Wish you were here

"I dig my toes into the sand
the ocean looks like a thousand diamonds
strewn across a blue blanket
I lean against the wind
pretend that I am weightless
and in this moment I am happy, happy"

Awesome weekend at the beach with Diane and Austin (5) & Alicia (3). We were lucky to have Dan go out to the campsite early and set up so that once we arrived we just made dinner and chilled out. The kids were excited to sleep in the trailer, especially Ally who proclaimed that "it's dark, need go bed now" at 7 o'clock. We cooked some hot dogs and marshmallows on the campfire put the kids to bed (to which they went happily and fell asleep so quickly!) Diane, Dan and I stayed up and consumed a few wobblies and then staggered off to bed. The trailer is pretty neat. There is a little kitchenette complete with sink, propane stove and cupboards. A small table and double beds at each end. Diane had to squish in with the kids mostly because they sleep like Dan (spread out like they own the place) but we were so tired we didn't care. Saturday morning the kids woke up about 6 and Diane was nice enough to take them for a little walk around the campsite to let Dan and I catch a few more winks. This ended up being a good thing as Dan seemed to have drank more than he remembered and was a grouchy old bear until about supper time. Regardless, we woke up and Dan made a great breakfast (hole in egg, bacon, hashbrowns....mmmmm)About lunchtime we discovered that Dan's truck had a flat tire and we could actually see and hear the hole where the air was coming out. So we all walked to Diane's van packed in, and headed off in search of a garage. This proved to be more difficult than we thought. Grand Beach certainly isn't what it was. Bad weather over the years has certainly caused a downfall in business in Grand Beach, everything is either boarded up or else up for sale and run down. It sure isn't the Grand Beach I grew up with.
We finally stumbled across a small dilapidated garage but their compressor was not working so they sent us to another scary garage and they said they fixed it and they did ...sort of.....it was leaking again (although more slowly) by the time we got back from the arcade and ice cream in Grand Marais.
We also went for a long walk along the beach picking up cool stones and finding seashells. The kids were really good about walking as far we did, even when Ally's pockets were filled with rocks she and I had picked up.
We got back in the afternoon, stopped by the showers, Austin fell off the slide and got a sand face painting....( picture will be uploaded soon) he was ok and we headed off back to the campsite for a gourmet meal....Dan cooked us up some gorgeous ribeyes and some baked potatoes. Allies ate hers in a river of barbecue sauce ( that girl must have some French blood in her) and Austin ( Mr. Hollow leg) did awesome as well. The kids had a slight bit more of candy and junk food in their system so as expected bedtime didn't go as smoothly as it did on Friday, but still reasonably well. Diane, Dan and I stayed up as long as our eyelids would let us and we crawled into our beds and fell fast asleep.
Sunday morning came quickly and the kids were up at the crack of dawn but again everyone let good old Auntie Mindy sleep a little longer. We had a fantastic breakfast again with some amaretto coffee and started to pack up the trailer. The kids did really good helping Dan pack it up. It was so cute to see Ally bent over, imitating Dan underneath the trailer. It didn't take us very long to pack everything up and we were back on the road at 10:30. Taking the 302 back home sure gets us home quickly. It takes about 40 minutes exactly to leave the campground to my front door. Which is wicked since it takes me closer to an hour to get to work.
Well it sure was an awesome weekend. It was so nice to go camping again. Just seeing Dan so happy and content being outside is so perfect, and I love Diane and those kids so much. It's so refreshing to be around such genuine good people.
I can't wait to go again.