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20050807 Devil's Lake ND 57/96 Clear, hot, wind out of the south. Picture Link
So which way were we traveling for the most part? South. Dead into the wind. A 20 mph adverse wind makes the truck think it's doing 85 at 65, and this truck can't tow a high fifth-wheel trailer at 85. So we had to slow down. Most of the day, we were doing 55.
We went with the replanned route to Wisconsin.
We left Riding Mountain National Park at 10:00 or so, stopped for diesel outside the park in Onanole, and then stopped and parked in Erickson. Dolores went into church while I did things in the trailer, took a hike up and down the one-block main street and read a book. When Dolores came out, we headed south on MB-10.
When we got to the border, we got asked the usual questions including the one about beef (still prohibited to import from Canada). So we had to pull aside while a customs person came in and confiscated a half-pound of hamburger. Another half pound had slipped out of the freezer when its door opened and hid under the table. So, they didn't get it all.
After the border we continued going south on ND-3. We passed a bunch of large fields of sunflowers. Millions of sunflowers. Sunflower seeds must be a cash crop around here.
We continued straight south to Rugby ND, where we turned east onto US-2. This is a nice, four lane divided highway. Still doing about 58, we plodded along to Devil's Lake ND. We fueled up again for tomorrow. We stopped at Wally's Market (NOT Wal-Mart, Wally's) for some groceries and Wally's Liquor for beer (Moose Drool from Montana) and wine. Then we went to the Spirit Lake Casino and Resort RV Park (whew!).
This fancy place is on a knoll overlooking the large man-made lake on the Fort Totten Indian Reservation. It has a large hotel with huge pool facility and a good-sized casino, plus a marina and the RV park. We set up the trailer in the site and had room for the truck still attached, so we left them hooked together and connected the utilities. We had intended to go to the nice third floor dining room overlooking the lake for dinner, but it is closed on Sunday and Monday nights. So we went to the little dining room, which had a buffet going for $9.95 each. It was tolerable.
There is no alchohol in the facility, so it probably worked out that the fancy dining room was closed. I suppose this has to do with being on the reservation. Many of the staff appear Indian, so I'll bet this place is a good employment source for a lot of people who might otherwise be unemployed. Good.
Dolores played nickel slots while I pawed around in the gift shop. I didn't buy anything. Dolores lost $5.15 at slots (big spender).
We hiked back to our little house and finished putting things away.
The campground has concrete pads and asphalt driveways and is obviously still under construction. No cable yet, no Wifi. Devil's Lake has two channels, Fox and ABC. Still, that should get us the news at 10:00pm CDT.
The truck is still a mess after the wolf-howl car caravan last night. It looks like some sort of four wheeled dust cloud. When I find a carwash, I'll wash it two or three times to get it clean again.
Dolores is happy. Now that we're back in the US and in Central Daylight, all the TV shows are on their proper channels and at the proper times. In Canada, you were never certain - shows on a channel could come from any US network and were delayed into the wrong nights, wrong times, and so forth. You never knew what was happening.
Gee, the local Devil's Lake/Grand Forks channel just announced a local guy got a hole-in-one on a par FOUR using a driver; not often heard of.
Also, it's supposed to be slightly cooler tomorrow with the wind out of the NW (great!). Seems like it was even warmer in western ND and SD - 101 at Rapid City SD today. Low tonight will be 65*; guess we won't need the heater.
Tomorrow, we're off east, south, and southeast, to St. Cloud, Minnesota.
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