Joe & Wilma's Excellent Adventures

 June 2-3, 2024

Sunday and Monday

Sunday was a day off.  It was raining when we got up, and rained off and on all morning, but then cleared off in the afternoon.  We didn't even set foot out of the RV until 5:00 p.m., when Joe decided to check the air pressure in the new tires .  And check the oil.  Both were fine.  But once he went outside, he decided we needed to do something, so we drove over to a restaurant and had dinner, then he took me to a casino (Northern Lights Casino, how could I resist that).  No winner here.  We saw one deer on our drive to the casino, and something, maybe a groundhog, on the way back.  No pictures today.  It rained again on this drive. Moving on tomorrow into North Dakota on our way to Medora to see the Medora Musical, and drive through Theodore Roosevelt National Park again.  We have reservations there on Friday, so we will be taking our time.

Monday, we got a late start heading to North Dakota. It rained lightly during most of the night but had stopped this morning.  We looked at the map again and made some more reservations for the future.  By the time we dumped and took on water, which took forever, it was just about noon.  We headed back to Walker and I finally got a picture of this fishing bobber that we had passed twice before.  This is just before Walker.  On this stretch, we saw a turkey (finally) and a groundhog (woodchuck).  And hit another bird -- I think that's 4 this trip.

Minnesota and America's Northwoods are home to many towering Paul Bunyon statues.  We had seen one in Bemidji on our last trip, but today we passed this one in Akeley, touted as the only one where Bunyon has dropped to one knee, inviting visitors to perch in his mighty palm, a perfect place to sit for a souvenir snapshot.  We didn't really stop, but Joe pulled over long enough for me to get a photo.

The only other photo I took was when we crossed the state line into North Dakota, about 3:20.  We thought we would change time zones today but apparently we have to go further west before we hit the time zone change.  We skirted around most of Fargo on the interstate, but it did look like a nice, clean city.

We drove 227 miles today, further than we expected.  Had one small detour, but otherwise it was a nice, uneventful drive, first through forests, then through flat, farmland.  North Dakota does not appear to have as many lakes as Minnesota did. We fueled outside of Fargo for $3.199, which was a little better than back at Walker.  

We got to our campground, another Corp of Engineers one, just about 5:00.  We had a reservation for site 29 so we could go directly to our campsite.  So we unhooked the Jeep, moved a picnic table out of the way, and Joe got ready to back in.  I parked the Jeep in the spot next to ours (28) and accidentally noticed that our name was on the tag for this one, not the next one.  So I got Joe stopped, and he then backed up to this one, and we called the reservation line and told them our dilemma.  They checked and said 29 was the right spot, so Joe pulled up to that one again, and we got parked.  Spot 29 was tagged with another name but that reservation doesn't start until the day we leave, so they must have just have just mixed up the site numbers.  So far, no one has come by to question us or leave us parking tags, but Joe did see a ranger drive through while ago so we must be ok.

We are here for 3 nights, so we have some new territory to explore, and new dirt roads to drive.  Jamestown is the next town and it appears to have some things to see, that that will be tomorrow's agenda.