Headwaters of the Mississippi

Big Sandy Corp of Engineers, Headwaters of the Mississippi park has been our home for Thursday night and tonight, Friday June 10th. On Thursday we drove for over 300 miles through North Dakota and then into Minnesota. The terrain moved from prairie hills, grasses and wheat with unending sky to almost flat with small shallow lakes abounding. Our route took us from Bismarck to Jamestown, to Fargo on 94 in North Dakota. I believe our strongest impression of that country was the sparseness of the population between the major areas of Bismarck and Fargo. Where small towns might exist, it seems we saw minimal services in most cases not even a grocery store which must mean long drives to the larger cities for an major purchases or even basic groceries. There were many more small butcher facilities though and many people appeared to have gardens so perhaps they do much more canning and drying for the winter and grow their own beef, pork and chicken.

This turtle wandered into our little camp, moved more quickly than expected. 

As we passed Fargo and entered Minnesota, traveling through Moorehead on Highway 10 until

Sunset at the Big Sandy Lake, Minnesota

Baxter and cutting north on 65 to Big Sandy Lake.The small towns had more amenities as they were strung like beads along the highways. Some of the roads we traveled in both states showed heavy use and made for a fairly difficult ride for the Escape. We hit some pretty hard bumps that causes our pots to find their way out of the cabinet and many things were jumbled and tossed.

As we camp at the Big Sandy tonight, we are surrounded by many families enjoying their summer in this green, green tree lined park. Many kids and adults are enjoying bike rides around this wonderfully designed place. Everyone who comes it seems brings trailer and boat. It is easy to see why “going to the lake” is a summer event Minnesotans look forward to doing. Rain this morning that cleared off by noon and was replaced by an 85 degree day and, of course, humidity which makes the breeze off the lake a joy. Early this morning and this evening the excitement for not just the kids is the turtles that on coming on land to lay their eggs. We saw one last night digging with her hind legs making a fairly deep hole and this morning she had covered it so well that you could almost not see were she had been. This morning Jim saw a turtle who had come up that was quite large, perhaps 18 inches wide and 24 inches long. Most, like the one I took a picture of tonight are about 12 inches long. They look like red eared sliders but have black shiny shell so not sure of my id.

It was a slow day today, had time to finish a novel and take a nap. Jim tried again on our water pump. We haven’t wanted to give up and have to get a new one that Reese would send to us later on our route. It is a self priming pump that no amount of trouble shooting seems to get it to prime so we, with Reese’s agreement, are going to a Camping World later in our trip in Michigan. We tried to get an appointment at a RV Repair Dealer in Duluth for Monday but they laughingly said “Sorry, first available is mid-July!” It really is not a big deal as we had planned to stay in full service parks through most of Michigan. Be well all!