Circle the “Wagons,” It’s Time to Camp

The last outing we had was the SE Jumbo, in July at Walworth County Fairgrounds.  This included two Good Sam chapters, the Rocky Rollers (ours) and the Bell Ringers. Over 20 rigs were in attendance for the weekend.  The weather was hot but most of us found shady spots in the park-like setting. 

Our usual place for Friday fish fry has closed and the group could not come up with a place that could accommodate 40-50 people so we scattered.  Tom and I and our friends Jim and Sherry headed to the local Chinese restaurant, Moys, in Elkhorn, WI.  We had a great meal and we took half back with us.  A campfire rounded out the day’s activities.

Saturday morning our chapter made Omelets In A Bag.  For the cost of $2.50 you could have 2 or 3 eggs and any or all of the fixins’, toast and coffee.  Various indoor and outdoor games were played after lunch and after that our chapter served Root Beer Floats. Supper was pot luck, followed by a campfire.

After a month and a half hiatus, camping has resumed.

Over Labor Day weekend, we attended the Illinois Samboree.  There were about 130 rigs at the Marshall-Putnam County Fairgrounds in Henry, IL  The number of attendees was down considerably since we last attended in 2010.  Wisconsin made a good showing, though, with 17 rigs (5 Rocky Rollers, 3 Bell Ringers) present. 

We had a good but,somewhat soggy time when the rains produced by hurricane/tropical storm Isaac showed up Friday evening and hung around all of Saturday and until about 4 p.m. on Sunday.  We all got a scare when the tornado siren went off Saturday afternoon.  I monitored the weather radio and plotted warnings on a map.  Fortunately the really bad stuff stayed away from us, however, a tornado did touch down about 15 miles as-the-crow-flies from us.

There was rig decorating competition and I decorated our trailer but did not win as we were competing with entire chapters. This year’s theme was “Island Paradise.” The rain and a shoe-string budget did not help our decorations. Oh well.

Looking forward to a couple more outings yet this year. 

The Long-Hot Summer

The Summer of 2012, for most of the U.S., was extremely hot and dry.  Wisconsin was no exception. We watered our trees and shrubs using a root feeder and kept the flower beds and vegetable garden watered but not the lawn. Our grass was totally brown except for the weeds. If it wasn’t so hot, we could have used the opportunity to spray them with lawn weed killer while they were easy to spot.

We had big plans this summer with the grandsons.  Unfortunately the heat and my shoulder injuries curtailed our plans.  So we hunkered down in the AC for the most part. The boys did go outside in the evenings to play ball or ride their bikes up and down the street.

We did take the boys fishing at Clear Lake in Milton, though.  Javie had been fishing once but Sergie had not.  We had them make a few practice casts in the front yard, then packed up the van with poles and tackle and made a stop at Kwik Trip for $4.00 baby worms.

We chose Clear Lake because we remembered that, years ago, we had good luck when we brought our young nephews there to fish.  We were not disappointed.  The boys caught so many teeny, tiny sunfish, perch and bass that we could hardly keep up removing the hooks and baiting the hooks. (That would be Tom). 

Now that the weather has cooled, the boys are back in school.