Yesterday when we opened up the door to take Libby out for her morning constitutional, we were greeted by a Currier and Ives scene frosted with about 2 inches of the heavy, wet stuff. Beautiful for November, but May...? Today we were greeted by a similar scene although the snow was more January-like in that it seemed to be lighter and fluffier. But having been away from snow, being sensible people who go south for the winter, who knows whether or not our assessment of snow conditions was accurate. Suffice it to say, MN has had unseasonable weather conditions all spring long. After experiencing temps in the 70's when we first arrived in MN, lately the temps have been in the 40's, and today the temps never got out of the 30's. Florida is looking pretty good right now even though it is under water.
We are at William O'Brien State Park volunteering as campground hosts in one of the two campgrounds in the park. The park is located on the St.Croix River which at this point divides MN and WI. The campground where we are hosting is the Savannah Campground, kind of appropriately named for folks who have spent part of their winter in the Savannah, GA area. It is away from the river and is therefore not as popular as the riverside campground, but the state park is very close to the Twin Cities and we suspect that the campgrounds are both pretty heavily used. We met one of the hosts of the riverside campground yesterday. He and his wife stay all summer and are from a western Twin Cities suburb. On their days off, they go back home to mow grass and do laundry.
We arrived here on Monday, April 29 late in the afternoon. No one was around. The volunteer coordinator has Mondays off, and she had not seen the e-mail we had sent her saying we would arrive on Monday. Finally a staff person did show up on her way home and got us pointed in the right direction. However, we have already changed sites once and will probably do it again. Water has not yet been turned on in the campground, and the dump station is not open. It is expected that will happen mid next week. The bath house with showers, however, does have hot, running water even though the bath house itself is not heated. There was 1 other camper in the campground. Since then there have been about 6 others that have moved in. We understand there are 12 reservations for this weekend. We expect a light crowd because wet, cold weather isn't too conducive in producing happy campers.
We are about a half hour away from Lino Lakes. We have been back to drive through the old neighborhood visiting with some former neighbors and starting to catch up seeing our doctors and dentists. Fun, huh? We did note that there were a few daffodils starting to show up in our former yard. The good side of this unseasonably cold weather is that we will be able to see spring develop. There are no spring ephemerals blooming in the woods as of yet; so, we are excited to watch for the development of spring.
Hosting so far is pretty laid-back. I've knocked on a few rigs reminding folks to register at the office and/or to hang their tags on the posts by their campsites. Otherwise, we are getting caught up on computer work and organizing our lives. That's not a bad thing after being on the go all winter long.
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