Monday, August 8, 2022North Dakota our 47th U.S. State we’ve camped in!

7:15 am – Woke up to it being 57* outside, sunny BUT 68* inside the camper! 1st night without the A/C on & we had all the windows open. Brrr

Made coffee & tea, showered, and we were on the road by 8:25am.

All along I-29 cornfields, soybean fields, hay fields, wheat fields as far as you can see!!!!! Finally some wildlife….some rabbits, wild turkeys, & cows. Then a big field of windmills. Saw a semi carrying a blade for a windmill! This was our excitement so far!

Stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast & diet Coke’s in Watertown and brr it’s only 64*.

Read up on South Dakota & North Dakota’s since there’s not much to see here, not even cars! Traffic is scarce. So here’s some information for you…SD – top crops…corn, soybeans, hay & sunflowers ND – soybeans, corn, wheat, flaxseed, & canola – Biggest export for both are petroleum & coal products

11:39am 🎉🎉🎉🎉 We crossed into North Dakota!

We stopped at the visitor center. Not maned but got brochures & used the bathroom. 😆 No traffic at all on the highway! 🤷🏻‍♀️ Silo’s, crop fields, flat land. Amazing how both SD and ND utilize their land. Only a few feet off the road, hay is planted and for as far as we can see on both sides of the road, they just rolled it all. 12:25pm passing tall bright yellow sunflower fields! Absolutely beautiful! 🌻🌻🌻 We stopped in Fargo, at a Starbucks for a celebratory drink and a “Where have you been” mug! Then to Aldi for something to cook for dinner and back on the road again!

FYI- Fargo is the largest city in North Dakota, founded in 1871,its population was 125,990 in 2020. On Labor Day in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt visited Fargo to lay the cornerstone of the college’s new library. To a crowd of 30,000, Roosevelt spoke about his first visit to Fargo 27 years earlier, and credited his experience homesteading in North Dakota for his eventual rise to the presidency.

After leaving Fargo it was nonstop fields of sunflowers, so when you’re on vacation you stop & take pictures! 🌻 📷 🌻 After 2 attempts at going to a sunflower farm…..Tim pulls off the side of a service road, puts 4 way flashers on and we proceed to take pictures and I cut one to add to my decor! Amazed at how thick the stalks are and the height of these plants!

****North Dakota 39.3 million acres- nearly 90% of the land area are farms & crops. Nations largest producer of honey!

As we got closer to tonight’s destination, the roads began to get bumpy and rough so I’m sure I’m in for a surprise when I open Ruby up! 332 miles for today! We arrived at Mel Riemann COE park, set up and it’s Happy Hour time as we sit behind the trailer looking down at the lake. We decided to explore the area on bike and went all around the dam, the visitor center and campground. When we got to Valley City, there are many bridges here naming it the “City of Bridges” for its at the head of the Sheyenne River Valley National Scenic Byway. We drove right under the Hi-Line Railroad Bridge – a historic railroad bridge which is 3,860 feet long and 162 feet above the river. Construction work began on July 5, 1906 and it was ready for service on May 8, 1908.

The Mel Rieman Campground and Recreation Area is a 70-acre facility on the shoreline of Lake Ashtabula in eastern North Dakota. The campground is known for its spectacular sunset views. It is close to the Baldhill Dam and within walking distance of the Mel Rieman day-use area where we biked all around. Lake Ashtabula was created by the construction of the Baldhill Dam on the Sheyenne River in 1944, and is situated in one of the most scenic river valleys in the region.

We enjoyed grilling a pork tenderloin with steamed vegetables then relaxed while watching the sun set. The orange colors behind the hilltops was spectacular. We were visited by deer, lots of different birds, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and even bats! Off in the distance we could even hear coyotes and also the clanking of a nearby train. We had our loop to ourselves. Besides the camp host there were only 2 other campers in another loop, so it was a very quiet night. Tomorrow’s adventures await us!