Just the start of fall colors!

 

Steve and I had the day off on Monday. The kids were in school so we decided to take a mini road trip to Sauk Lake in Sauk Centre to check out the new gravel driveway and the dock taken away.

 

As we kept driving west, there were more and more trees with color. It's just the start of fall colors!

 

 

It was super nice to finally have a driveway after 20+ years of going up to the lake lot. When it rains this area gets muddy and its never fun getting our cars suck in the mud or not being able to drive in and park. We just had some class 5 delivered and smoothed out 100 feet in and 9 feet wide. Sure will make a difference going to the lake now that we have a driveway and not a mud path.

 

We had someone take away the old heavy dock that was always a pain to put in the water and take out. We are dock-less now but that's okay. We usually only go to the lake 1 or 2 times per summer season. Not enough to use a dock and make the effort to put one in. It was nice to have a sandy beach area free from grass and weeds. I'm sure it won't last long.

It was a picture perfect 70+F day at the lake. We wanted to close up the camper too and check for ants. We had some carpenter ants that got in a few years ago and started chewing up the curtains. Lucky for us, we caught it early and they didn't do much damage. We just don't want ants in the camper so it's always good to check it out at the end of the season and bring home the pillows/sleeping bags.

I do love camping and wish we had done more this past summer. The kids don't enjoy it and Steve would rather stay in a hotel but I love being in the outdoors and sleeping with my own pillow and blankets. Plus, its part of the adventure when you are doing an outdoor kind of weekend.

After closing up the camper for the season, we were off to find a place to do some mountain biking.

Steve use to ride his dirt bike all over this nature area when he was a kid. I'm not sure why it took 20+ years for me to see this area. We ended up doing some off trail biking since there wasn't a lot of trails any more since you can't take any motorized vehicles in this area.

There were grass areas and wooded with ponds and streams. We biked 4 miles In 1+ hours. Stopping a lot to walk around, take photos etc..

On the way up to the lake, we stopped at our favorite bakery, Rustica.

A delicious way to start our day travels.

I've been wanting to try new recipes. Seven layer bars were on my to make list. I had all the supplies, new baking pan, chocolate and butterscotch chips, coconut flakes, sweetened condensed milk, walnuts, gram crackers and butter. Ready to make these bars for the first time and WOW were they easy! Why I waited so long to make them.. Oh yeah, because I thought I didn't like coconut which you really can't taste in these bars anyway. So good and easy! Just crush the crackers, add butter, press into pan, sprinkle on 1 cup each of the chips, add chopped nuts, sprinkle on coconut flakes and bake at 350*F for 25 minutes. Done! just like that!

 

 

I ran out of pages in my #9 fitness book so I had to make a new one Monday night. It usually takes about 8 months to go through one book. 250 weeks of recording my workouts, what I eat and daily exercises. After being sick for a month, it's been tough working out. Last week I did nothing in hopes to get better. Plus, I was coughing far too much. I needed to just rest and get better. I'm finally feeling a lot better and just starting to have less cold symptoms.

 

 

I was planning on biking this morning, but it started to rain. Now I'll wait till the afternoon when its going to be in the 70's. I have a busy work day ahead but that should not take the place of a cardo workout. I did my daily exercises so that's one less thing to do!

Just a few puppy photos. Going on 10 months old on the 13th.

Zoey likes to lay touching me while I do my exercises every morning.