Michelle’s Hometown

Our first official stop is Rochester, MN birthplace of Michelle Dawn Clark Rice. It only was 1,249 miles and a little over 24 hours to get here. We pulled into town after having to hide out in Sparta, WI because of a storm passing through Southern Minnesota. We saw some lightning and drove in the rain for awhile, but it was not bad.

We are staying at the Chesterwood Campground about 7 miles outside of Rochester. It is a nice campground with free showers that are clean and hot.  Unfortunately, we did not get a spot that has electricity so no air conditioning.

We spent the day doing errands and picking up food for our picnic. We did get to watch Team USA lose a heartbreaking game in overtime to Ghana in the World Cup in overtime at a place with 27 large screen TVs. After that, we headed back to our campground for a picnic with all of Michelle’s family living in Minnesota.

So we parked the RV at a picnic shelter and had a ton of cousins, aunts and uncles come to visit, have a brat or hamburger, play bochi or throw a football and get caught up.  This is where things got interesting.

First Keegan, who had been doing flips off his skateboard all day, decided to try a ganor (kind of like a back flip where your feet go up in front of you). It didn’t work. In fact, he hurt his shoulder and was taken to the emergency room for xrays. After that some of the family that was visiting wandered off to something called RochesterFest, while the diehards (Steve and his kids) stayed around the campfire until the park ranger kicked them out.  Before they left, we were treated to a great lightning show in the distance.

When we returned to our campsite, we were told to prepare for a severe thunderstorm with possible tornados heading our way. The kids thought that would be cool to watch, but cooler heads prevailed and we headed to the storm shelter to ride the storm out with the rest of the campground. The storm has now passed and we are just waiting for Keegan and Michelle to get back from the hospital.

Keegan returned and his arm is in a sling. He hurt/pulled/tore 2 of the 4 mussels in his shoulder. He will be fine, but sore for the next few days.