RV Update. Final days of exterior work!

Mississippi Minute Film Festival

It wasn't until I had children that I became aware of just how many parks we had in Minneapolis.  

I never noticed how many white minivans there were in our neighborhood until we got one. 

As soon as we considered painting our front door we began to notice every great color combination people use when painting their home.

Since we began studying the Mississippi River, little tributes seem to pop up everywhere we look.  We are discovering so many wonderful connections to the river, a treasure right here at home.
Last night the kids and I went to the Mississippi Minute Film Festival.  I happened to see an advertisement for the festival in the newspaper, that morning, because now I look twice when I see "Mississippi River".  
The Mississippi Riverfront Partnership is a non-profit organization that works to support the social and the natural life along the Minneapolis riverfront (didn't know about them until we began this study).  They work with the city, the National park service, the University, the Historical Society, Watershed management and a host of other public and private organizations to enhance our life with the river.  Their hope is that when people have a reason to go to the river, appreciation for its value increases and the natural response will be to care for and protect it.
MRP sponsored this film festival, inviting anyone to produce a one-minute film about the river.  A panel of judges and the public participated in the voting, and last night was the showing of the winners.  One of our favorite museums, the Mill City Museum, hosted the event.  The first half hour was a series of speakers from various organizations associated with the river (which was really inspirational to hear, but slightly boring for the kiddos (however, delicious catered treats served as wonderful distraction from boredom)
To see what others see when they experience the river was the real treat. We didn't know about the festival in time to vote, but we all loved the Best in Show!

Awareness provides opportunity for more discovery.  

Fall in Minnesota. Seriously Amazing.

Months ago, when we made plans for the fall, we thought we would be rolling along the east coast by this time, enjoying fall in Maine.  Plans don't always go by the book, and we are still in Minnesota, cranking through our to-do list.  Today was one of those moments where we stopped and gasped at the fall colors we are enjoying right here at home!  

We get to choose

to savor THIS MOMENT,

the gift of today!

Work day on the roof.

We are grateful for sunny days to work our way through the punchlist.  A new roof and new flooring were two big ones.  Since replacing the flooring required the slide to be removed, it really makes a difference to have dry weather.
We are continuing to hold the plan lightly.  Everday life details take time, so it makes sense that adding a big RV remodel project as well as starting homeschool for the first time would be a lot.  We already feel the impact that the few changes to simplify our lives has made, and the difference feels great.  This gives us a peace to continue moving on, welcoming the present as a gift as much as the actual travel will be, once we get on the road!

Homeschool 101

Our first two weeks of school has been a mix of fantastic exploration, understanding differences in our learning styles, and weighing the balance of flexibility and structure in our schedule.  Since we are home, it is natural that we would study our home state, Minnesota.  We found ourselves fascinated with the Mississippi River.  We visited the Mississippi River National Park downtown St. Paul, hiked along the river, visited the locks and dug our toes in the sandstone borders of the river.  We've got ourselves a fourth grader and the offer of a free National Parks pass to every fourth grader is real folks!  Jackxin got one!  If you have a fourth grader go to this link and get yourself a pass for the whole family.  

The things we learned.

We learned so much on our trip to the Porkies.  Firstly, we discovered the carpet smelled pretty awful once we actually lived in the space for a couple days.  Back at home we tore it up, discovering the floor beneath was wet.  Actually damp from our current travels.  Steve tore up the whole floor, finding the hole underneath the RV where the water was getting inside.  He got to use his mad welding skilz and rebuilt a portion of the structure.  
We took this opportunity to recover the dinette and couch and will redesign some of the space when we put it all back together.  
But the mirror....gotta keep that.

The Porkies!

Our maiden voyage took us to the Porcupine Mountains in the UP of Michigan.  Our hopes were to get to know our adventure-mobile, dicover any problems and figureout a plan to solve them before we hit the road for a longer trip.  We successfully accomplished that , with epic views to entertain us!  The bugs were awful, everywhere except at the lake.  This only made our love for Lake Superior grow, as well as our love for our new RV.  

We hiked a few miles along the escarpment trail for epic views like this and scoped out the camping sites (this is #1, right on the trail, but this view!  #2 is a little more private, off the trail in the woods, but based on the biting bug count I wouldn't camp there in the summer!)

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Lake Superior was stunning.  The campsite was right on the beach and the bugs avoided the lake, so we were really able to relax and explore this lake we love!

One of the largest copper mines ever is right here.  We hiked to the remains of the mine, near Nonesuch Falls.  In the 1860's word got out and the copper boom in the Porkies began, gaining the attention of the rest of the country.  The mines could rarely make a profit and shut down in the early 1900's.  mining silver was attempted next, then logging.  The Porcupine Mountains were at the top of the list to become a national park, but WW2 delayed that process.  The war also called for an increase in logging, so the state of Michigan stepped in to protect these forests by declaring the area a state park in 1945.  70,000 visitors came that first year, so we are not alone in our admiration of these mountains.  It looks so peaceful, but we were playing a game called "see how long you can stay under water and avoid the biting horse flies".  

We drove to the far west side of the park (the park is 60,000 acres guys!) to view the Presque River and a few more of the many waterfalls (no other Michigan state park has more waterfalls!).  This one is Manido with Nawadaha in the distance.

This hike along the Presque River reminded me so much of the Pacific Northwest, lush with ferns, moss and mushrooms.