By Dan Meyer and Dawn Holmberg
October 25th - 27th, 2002
note:
links with a file size listed after them are links to our pictures.
links without file sizes are off-site links that are related
October is the time of the year when the trees turn beautiful colors, the nights turn a bit chilly, mosquitoes become much less aggressive, and we plan for a trip to wherever the Tombstone Trail rally is held.
The 2003 Tombstone trail was held in Fillmore County, MN on Saturday night, October 26th. If you live in the upper Midwest, you know how hard it can be to find an open campground in late October, and the campgrounds that are open don't have many campers in them.
We stayed at the Rochester MN KOA, which is actually located in Marion, Minnesota - about 8-10 miles southeast of Rochester. They have about 15 full hookup sites, with about 5 rigs staying the weekend. One minor inconvenience was the water had already been shut off for the winter at all sites. We took a full hookup site anyway, because they were near the bathrooms, and we wanted to flush out our holding tanks at the end of the trip in anticipation of placing our trailer into winter storage. Water was available at the main campground building near the dump station.
Anyway, we arrived about 9:00 Friday evening, and set up camp, and went to bed. Saturday morning we toured all over Fillmore county to become familiar with the countryside and get ready for The Tombstone Trail. In addition to a few cemeteries (41k) we saw a few neat old iron bridges (103k) and this being farm country, a cow or two (84k).
We had a wonderful time driving around the county, and had lunch at the Old Barn Resort, which has to be a wonderful resort/campground in the summer. The waitresses were getting ready for the Halloween party being held there, and were dressed like ladies of the evening from long ago.
We ran the Tombstone Trail, and placed 4th in our class, and had a great time. The next morning, while Dawn was taking a shower in the camp building, I realized that we did not have any pictures of the inside of our trailer. Here is what our camper looks like - from the back looking forward (45k), from the front looking back (45k), and looking into the door (47k) . Finally, here is a nice picture of our campsite (113k)
We thought we were finished camping for the season. The weather was so nice, we went out November 2nd and 3rd, the latest Dan ever remembers going camping in Minnesota.
