Saturday, June 27 – Red River State Recreational Area
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| Grand Forks, ND |
We left Itasca State Park and headed out to Red River SRA. Red River SRA is part of the Greater Grand
Forks Greenway and is located in the city of East Grand Forks MN on the banks
of Red River of the North and Red Lake River. We were
able to get a non-electric site for the night.
We took a bike ride around the Greenway in both MN and North Dakota,
checking off another state (#29) on our list with our 3rd
two-states-in-one-ride on this trip. We rode through the
University of North Dakota which has a beautiful campus. Total bike miles – 22.
Shortly after our ride, a thunderstorm with tornado warnings rolled
in. Despite some heavy rain, thankfully no
tornado. I would really hate to see what a tornado
could do to a RV campsite. After the
rain let up we took a short walk to dinner at the Blue Moose on the river
front. With the park in downtown Grand
Forks, there was easy access to a lot of options.
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| Rainbow after the storm... and a guy with a full sized diesel tractor to pull his 5th-wheel |
Sunday, Jun 28 – Graham’s Island State Park, Devils Lake, ND
Another morning of driving took us into North Dakota to Devils Lake,
ND. We needed to take care of laundry
and shopping so made a stop in town before heading to Graham’s Island State
Park. Unfortunately we ran into one of the last remaining bastions of “Blue
Laws”. ND still enforces a wide of array of retail sales restrictions on
Sunday, so much so that most stores don’t even open until noon… Not even
Walmart!!! But by the time we had finished
up laundry, it was past noon and we could stock up before heading to our camp
site.
Devil’s Lake is ND’s largest natural lake and the second largest body
of water in ND. It is well known by
sport fishermen for walleye and northern pike.
Too bad we don’t fish. But there were plenty of fishermen around. We saw some of the largest RV parks we have
seen and plenty of fishing boats in the area.
Grahams Island has close to 200 RV spots and they were completely full
on Saturday night, but we had no problem getting a spot on Sunday.
Monday, June 29 – Cross Ranch State Park, ND
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| Humid, hazy morning |
The morning started off with a tough 42 mile out and back ride. It was very flat riding with humidity in the
90’s and 10 – 20 mph wind in our face for the first half of the ride. The humidity was so thick the sun was just an red ball in the sky. Not a lot to see, we were either on levy
roadways which run through the lake or in farm country. Our original plan was to ride around the
entire lake, 65 miles, but with the stiff headwind the last 15-20 miles back to
the RV could have been a very unpleasant slog so we road to the town of
Minnewaukan (or what’s left of it) and back.
It was quite interesting to see how much higher the lake was than in
the past. Because the lake is endorheic
(Google challenge) the water level can rise and fall dramatically and is more
saline than most typical fresh water lakes.
The lake has risen 25 feet in the last 10 years. Entire barns were in the water. Over 300
homes and 70,000 acres of farmland have been flooded.
After our ride, we moved on west to Cross Ranch State Park, ND which is
located along seven miles of the last free-flowing, undeveloped stretches of
the Missouri River about 25 miles north of Bismarck.
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| Abandoned house that is being taken over by Devil's Lake |
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