Easter Campout - 2011

Our Easter is traditionally spent at family south of Plattsmouth each year, it includes a big Easter Egg hunt and a gathering of all or most of my wife's family.  This year was no exception.  We've kind of made it a tradition to camp over Easter at a park south of Omaha near their home, or at least within 20 minutes of their home.

We camped at Louisville SRA over the Easter weekend this year and really had a nice time.  The weather was a little suspect at times but when the sun did come out it was PERFECT spring camping weather. 

Jodi and Bernie Kupper met us there and it was really good to see them again.  They love to camp just as much as we do and we've really formed a camping "BOND" with them over the last couple of years.

I tried a new recipe in the dutch oven this trip and it really turned out pretty tasty.  Pineapple Dr. Pepper spare ribs.  Usually you never want to run short of "juices" when cooking meat in the dutch oven and I was actually a little "LONG" on juices but it didn't effect the taste of the rips and they were tender, juicy and tasty...  MMMMMM MMMMMM GOOD...

The camper got a projector for Christmas this year and this was the first trip we had the opportunity to check it out.  I was really pleased with it.  You can get a movie big enough that you can sit around the campfire and see it just fine.  This pic doesn't show it well but the picture came out well and we all really liked it.  I do need possibly a new cheapo DVD player to go with it as the one we brought was old and had been used at the kids TV at our house previously.  So I am now looking for the smallest, most lightweight DVD player out there to "Give" to the camper for the next holiday - Actually I think this Friday is "National Arbor Day" sounds like a good holiday to give a gift to the camper to me.  The screen will be adjusted a bit now that we know it works and I wont tape it to the side of the camper next time, will fabricate a screen hanger of some type out of PVC for the next time...

That's it from our neck of the woods...

Until Next Time - Safe Travels - Bc

Up North

We took a trip to West Salem Wisconsin this past weekend to visit my brother and his family.  It was his youngest baptism and 2nd birthday all wrapped into one big weekend celebration. 

We decided to pull the camper along, the logic behind it was that we wouldn't have to kennel the dogs or rent a hotel room which would save us around $300 bucks, PLUS we just love any excuse we can find to pull the camper around.  

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Thursday was our day of departure and upon getting the camper ready and starting to hitch up I discovered a flat on the inside rear drivers side tire on the Great White Buffalo.  Sometimes its hard to notice a flat on a dually and I am REALLY glad I noticed this before we got out on the road.  It delayed our leaving by about an hour and a half (finally pulling out of Omaha at 5:30pm) but all and all it really wasn't that bid of deal, but it sure could have been.  Thursday was the toughest driving I have ever had pulling the camper, not that there were any "near misses" or anything like that, just the weather elements.  We had 425 miles to go and were bucking a 35 to 40 mile headwind for about 275 of those miles and although we were NOT trying to set any land speed records it was a struggle just to keep it at 60 mph on the interstate.  The other 150 miles were straight north with a 35 to 40 mph cross wind...   HUMMMM, more interesting at times, wind pushing you left, trucks overtaking you pulling you left even more and then hitting an underpass where all wind stops for about 2 seconds where you shoot back to the right - my knuckles were white...  I am adventurous as it gets (once driving 17 hours in one day just to get where we needed to go) but I almost called it quits a couple times ;-).  During one stretch of the trip between fill ups we actually dropped down to 5.1 MPG (WOWZERS) We pulled into West Salem at 2am, visited for an hour and then slept like babies...

Tri-CLEM plus One



Friday we got the camper to the campground, got it set up and spend the day hanging with Rich and Beth and the kids, played, went swimming, hung out, ran some errands, fed the kids a lot of sugar candy (like a good uncle should), ate pizza, had some beers and had a really good time.

Willy's Baptism


 Saturday was more of the same, after waking up to the ground being white and a great breakfast that Beth made for us we eventually made it to the swimming pool at the hotel again.  Beers, swimming, errands, rain, snow, food, fun, kids and even a bit of tequila were what consumed most of the day.  The Baptism went very well and Will was quite the character, going along with everything without once even throwing any kind of fit.  Back to Beth and Rich's for food, birthday cake, ice cream, beers and the such afterwards.  We were back to the camper and in bed fast asleep before 10:00pm, I must be getting old.

Another great breakfast on Sunday with all three of us Clements boys (whom we affectionately call Tri-CLEM) and our wives and families brought us to the end of our time in West Salem.  Corey, Kim and Gaby hit the road, we went to the campground, packed up, stopped back for one last good bye and headed out.  The trip home was MUCH more relaxing and everything went off without a hitch, gas mileage was good, actually better than normal, we made it home before dark and all is good... 

All 6 Sharing a Meal



I've always had a great heart for family and as I get older I come to appreciate times like this EVEN MORE than ever.  Its not often we all three get a chance to catch up and spend quality time together like this...  This is what "Living Life" is all about....

Until Next Time - Safe Travels and LOVE YOUR FAMILY LIKE THERE's NO TOMORROW...

Bc

Really

Quite a bit has gone on in the last couple of weeks.

Weight Loss - Our final weigh in for the Biggest Loser at the office was April 7th and this guy took down the top prize - A cool hundred fifty bucks and a loss of 31 lbs and 8.47% of my body weight - I really wanted to do better than that but there is NO way I will complain at all.  I pulled 12 pounds the last week which is really quite amazing considering I have no idea how that happened.   Actually I do - I think I was restricting my calories TOO much the 2/3 weeks previous to that and I was struggling quite a bit having gained 5 pounds in that time period.  Finally everything balanced and my body gave in and said OKAY OKAY.  So we'll see how it goes the next couple of weeks...

TKE - One of the reasons I cant believe I pulled a 12 the last week of Biggest Loser is cause we had our ANNUAL Fraternity Alumni Banquet/Formal - I guarantee I consumed 6K calories on that day including way too many drinks - It may have been the nicest fraternity formal I had been to in the last 20 years...

CAMPING - Got the camper in for new tires all around and decided it was time to repack wheel bearings too since were headed out to Wisconsin on Friday for a baptism and birthday party.  Pulling the camper and camping and really looking forward to it...  ANYHOW back to the wheel bearings - I had lost one and basically broke down on the road last summer (long story short) and got it fixed and made it home.  This time the ONE behind the one what went out last summer basically fell out in the tech's hand so got everything squared away - Good thing or we would have beens stranded on the road again this time...

ANYHOW - Just wanted to drop by for a minute - More to come soon...

Until Next Time - Bc