tent, and started work on supper. I started playing with the wood we had, and realized I'd only forgotten one thing (which is actually true that it was the only thing I forgot): fire starters. This could have been a starter log, or lighter fluid, or any number of things, but I had nothing. The fire did not start well at all, and after 10 minutes of roasting hot dogs on a barely warm barely existent fire, we gave up. About 20 minutes later, roaring fire as the logs finally caught on. That didn't make me too happy, but what can you do. We stayed up and endured the scorching heat. That's when we found the drawback, no trees means no shade. The flat land had taken precedence, and we had no shade for relief. We survived, and finally decided it was time to inflate the new air mattress and head to sleep. This is when we found a very major flaw. I'd failed to set up the tent prior to leaving, and we found that a two person tent does not mean 2 adult persons. My feet were sticking out the door, and the door would not zip because we were bursting at the seams. So, because of this, we were getting eaten alive in the tent, plus, the lack of windows in the tent made it nearly unbearable. We lasted about 10 minutes before heading back to Mitchell, but we left items behind and planned to return. We headed home about 11pm, arriving at 12:30, but camping in style....in our own bed.

The next morning, after a stop at Cabelas, we were headed back with our brand new tent determined to make this work. We got to the site, and eventually got the tent set up, despite the complete lack of any directions for setup. I couldn't believe it. If you buy a Trekker tent, hope you have a college degree because setting it up will require one (well, maybe that's slightly exaggerated, but I'm pretty sure that's all that saved me). So, we got the tent up and made breakfast/lunch on the new camp stove. That actually went fairly well, and pretty soon, we were set for a nap in the new tent. With windows, but no breeze, it was hot, but I'm sure I lost weight over this weekend. We got through the nap and time to get the jetski out and and ride around for a while. We took her out on the Missouri and cruised up and down for about an hour, then decided to head to Platte to find some Ice cream, and to get into an air conditioned environment with temps over 90 and no wind and no shade. We found a great place in downtown Platte, although I can't remember the name. Brick something or other, but it was homemade flavors of different ice creams. Ohh was it ever good. After some time, we went back to the campground, and prepared for supper. I decided to start the fire early in light of what had happened the night before, and wouldn't you know it, in 5 minutes, had a great fire going, 45 minutes too early. Eventually we got the bush pies made and consumed, and were enjoying the evening as the breeze came up and the sun went under some clouds. Eventually, the mosquitos became too much and retired to our new tent. This slept well when we had enough room inside, and other than the window flaps whipping around making noise, it was a pleasant night sleep. Unfortunately, we had to get up early and head for Sioux Falls for me to get some refereeing in, but what a weekend it was. There were many failures, too many to mention here really, but we learned a lot about camping, and next time (yes, we decided despite the issues there will be more times) we will be that much wiser. For pictures from the severely flooded campground, take a look at the photo gallery.

Packing it in

Well, the weather looks like it may turn ugly again here in the south. So, in preparation (as we've done for every storm) we prepare the property by putting as much as we need inside, and also making sure that rain spouts are all on and ready to go. This time, it was a bit more to do though. I pulled the jetski down here on Sunday because it wasn't getting used at home, so I figured maybe I'd toss it in the lake a couple times here or there. Of course, now that there is lots of water, Lake Mitchell apparently has a boating ban in place. That's irritating, but I guess we'll have to deal with that. The bigger thing is, now I've got a small boat, and where do you put that when the weather man says that hail the size of baseballs is not out of the question? Well, you cram it into the garage with the toolbox that's in there, the push mower (remember the big one is gone) and the wheelbarrow, the jet ski, the motorcycle, the grill, and still room for the workbench that's already in there. Ohh, and the trailblazer fits too. The garage has never been this full, but I'm kind of glad now that it's an oversized 1 car garage.

Water Everywhere

So, I leave for a week and we get dumped on. People at work today were complaining (and rightfully so) about the massive amounts of water in their basements. I can see how. We took on quite a few storms in the past week. When Heather and I looked at this house, one of the major drawing points was that there was never a record of water in the basement, and that there was drain tile installed a while back. Knowing these two things are probably related, this was a good move on our part, because to date, we have dealt with no water issues. Our sump pump is working feverishly, but it's keeping up. Reports were that less than 90 seconds went between pump runs when the storms dropped all the water, but at least it's being kept out of the house. I'm thinking it's better that the water stay out of the basement, and in the now functioning Hot Tub!! That is going to get some soak time later tonight as the weather seems about perfect for it. One of my favorite times last year (or possibly a couple years ago) was after a soccer outing, I had a game in Sioux Falls the next day, so I just stayed at my cousin's house. She had a hot tub, and we were out there in about 50 degree weather with a mist falling, but nice and toasty warm. It's currently 61, but with the water just over 100, I'm thinking about a nice relaxing soak, especially after the weekend.

If you've noticed the post number remaining low, it's due to the small amounts of time. Heather and I have two free weekends left before school begins in the middle of August. We filled up the calendar rather quickly, that's for sure! One of the those weekends will be eaten up by some time with friends, we just haven't picked it out yet. This past weekend was some refereeing that I've been doing for quite a while now. I've gone to Sioux Falls for their club soccer tourney for at least 5 years now, and that continued this past weekend. This year was a better year in that every game was 10 minutes shorter. They shortened the game times to remove 5 minutes from each half for this tournament. That might not seem like alot, but when you run up and down the field for 5 games in a row on Sunday, you appreciate those extra steps that you no longer have to take!

AgSense Training Comes in Handy!

I know it's been a while since I've worked there, but I had an expirience when I had some major flashbacks to my time in Nebraska working on Pivots. This is a smaller scale project, but you'll see the similarities.

The first and obvious difference was the sheer volume of water. When working on the pivots, if I fired one up, I'd have to wait several minutes for the pressure to reduce otherwise the water running back to the well combined with the pressure of the water being pumped at it could blow apart the pivot. Thankfully in my hot tub, all I have to wait for is the relays to trip, and I'm back to ready to go. Also, the voltage is a major difference. I've got half the voltage on the hot tub (240 volts) compared to the pivots (480 volts). I still was double checking the disconnect was off when putting my screwdriver into the box. First thing I started tracing was my power to the outlet that powers the heater since the tub wasn't heating. The relays weren't hitting properly, and at first I nearly replaced a relay that didn't need to be replaced, but avoided that. Later, I got the box wired up and ready to roll again, and found that I had a bad pressure value. This was also a major deja vu as I constantly checked those at AgSense because the pivot would power down if the pressure wasn't maintained. So, by backing down the pressure valuve, the relay got to the proper position, and the hot tub went from 82 degress to 106 degrees in about 4 hours. I was beaming proud of my skills. Thank you AgSense for that training lesson. Last night was enjoyed sitting in the hot tub after the storm rolled through in the cool evening air with a great 70 degrees. Of course, the tub has been backed off a bit for temp. This morning, it checked in at 98 degrees. We'll try to progress upward from there.

Well, it's time for me to board my flight. I'm having more fun travelling. I'm going to Detroit today, then turning around to head to the west coast for Sacramento. I feel like my trips to Iowa all over again. Anyhow, this evening, I'll be enjoying my flight across the country in the comfort of First Class. Thank you Delta!

Weekend Parenting

Heather and I spent the past weekend brushing up on our parenting skills. No, nothing on that front to report. Actually, I was more trying to find any form of parenting skill. Heather already came equipped with them standard, no extra charge! She's dealt with her nieces for longer than I've been around, that's where she got the practice from. She brought them back on Thursday morning, and at ages 4 and 2, we had our hands full. It was tiring and fun. It wasn't like the standard get them all riled up and give them tons of sugar and send them back to their parents like usual. Instead, we riled them up, got them so much sugar, immediately regretted prior decision, and then chased them around. On the hot days, we got into the "swimming pool". It was a pretty good hit, so at least it's getting some use. Currently, it doesn't even qualify as a hot tub, its more of a luke warm tub. But, the girls liked it a lot and we did some swimming, played in the back yard, played at the park, read lots of books, kept us up way too late, and many other things through out the weekend. We even ventured out to a former co-worker's wedding. The wedding went well with the two of them, the reception, not very well at all. We had a couple disputes in which children got taken out of the reception hall to calm down. The traveling was interesting too. Lots of watching for cows, hay bales, and singing Sunday school songs. I still remembered pretty much all of them too. Anyhow, now Heather and I are trying to catch up on sleep. Tonight's bedtime might be around 7:30!