Adventure

Mike and I were on an adventure this weekend.
We knew that taking 9 jr. highers to South Dakota (a 4 hour drive) would be interesting, but we had no idea what we were in store for.

We left after school on Friday.

Everyone was all smiles.

And full of sugar.

I love candy more than the next person, but I was very surprised at the bags of candy these girls packed. It was impressive.

On Saturday, Mike and I volunteered at camp. He worked on making bunk beds for new cabins and I worked in the kitchen.

We made Stromboli, which was really good.

Cooking for 50+ people was an interesting process. We started an assembly line with all of the ingredients lined up down the counter.

First the dough was rolled out into a rectangle.

Then we added several kinds of meat (sausage, turkey, salami and pepperoni) and two kinds of cheese.

Then we rolled them up and sprinkled them with seasoning.

It was a great meal, which I'm planning to try on my own in the future.

On Saturday afternoon, my college roommate and her husband picked me up and we went to Sioux Falls for the evening. It was so much fun to see their house, where they work, and what life is like for them now that they are married. Mike drove up to Sioux Falls for supper that evening. Dan and Tina took us to a great restaurant, Grille 26. We also ate with Evan and Mindy Kindt. Mike went to Swan Lake Camp with Mindy back in the day, so it was kind of a reunion.

Sorry no pictures of this part. I don't know what I was thinking.

We had planned to spend the majority of the evening in Sioux Falls, but the weather was deteriorating, so we thought it would be smart to head back to camp.

Our drive to camp was fine, but we did encounter blowing snow and a few drifts. Little did we know this was just a warm up for the drive home.

Sunday was the last day of camp and everyone was dismissed after lunch. Since the wind was blowing very hard and visibility was horrible, we decided to wait to see what the weather did before we left camp.

In the middle of the afternoon, our decision was made for us because Highway 81 was closed.

It was so windy the windows completely filled up with snow. We spent the afternoon reading, finishing a puzzle, and checking the weather conditions. The teenagers spent the afternoon watching tv, playing hide-and-seek and running all over the building, since there were only 12 kids at camp.

Around 10 pm the girls decided they were hungry for cookie dough. They were given the green light to make cookie dough if they could find someone to help them in the kitchen, so we made a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I know cookie dough is bad for you, but I only let them have two scoops each and we baked the rest.

I also learned that a convection oven bakes cookies much faster than my oven, so our cookies were on the brown side that night. In the morning the cookies were as hard as a rock, luckily we had enjoyed a good portion of them while they were fresh the night before.

The next morning we hung out waiting for the roads to open. Highway 81 never did open, so we decided to choose an alternate route and head west and then south down highway 14.

Luckily the lack of sleep from the night before meant we had tired campers on the ride home.
It was only for an hour, but they slept through the worst weather and roads, which helped us concentrate on the road.

Mike was a good driver. I had offered to drive if the roads were good on the way home, but that didn't happen.

This is what the roads looked like through South Dakota with blowing snow at ground level. Once in a while it was difficult to see because of blowing snow, but that usually didn't last long.

Once we crossed the boarder into Nebraska, the roads were much clearer.

We were happy to be home at 5:30 on Monday afternoon.

The campers were happy they missed a day of school.