Weekend of camping and family

Wine at M Cellars

OK, so even three-day weekends aren't enough. This past weekend we went to Willow Lake park in Geneva, OH.  This was a new find for us as we had never been there.  But we discovered it is quite nice campground and one that we will likely go back to.

Saturday started with lunch with my sister at a local winery called M Cellars.  They had a food truck there that day so even better - wood-fired pizzas!  It was a little overcast, but the weather was beautiful and we got to sit out on the deck overlooking the grape vines. We were there for several hours just talking away and catching up which was really fun.

Afterwards we went to a farmers market, got some coffee at a local coffee shop, and then went to get some supplies for a family gathering at the campground.  Every summer this is one of my favorite things - having family and friends join us at the campground for some food and campfire.  Everyone came by around 4pm, and we had a fun cookout and lively (as always) conversation.

Yesterday we took our time getting started and hung out around the campground for awhile before doing anything productive.  One of my other favorite things about camping - slow mornings.  (I have a lot of favorite things about camping don't I?)  It was a Monday morning so most of the weekend campers had gone home.  It was just amazingly quiet and peaceful, and it was a perfect summer day.

After we were lazy all morning we drove up to the strip at Geneva-on-the-Lake.  Although there were two donut shops there we didn't stop.  Instead we stopped at the beach at Geneva State Park.  We weren't prepared for the beach - no flip-flops, no beach towel, no sunscreen.  But we sat up on the hill overlooking the beach for about a half an hour - just enough time to get some sun and fresh lake breezes.  The beach was actually pretty busy.  I wish I had my DSLR with me because I could have gotten a picture of this - but I was looking at the beach and there was what looked like a bucket or something.  Then it started moving and I realized it was a person buried up to their neck.  AHH! Like a nightmare...

That afternoon/evening had a ride in a GTI, more fun with my family, and some downtime before bed.

It was really hard to leave this morning...

Lights and a swizzle stick

Today we were getting ready for our 3 day weekend of camping.  We leave tomorrow afternoon, but first we had a few things to get done.

We discovered that we had a leak coming from one of our top, rear marker lights.  The light had recently been serviced by a local RV dealer because the fixture itself was leaking.  But in the repair it was made worse to the point where rain water was pooling inside the trailer.  Not good.  So we ordered a different fixture from eTrailer and installed it today.  I think Jon's fingers might fall off from all the silicone he had to get off the surface before mounting the new one, but it looks really good.  We'll see how this one works out and maybe we'll replace the rest of the rear lights.

We also got a new macerator.  This little device is a water pump that also has a garbage disposal like action.  The nice thing is that it will push the water uphill which is sometimes a necessity for us with our low trailer.  Sometimes the top of the sewage dump is higher than the level f the outlet on our trailer.  Lots of stinky slinky dances...

So we decided it would be best to try this at home for the first time instead of at the RV park. (We've seen the Robin Williams film RV...)  So we also decided while we were at it to clean out the black tank with a handy device called a swizzle stick.  Well, I'm not sure that's the actual name, but we have names for everything.  This is a stick that goes down the toilet into the black tank.  Water runs through it and out this nozzle at the end that spins like crazy blasting out your tank.  Well, all I will say is that it's clean now.  What a joy.

Now I'm seeing that the weather forecast has changed to lot of rain over the next day or so.  We're not too thrilled about that.  But w'll be in wine country in NE Ohio, so there's always something to do even if it's raining.