Access to internet has not been nearly as forthcoming as we were expecting it to be. But we are all mostly well, and have arrived safely at OshKosh - I am currently at the hotel room of a friend so that Sarah and I could take showers, so I have have access for a few more minutes, until she is done.

Friday evening we pulled in to the parking lot of a small church in Albert Lea, Minnesota. We camped there for the night, attended church, Sabbath School, and pot luck there, along with four other visitors from the NW, a truck driver from Coure d' Alene, and a family from Moses Lake that we know from way back, the Larson's, and their granddaughter. They are on their way to OshKosh too. We stayed there, camped next to the church for the remainder of Sabbath, and pulled out early in the morning and drove the last few hours. Just as we crossed the state line into the state of Wisconsin, at about 9:00 we pulled in to a rest stop to eat breakfast, and low and behold, in pulls Bob Gaede and his son. They have been here all month, visiting family, and helping do early set up. He informed us that we would be able to pull right in to the club camping spot, right when we got there. Which was WONDERFUL to find out, as our funds are running rather tight, and so we were planning to 'camp' in the Walmart parking lot and be at the gate at 8:00 to wait for the 10:00 official opening time. He told us how to go around to the south gate, that there was a dump station there, and fresh water filling point, and then we could pull right in to our club's spot, and camp tonight!! Yea!! So we knocked out the last four hours of driving, and did just that!! It is WONDERFUL to be somewhere where we won't have to move for several more nights. I'm looking forward to next summer's trip out to the NW with OUT all the extra gear we have to schlep in and out of the trailer ever time we need to bed down, and without the dog - she travels well, but it's just one more thing... We will be traveling SO much lighter on that trip.

The order of business for tomorrow is to find a place that will take care fo Maggie for us for the week, and to find a place to go swimming with the kids, as we have not done that yet, on this trip, and we told the kids we would do it ALOT, so we have to make good!! At about 6 in the evening we start making airport runs to get everyone else from the club picked up from Appleton. Then everything gets rolling on Tuesday afternoon for the actual camporee. You probably won't hear from us much after that, they keep us pretty busy!!

The traveling has gone pretty well, really, no major mishaps (one small one that only cost us a $12 repair) and nothing more than a minor cold passed around among us. Sarah and I had it yesterday and were pretty wiped out, of course the heat didn't help on that front either, but we were both pretty low energy, but it was Sabbath, so we just rested. Mayahna and Ricky have had a bit of a hard time with all of the changes taking place every day, but hopefully things will get easier now, that we are staing in one place for a while.

I think I mentioned in my last post that we decided not to drop south on this part of the trip, that we would stop to see the kid's birth aunt on the way to Alabama on Sunday evening, next week. So that part of the trip has not taken place yet, if you knew about it, and are wondering why I have not mentioned it. The one sister, that lives in S. Carolina, couldn't make it up, so it made more sense to just stop in St. Louis (where the other sister lives) on the way south, rather than going out of our way to see them now. The reason we were going down there before OshKosh was because of that other sister coming up then - the original plan called for us to drop south before, because she was unable to make it up on the date we would go through after - but now that she can't make it at all, we changed our plans to fit better, and will just stop there next week. We'll go over and see the S. Carolina sister some time after we get settled in our new place.

The kids are getting pretty excited about getting to Alabama, I think Sarah would rather that we just keep right on going and get there, rather than staying here for a week. But I know that once her friends from PVC get here tomorrow, and once she meets her new friends from Alabama, and once the activities get going, she will settle in and enjoy herself.

We are a LONG ways from the activities this time, so there will be a LOT of walking going on this week. That will be kind of nice, after all the SITTING that has been going on!! I guess we were pretty spoiled last time, and didn't realize just how lucky we were!!

Well, sounds like Sarah is about done, I better wrap up. Hope all is well with all of you!! post a reply if you like, so I know you have been here, reading!!