Friday morning, July 11, we left St. Cloud about 9am to travel along with 3 other units to St. Paul. We had volunteered to help with security so we had to go in a day earlier than the others at the pre-rally. We were parked on the grounds of the Minnesota Fairgrounds by 11am. The 4 units that traveled together were parked together which makes it pretty nice to be with others that we are somewhat familiar. It was a hot day, temps around 90 and humidity high also. The weather reports predicted some stormy weather in the evening so we decided to go out for lunch. We ate Dino's, That Greek Place. Dino's was a fast food style restaurant that served Greek sandwiches. We thought the food was pretty good. Later we walked Travis around the fair grounds noticing the dark clouds building. When we got back to the motorhome we watched the TV and the weather reports. Regular TV programming was pre-empted with weather reports. There was a strong line of thunderstorms moving our way. The St. Cloud area that we had left from in the morning was hit with severe storms including a threat of tornados. About 8pm the winds became very gusty and the sky was an eerie shade of orange with black clouds and then the rain poured. The winds had gusts of 50 to 70 mph. We were relieved when the storm passed.
Saturday, Tom and I went to the Mall of America, the largest mall in the U.S. We spent several hours walking around. The stores were much like stores in other malls but at this mall there is an amusement park in the center, Nickelodeon Theme Park. We ate lunch at a Rainforest Cafe. Returning to the fairgrounds we had to attend a meeting in the afternoon regarding our security duties. We will be working 3 hours Monday afternoon (3-6pm) securing the indoor exhibits as the vendors set-up for the rally. Today has been much better weather-wise. It was sunny, a little windy, with temps in the upper 70's.
