Country living at its finest

In my last update I left you with the cliff hanger that we were about to embark on our trip to the dump. Well I couldn't leave you hanging! I was actually very surprised and impressed at this whole dump business. First you have to buy a card that looks like this:
Please note that this is not legal tender. The card allows you up to five bags of garbage. Lucky me, I went with a local (Travis) and he knew this, so we combined our smaller white bags into large black bags. Sneaky! So anyway, you buy this card at the Side Lake Store, and then you go down the road to the dump. We went to the wrong dump, as they have moved it since Travis lived up here, so our trip was made a little longer. With our trash in the trunk. Lovely.

When you get to the dump, you're greeted by a sign like this:
Our dump is in French Township, part of St. Louis County - ahah! And you thought we really moved far away! Apparently the dump is only open on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. Lucky us again, we went on Sunday and will now know in the future to make this a Sunday chore.

I was pretty impressed with the set up. I was imagining great heaping mounds of trash and a foul odor. Nope! They have bins for all different types of trash, including recyclables, and a huge compactor for general trash. Here's a picture of one:
See? Not so bad. Ahhh, gotta love living in the country!

After our dumpy outing, we went over to Grandma Fran's for lunch. Trav's Uncle Al and Aunt Diane, and their boys Jonathan and Justin are in town for the week so they were there too. We had a great time visiting and laughed a lot as usual. We were discussing a relative that was in the prayer bulletin at church, and has been for quite some time now. Fran said that she's been very sick, and "maybe if they took her out of the bulletin then she'd just die already!" Take it as you will, but Fran is always keeping us on our toes!