Valhalla 27 is in action

About to leave on our first trip with Valhalla27



Lake Bemidji State Park was Valhalla27's first stop




Cynthia made 2 beautiful placemats for us.  With our initials on them they will stay with Valhalla27 forever




Nothing like a cup of coffee around the fireplace early in the morning.  I know my morning leisure wear and clog shoes, what can I say.




Well, it is a bit chilly!

 Well, our first trip is history.  We left St. Paul Monday morning with camper in tow.  Lake Bemidji State park appeared on our navigation about 4:00 PM.  It turned out to be a wonderful camping spot.  We stayed only one night so we did not put up the side tent but the site was very nice and we had a wonderful time.  We brought our bikes along so yesterday morning we rode the 17.85 miles around the lake.  It was kind of cool and very windy but we made it and had fun.  Valhalla27 towed perfect and we found that the Odyssey does a great job on the road with Valhalla 27.  It does cut our MPG down a lot but still were able to do a bit over 21 MPG so not too bad.  I know the MPG is a guy thing but for me it is fun to follow.  Some of the things we learned on our two day trip are:

• Bemidji weather can be windy and cool
• It is not a good idea to wait until 10:00 PM to settle in your camper for the first time!  For any first timers in the world I suggest you get to camp, set things up, go through what the night will be and then do any activity you want!
• We do not like Minnesota travel delays
• We need to renew our plan to stop every 2-3 hours to get out and stretch.  We drove none stop to and from which is about a 4 1/2 hr drive.  Not really that bad but what the heck, slow down and live
• There is nothing like a campfire.  Of course we knew that but it was reinforced
• We will really like our camper and so enjoy using it

We did want to do a short camping trip before we leave this Sunday for about two weeks but the reason we traveled to Bemidji was to say hi to Terry's mother, Dorothy.  At 86 she lives alone in this cute little one bedroom home and is doing very well.  We brought her a couple of iris plants that are purple and smell like Shasta grape pop.  She was happy with them.  One of Terry's brother also lives in Bemidji so we visited him and then had a discount oil change as we bought the car from him last fall.
We arrived home last night just before sundown, a bit later than we had planned.  We stopped at Itasca State Park on the way home. to visit the source of the Mississippi River.  This fall as we do the horse shoe camping trip north, west south and east again we will stop where the river empties into the Gulf.  We purchased a little state park book and will see how many state park stamps we can get over the next few years, kind of a fun thing to do.
Well, today will be just as fun as our trip.  In about 2 hours we will drive to Cynthia's with camper in tow.  We promised Faustina and Jude a movie in the camper.  We will have to find some treats that are not sticky and will not show up very much when little fingers open and close all the doors and windows!!!!
Terry and I should have been up for a short run this morning but 44--maybe another day.
A side comment.  If one does not know what Valhalla means---well I had to look it up too.  The 27 is there as Terry's bd, my birthday, our marriage and our camper pick up day all happened on the 27th of the month.  In fact Terry's bd is this month.
Well my french press is not finished but I am upstairs and the rest of the coffee is in the kitchen so.