Day 9: A Big Day, Pine City to Minneapolis, 88 miles and return.

The day began early. We were off to the Minnesota Zoo to meet Nick, Alyssa, and kids and Ashley was going to bring her 3 kids so Kasey could see all grandkids at once. 

Ashley's kids only had a few minutes since it was the dad's time for the kids. We spent many hours at the zoo. Ashley had to leave early since she had been out of town and had only been home a few hours. So it was a quick hello for several today and hope to see them Sunday. We spent most of the day with Nick, Alyssa, and the kids at the zoo. 

We didn't see a lot of animals, but we saw a lot of food trucks, gift shops, and people. It was busy. The zoo just opened their 'skyway' walk, converted from an overhead rail line. We easily got our steps in. The zoo is nicely laid out and has a lot of trees so it was pleasant. All that walking tired the kids out and we ended at the dinosaur exhibit. 
We left there to stop in Minneapolis to see Kasey's 94 year old aunt Jo, who was in rehab from a recent fall and his 2 cousins Pam and Diane. 

We left there to return to our motorhome. I mentioned before that things break.  Our  awning had blown up and over the motorhome during the windy afternoon (no picture, we rushed to corral it). We managed to get the awning back together but it suffered some damage and may not be back to operating order. Then we headed to a music in the park not far away in Pine City, MN where we met Nick, Alyssa and kids and Alyssa's sister and family.

 It was a full day and on the way home we saw a great sunset to cap the evening, and a double cap of Lynn sitting out with us talking until dark.