Going all of the Places: Minnesota / North Dakota Line

Saturday, August 5 - Friday, August 11

The weekend's rides were thankfully uneventful. We hauled the camper across the Mackinac Bridge (the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere) under high wind warnings and made it to the other side unscathed.

We had beautiful views of Lake Superior for the majority of Saturday's drive. Route 2 is also part of the "Lake Superior Circle Tour" and the scenery made the ride go by relatively quickly even though it took almost nine hours with stops.

Lake Superior

Instead of the campground, our GPS decided to route us to a dead-end on a gravel road that stopped in the middle of a huge stone quarry. Luckily, there was enough room for us to turn around and get back on track, so we only lost about a half an hour. The Delta Lake State Park in Wisconsin is in the middle of nowhere. We weren't even sure we were in the right place when we got there, but the camp host happened to pull in next to us and reassured us that we were where we were supposed to be. We pulled into the only campsite (water & electric hook-ups) that could possible accommodate our trailer and ended up with a beautiful view for the evening. After take-out from the A & W in the nearest town, we all hit the hay.

Delta Lake

We were pretty much on Route 2 all day again on Sunday. The most interesting thing we saw was a Shriner motorcycle gang.

We arrived at the Sherlock Campground in the Red River State Recreation Area in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. They built the park after a huge flood in 1997 that basically wiped out everything along the banks of the river. It is a beautiful campground and will be even better when the trees on the sites mature and provide some shade. We had a whole week of hot temperatures and no shade. We were also facing due south, so the awnings on the camper were no help there, either. There happened to be a Cabela's a block away from the park and Don happened to have a gift card, so we stopped in to get a screen room so that we could have a place to sit under cover.

Our site was beautiful! We had a huge lawn area in front of us, then a multi-use path that follows along the river beyond. We were a stone's throw from the the border of North Dakota. In fact, I'm sure that the people over in North Dakota could hear Bernie barking at the joggers going by on the path. People walking or biking are fine, but those joggers - Bernie just doesn't trust them. Not sure if he thinks that are acting suspiciously or if he is afraid that they are running away from something scary, but he has no tolerance for them.

First night campfire

In case anyone was wondering, the pets have adjusted to the mobile life pretty quickly, though they do spend some time jockeying for position for the most desirable spots in the camper. Here is Bernie waiting patiently for his turn on the dog bed. He wouldn't actually try to make the cat move, but he just stood there staring at him and trying to will him to get up. It doesn't look to me that Pumpkin is going anywhere anytime soon.

There was a beautiful moonrise one evening when we sat outside enjoying Don's homemade pizza from his campstove pizza oven. My phone camera just didn't do it justice.

It was a low-key week. We made a couple of trips to laundromats (woo hoo!) and to grocery stores. At least the second laundromat visit ended on a positive - the new owner of the place came out and introduced himself. In an effort to drum up some positive publicity, he refunded the money I spent on four washing machines. So, it only cost $3.25 to wash and dry four loads - total score! I was more than happy to give him a good review.

Don worked during the day, and the kids and I tried to avoid the worst of the heat by walking the dog in the mornings and playing under the bigger trees in the park to escape the sun.

Proper bocce form?

We finally had a family game night at home. We used to do it regularly, but haven't found the time in a while. Another night was for dinner and a movie in the plaza right next door to the campground. My pick was Little Bangkok. We have even converted Gavin to be a fan of Thai food! I had some sparkling peach sake, which seems to just be the Japanese version of a wine cooler, but it was still good.

The movie Valerian was better than I had anticipated (my expectations were not very high) and it turns out that Tuesday night is discount night at the theater, so it was even better!

Gavin and "The Punisher" made from car parts

Bernie enjoyed this campground with all of its open spaces, lawns, and trails to walk on. Gabriella and I ran into one of the rangers on a walk, and she said it was okay with her if I let the dog off-leash while on the trails. I declined, because if he caught one whiff of a squirrel, he would be headed for the Canadian border trying to track it down. He checked out the river a couple of times, but wasn't that impressed. I wasn't that impressed with the river, either. It was muddy and brown and the water level was too low to fish from the fishing spots.