Sunday morning, instead of cooking breakfast in the coach we ate at the campground pancake breakfast. This was more convenient than cooking and cleaning up before we broke camp and departed. Donna had the pancakes and brought her own syrup (pure maple) plus a hard-boiled egg. I chose the biscuits and gravy with sausage. I ate hearty but maybe not so healthy.

During breakfast the camp host couple talked to us about points of interest as we head west. They knew we were westward bound and leaving that morning. A family from Toronto at the next table overheard this and offered to give us their AAA Guides to the western states. They were on their way home and said they didn’t need the guides anymore. After breakfast Donna walked with them to their camp and returned with the guides.

It continued to rain as I made preparations to leave. I dumped and flushed the holding tanks while Donna prepped the interior. Once I had the shore power and water disconnected, I had her pull the slides in and retract the jacks. I was a little wet, but I was also glad that we packed the trailer, loaded the outdoor furniture and mats and put the awning in the night before.

I weighed the coach at the truck stop before we hit I-90 west. As I suspected, we are a little overweight. It’s not the total weight, it’s more of a weight distribution issue. Our rear axle is overloaded while the front axle and trailer are below capacity. I think I can relieve some of load by reorganizing the trailer again to reduce the tongue weight. I’m not sure how I can redistribute things in the coach. I’m not too worried about it.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi on I-90 and are arguably in the west. I really don’t consider Minnesota to be a western state. I’ll feel like we’re in the west when we reach the South Dakota Badlands. After we crossed the Mississippi, the rain stopped and the clouds thinned out. We continued on I-90 to Rochester where we turned north. Just before we left I-90 we stopped at a rest area. It was very clean and nicely landscaped with several picnic tables. Donna made tacos with leftover pork loin and avocado. We sat in the sun at a picnic table and enjoyed our lunch.

We considered detouring south to stop at the Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota. Austin is the home of Hormel foods – the maker of the mystery meat in a can. Roadside America rates the Spam museum as Major Fun. It features the history of Spam with humor.

Spam (the meat) always reminds me of Hawaii. They have the highest per capita consumption of Spam in the US there. It’s on the menu in many restaurants – eggs and Spam, Spam omelette with cheese. Grilled Spam and cheese sandwich. In Hawaii, McDonalds has Spam on the menu. In 2007, Burger King added Spam to the menu there to compete with McDonalds. Enough about Spam. We passed on the museum and stayed on our planned route.

At 3pm, we pulled into the Dakotah Meadows RV Park. As I mentioned previously, this park is owned and operated by the Shakopee Mdewankanton Sioux Community. It’s a large, fully paved and nicely landscaped park. We have a pullthough site near a pond that covers a couple of acres. The pond has an aerator sprayer – it looks like fountain spraying water in all directions from the center of the pond. Last night we slept with windows open and the aerator provided a soothing white noise. Otherwise it’s very quiet here.

The tribe operates this park to complement the casinos they have in the area. Free shuttle service from your campsite! I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I’m not too interested in the casino. The concept must work though. There are more high end motorhomes in this park than I’ve seen anywhere else. The shuttle came by several times. It doesn’t follow a schedule, you call for pick up. Including tax our paved, full hook-up 50amp pullthough site is under $30/night. The sites were graded fairly level before paving, so I didn’t have to do much adjustment of the jacks.

Today Donna wants to do some bicycling. We’ll also go laptop shopping – there’s a Best Buy a few miles from here. Then she’ll probably go to the casino resort for a manicure and pedicure. She has to fly to New York City tomorrow to do a national TV satellite media tour on Wednesday. She’ll fly back Wednesday night. I’ll be a bachelor for a couple of days.

The weather forecast calls for sunny skies, temps in the upper 70s with low relative humidity for the next few days. Not what I expected in Minnesota but I’m not complaining.

View of pond from our site this morning