Arriving Devil's Lake

 6/4/2021 - Friday

We de-camped this morning and headed for Devil's Lake.  We had kicked around the idea of heading to International Falls, Minnesota, but there didn't seem to be enough to do there to justify the extra miles, since we can't cross the border.  Joe made reservations at Devil's Lake on-line about 11:00 last night, then he went to bed.  After I finally finished working on my blog for the last 2 days and posting it, with Cathy's help,  I checked my phone. I saw we had confirmation of his reservation.  However, the dates were July 4-6 instead of June 4-6.  So I called (it's midnight now), and got a message that they would be with me  in a few minutes, so I kept waiting.  By now, Joe has gotten back out of bed, for moral support I guess.  I almost hung up once, but he told me to wait a little longer.  Finally, I got a person and cancelled his reservation, but they had nothing available for this weekend.  We will get charged some kind of cancellation fee, not sure how much, but at least we got that straightened out.  But no reservations for tonight.  So when I got up this morning, I started calling and found a spot.

 We were on the road at 8:45, stopped in Rolla for a very good breakfast.  When we came into one town, Rolla I think,  there was another sign about free COVID shots in the middle of the street.  I didn't get a picture, but I saw another similar-looking sign, so this time I was ready.  I got my picture, but it turned out to be a sign for a rummage sale.  But you get the idea.

Farmers are getting in the fields now.  In the afternoons, we usually see equipment just parked in the field.  Joe swears they all must quit working at 3:30.  But we moved over to meet this big tractor this morning.

We saw ducks, and white pelicans again, and some more of the white sand/salt.  Never did stop to check it out.   I even saw one pelican in flight, and could see the black on his wings.   

We arrived at the campground at 12:20, after spending 15-20 minutes working on the bugs on the windshield at the gas station right next door to the campground.  This campground is one where you go find a spot, then fill out the paperwork and put it in an envelope.  We could see from the gas station that there were no trees here, and it is 95 degrees. 

 I had also called the casino here this morning, which is about 7 miles from here, and they had a spot as well, but we decided to go with this other one.  But with the heat, and no trees, we were having second thoughts.  We found a spot (there were plenty), Joe got everything hooked up and started filling our water tank when I told him we had no electricity.  He unplugged and re-plugged the cord, but nothing.  He checked ours, then the others around us, and there was no electricity in this whole section.  By now, it's 99 degrees.  The people behind us had just gotten here this morning and were trying to clean theirs because they had sold it, but they couldn't get the power to come on, so the guy had gone to town and bought new fuses and a gfi.  She said they couldn't get the vacuum to work.  Joe asked if she was sure she had electricity, and she said yes, the radio was playing.  Joe said maybe it is running off the battery, which turned on the lightbulb for her, and she figured out she didn't have electricity either.  So we both called the RV office and left messages.  The lady there called us back in about 10 minutes and said there must be something wrong with the breaker because she had had one other call.  Her maintenance man (husband?) was on his way, would be here in about 20 minutes.  So we turned on the generator, and the A/C, and waited.  He arrived, he threw some breakers, but it didn't seem to make any difference.  But while he and Joe were standing there talking, it came on (may have been some kind of delay on it).  Anyway, he got us up and running, so all is good now.

Devil's Lake is a huge lake, just goes on and on.  The town of Devil's Lake is bigger than we expected, has a Walmart, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, etc.  After we recovered from the heat, even though it hadn't cooled down, we headed into town to drive around.  

The lake looks pretty shallow, but there were boats out on it so I don't know how deep it is.  There are also a lot of fisherman on the shore.  We saw one guy bring a fish in, couldn't tell what kind it is.

We drove the west side of the loop around the lake.  Part of it was like a causeway, with water on both sides (looked like Florida).  Along in here, we came upon a male and female pheasant again.

We had planned to go to the casino tonight for their buffet.  But when we got there, they had a car show going on, and some kind of event that people were sitting on the side of a hill, and they were forcing traffic into the lower parking lot, but the casino and restaurant was at the top of the hill.  Joe said he wasn't walking up the hill, so we gave up on that plan and headed back to town to Pizza Ranch.  We saw a lot of old cars around town, and parked at the hotel next door to Pizza Ranch.  If I'm lucky, we will try to go there tomorrow night.

It was 66 when I got up, but 95 when we got to the campground, then 99.  We only drove 121 miles today.  Joe is amazed at how good the roads are here in this north country (both highways and gravel roads), Arizona should take some lessons.  And with almost no traffic, it makes it a nice drive.  It rained during our evening drive and cooled things off a bit.  It's "only" supposed to be 93 tomorrow.  There is a wildlife refuge here than we plan to drive, as well as the east part of the lake loop.  That will probably be our last day in North Dakota.