Crossing North Dakota

Note: Internet connections are rather spotty -- I have the ATT AirCard which works for looking at the NYT and other valuable papers, and generally gets in-coming mail as we pass thru larger towns but generally won't sent out-going mail. Perhaps it'll be better when we get further East into civilization.

This is being finished as we drive along our route (Hiway #2) toward Duluth early Sunday afternoon.Complete and total isolation was what we found Thursday evening just outside of Havre, MT at Fresno Reservoir, apparently a Corps of Engineers project.

We were the only two vehicles in the campground, and apparently, for many miles around as well. A nice quiet evening. The only down-side was the huge trashpile apparently left over from Labor Day parties (see below),

but the rest of the campground was spotless, the lake/reservoir was loaded with seagulls -- everything you could want.We finished up with Montana and entered North Dakota on Friday, spending the evening in Williston at a private park.Had I mounted my camera on the dash and put on a timer to take a shot every minute as we crossed North Dakota, I think that at least 300 of the 350 or so shots would have looked exactly like the one below -- scenery in ND is bo-o-oring. It is a wheat growing country in the midst of harvest right now with miles of golden fields, broken only occasionally by a field of sunflowers, apparently cultivated for their oil, turning their faces toward the sun. Clara thinks this country is beautiful in the summertime, full of small towns and grain elevators, but shivers to think of winter here.My feelings about ND are that it is "sweet, friendly and cheap" -- except for gasoline. The first night's RV park was $16 and change and included electricity and a wireless hook-up in the park's rec room. The second night at Graham's Island was $19 for a beautiful state park on a lake with full hook-up. The hostesses at both parks were sweet (but not saccharine), the men we saw at the store, etc., were sturdy and stoic/withdrawn as real men should be, the waitress at Captain's Cove in Minot was ultra-helpful with local information. Gasoline is $3.25/gallon.Our little touch of irony was that we of the Unholy Rollers RV group, turned off the highway just before Church's Ferry to head down to Devil's Lake for an evening at Graham's Island State Park -- out a little causeway into the lake.For several years I have heard it said that every one of our fifty states had at least one winery -- except North Dakota (we have even been to wineries in Alaska and Montana and South Dakota -- all of which you would think most unlikely sites). Well now we have been further enlightened . . . coming down the road yesterday Clara saw a sign pointing off south to "Dakota Hills Winery" -- so a quick U-turn (we're not on an Interstate after all) and we were on our way down a little gravel road toward a real adventure!

The owners were a late fifty-ish couple who had recently retired from operating a dairy farm just outside of Lynden, WA (for non-Washingtonians, that's about 100 miles N/NW of Seattle.) Besides having the world's brattiest little boy

and lots of farm animals -- chickens, turkeys, goats, etc. -- they also had a wide variety of fruit-based wines and a very friendly approach to guests/tourists. The husband/chief wine-maker knew quite a lot about government regulation of fruit-based wine-making -- none of which I was aware of (I thought you could make whatever you wanted provided you paid the correct taxes.)We spent Saturday all day cursing the rain which was constant all the way from Devils Lake, ND to Bemidji, MN and then spent the evening at Lake Bemidji State Park, which was probably a very nice place except that we didn't venture out in the dark and the rain. Just a little while ago we stopped along the road and bought some smoked white-fish at a little stand. Happy hour tonight should be very tasty.