Following my last post on Wednesday we had one remaining day in Maple Grove…which was scheduled to be a rainy day according to the weather forecast…so we devoted it to errands. Neil did laundry in the AM while Connie worked and then we headed off for some errands. A few final groceries, fill up BAT with diesel, get some propane, a quick stop at CVS for some stuff we needed, and we were back to the house by mid afternoon. Our plan was to have a nice dinner in (which we did) and then just get ready for our 2 day travel period starting on Friday. Neil did get this shot of a Downy Woodpecker right outside our house while at Site 40 in the KOA at Maple Grove…had to use this one taken through the window as he flew off when he went outside to get a better one.

Friday we got up early and packed/hitched/etc and were on the road by about 0930 for our scheduled 315 mile day. We were headed for Jamestown ND via Fargo ND and it was a pretty uneventful day…stopped for lunch and bathroom breaks and rolled in about 1600 or so. The last mile or so from the freeway ramp was down a dirt/gravel road…but we figured that was just training for Alaska. Here’s a shot of our site 43 at the Jamestown Campground…quite a nice little campground. Dinner was leftover pizza from Mama G’s the other night and we did only minimal setup but Neil did load us up with 80 gallons of fresh water for our planned boon docking site at our next scheduled site.

While there…Connie checked our our next stop at Cottonwood Campground in Teddy Roosevelt National Park…when we checked in February there were no reservations and little to no info on the National Park Service site about the campground. Between then and now…they had updated the site to say that only RVs 13 feet or less in height could get in (we’re 13’5”) and 3/4 of the campground could now be reserved. So…we nixed the idea of staying there and went to our second choice…which was Sully Creek State Park out 5 miles from Cottonwood…where again we would be boon docking.

Connie looked up Sully Creek on the Internet…and found that although there were 70something sites in the park there were only 8 or so that were OK for rigs of our size…at which point she…well, let me be gentle and say that she FREAKED OUT ABOUT IT. 

So…we planned a couple of backups at commercial parks in case Sully Creek was full…and decided to roll the dice and just go there first…even though we were arriving Saturday afternoon. With all of that sorta/kinda finalized we headed off to bed. Here’s a shot of our site at Jamestown.

Saturday morning we arose to a mosquito feeding frenzy or something…the bugs were out something fierce around the park…dunno why as they weren’t there the evening before. So…having already filled the fresh water tank Neil quickly dumped gray and we finished our abbreviated pack/hitch routine and headed off for another 240 mile day.

On our arrival in Medora ND outside Teddy Roosevelt NP…we say the Red Trail commercial campground near downtown and it had plenty of open spaces albeit a little close together. We continued on another 4 miles or so to Sully Creek…and there were 3 of the 8 big rig sites open around the central loop of the campground. We quickly picked site 2 which we think has the best view of what looks strangely like the South Dakota badlands and paid our $68 for a 4 night stay. 

Here’s a shot of site 2 looking towards the east and the ridge…the Little Missouri River is behind Neil in this shot.

And a shot of the Little Missouri River about 30 yards from our campsite, along with a pano shot looking east toward the ridge, and a couple of shots of our neighbors in the park…there’s a large horse camping area just north of us that is pretty full.

The pano is essentially what we see of our rear window.

So…here we sit…parked in this wonderful field with a great view…albeit it without utility hookups. With our solar panels we have as I write this fully charged batteries, a full tank of fresh water, and the generator ready for a couple of hours of runtime in the morning then we’ll just let Mr. Sun finish topping us off. It’s about 70 degrees with a 9 or 10 mile an hour breeze. Neil thinks that it will be really, really dark when the sun sets so he’s hoping for some Milky Way shots or something later…we’ll see how that turns out I guess.

For dinner we headed into Medora and had a couple of brews each plus a nicely done elk burger (sans bun for Connie)…met some locals…had some good conversation about Alaska, RVing, and life on the road then came home. With our somewhat limited power we’ll stay out until it starts to get dark then head in for TV and bedtime. We have great internet signal here and decent but not great cell service.

Connie’s doing some planning for Sunday and Monday’s Fun Stuff™. Tuesday it’s supposed to rain (maybe) so we’ll play that by ear and either do more stuff or hang around. Wednesday we’re off early for a 330 or so mile trip up to Regina SK…let’s just say that we now know the correct way to pronounce the name of this city…we were pronouncing it with a long e sound for the i up until our Canadian friends told us how incorrect we were.

More photos and reports on Fun Stuff™ tomorrow I’m guessing.

Cyas.