July 3rd, 4th & 5th

Thursday was our low-key, hang-around-the-campsite day, waiting on our friends to arrive.


































When they did arrive, around mid-afternoon, we helped them set up, had dinner together, and then went for a walk.




The three youngest, who were with us, were enchanted by this fearless young deer!




On Friday, after a lazy morning, we decided to spend the day exploring downtown Kenosha with our friends.


We started with lunch at Frank's Diner, which is inside an old railroad dining car.









We've been great friends with this couple for nearly 20 years!






Next it was the 25-cent, 2-mile trolley ride along the shoreline and around Harbor Park.















No one wanted to get off, so we rode it around twice.


Then we did a little walking, ending up at Sandy's Popper, a popcorn and ice cream store. Eating ice cream was about the only event of the day that Papa Rooster didn't document.


He really learned a lot from playing around with the good camera all weekend. He even figured out how to get some good shots of the fireworks!








Then it was back to our friends, the A--'s house, for the "after-fireworks fireworks." Apparently, this is a big tradition on the farm in Nebraska, where Mr. A is from. The teens in our group thought this display was way cooler than the official rockets.




Chicklet5 enjoyed the sparklers best--more her speed.





Saturday was beach day. Many of us also elected to take an afternoon nap in our campers, along with the youngest ones, and I finished a book I started back before our move.



Doesn't this look like a paparazzi shot?













The little girls were all smiles, though!


No pictures from Sunday, but our friends attended Light of Christ with us. Mrs. R., who sings and plays guitar, helped lead the worship. Then out to lunch and back to the campsite--at Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, IL, by the way--to pack up and move out.

It was renewing, refreshing, and exhausting all at once. Papa Rooster took today (Monday) off, to recover. And look through dozens of pictures!

Thanks, honey!

Oh, and thanks to Heather who pointed out the long sleeves in many of the pictures!  I forgot to mention that this camping trip included a first for me:  In all my years of camping in the Midwest, as a kid and now as an adult, I don't remember ever having to run the camper's HEATER in JULY!  We have had an unusually cool spring and early summer here; I keep thinking it must be the hour further north that makes such a difference, but then my Illinois friends tell me it's been just as cold down there, and my Wisconsin friends assure me that they can't remember such cold summer temperatures.  (So much for global warming??)