Good Morning everyone,
A cold morning to start the day off here. At the moment, my temp is 32 degrees. I live down in a valley, so it's always a few degrees colderthan up where I work at the park. But nevertheless it's chilly all over up here. Going into the mid to upper 20's tonight, so the growing season is over here. Our normal first freeze date is usually around October 1st or so, so it's a bit early, but not unusual. What's normal these days anyway?
I just got back from a couple of days camping at Burt Lake State Park, the park where I have a job offer if I want it next summer. It's about 38 miles north of here and 20 miles southeast of Aloha State Park, where I love to go. Had a nice time exploring the park, not that I haven't been there before, but not camping. We had glorious weather on Sunday night and into Monday night. Sunny, gentle breeze and around 80 degrees. But I knew the weather forecast was calling for a cold front to come through and I could see the clouds off to the Northwest at sunset. So rolled in my awning and put stuff away (usually do the night before I leave anyway), backed my truck up to the hitch in case it was raining in the morning etc.
Sure enough, around midnight we had a lightening storm. Had Tessa not gotten her usual storm panic going, I would have slept through it. It was pretty vivid once in a while though. When we got up in the morning to let them out. The wind was really blowing and the air smelled like smoke. That as I found out later was from a 60,000 acres wildfire burning east of Ely, MN in the Boundary Waters Canoe area up there. The wind was just right to bring in the smoke. Pretty acrid stuff. We had it again yesterday morning for awhile. I feel sorry for those who are closer and have to breathe that stuff all day.
So the dogs and I packed up, did a doggie walk for a bit and then headed for home. I stopped for breakfast at a restaurant by the park first though. Once we got home, I put stuff away and headed for town to do some shopping and then came home, did my laundry and just relaxed for what was left of the day. Another successful trip done. Will post the pics soon as I get a chance to load them in. Am hoping to be able to go again before I have to call it quits and winterize. Am watching the long range predictions to see if I will be able to camp or have to stay at the resort when I head out in a couple of weeks.
Needless to say, with the cold weather, things have dropped off at work too. Only 8 camps at the park right now. Pretty normal for this time of year anyway. My two co-workers and I were busy yesterday, staining all of our picnic tables in the campground. Was a bit on the chilly side working close to the lake, but not too bad away from it. We have the entire campgrounds tables done, except for those on the occupied sites. Will get them later. Ran out of paint though and have to get more before we finish up what's left. Have a number of other projects left to do before we are done working on the 30th.
right now it's time to get ready to head out the door and get into today's projects, whatever that might be. Going to be really chilly as it's only going into the low 50's today. If the wind would die down that would help greatly. So will haul out my heavier jacket, my hat and a pair of gloves too. Have a wonderful day all.