Westbound on US 2 - Day 2 & 3 - Pokegama Corps Of Engineers, Grand Rapids MN

I know I wrote a little bit about getting into Minnesota and over to Pokagama Dam in my last blog. Especially about stopping at the quilt shop on the way.

I thought I would take the time to write a little bit more about the park itself. It is an Army Corps of Engineers Park with a dam on the Mississippi River. It is located just west of Grand Rapids Minnesota right on US 2.

The fee for the campground is $26 a night and that includes electricity. There is water and a dump station available as well as showers and flush toilets. With our Federal America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass, we paid $13 a night. 

We were set up on site number one, and originally we just took it for one night. We then decided to take it for a second night and just relax a bit. We are in no hurry.

The campground is long and narrow along the edge of US 2 and there are some railroad tracks. We did not hear a single train in the two nights that we were there. There was some traffic along the highway of course, but it quieted down at night and it really wasn't that bad. There were enough tall mature trees around to help muffle any stray sounds.

Here is their website on recreation.gov if you would like to know more:

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/233588

As I said, we were in site number one. Our windows overlooked the Mississippi River and it was really a very pleasant grassy roomy site.  Each site offers a fire ring, picnic table and lantern hook. It was pretty level, we only had to go up on a couple blocks to get perfectly level.

Since it was raining most of the evening, we decided to just curl up inside and watch some TV. It was kind of a nice lazy evening to just kick back and relax.

Upon waking up in the morning, Steve started the coffee and took Nick out for his walk. I quick whipped up a little Betty Crocker mix of blueberry muffins. I was excited to try out my new oven!

I had mentioned two blogs back about leaving early from camping up at Bear Lake and heading down to Menasha. There was a guy nearby there selling an RV Furrion propane stove oven combo on Marketplace. It had never ever been installed in a motorhome yet. Brand new condition.  We picked it up for a bargain price, just a fraction of what they cost at an RV store. 

I did a YouTube of our installation and removing the two burner cooktop that we originally had in our Winnebago View. We sold that to somebody else who is doing a bus conversion. That helped offset the cost of buying the new Furrion.

Although I tried to make friends with the installed original convection portion of our micro convection combo, I really didn't care for it. Although we did buy a portable Camp Chef stove oven that we could bring out and set up on the picnic table... But I didn't feel like going out in my jammies just to make some muffins. Since buying the Furrion stove, we sold the Camp Chef oven too.

Having a built-in oven is something we really wanted. We had done it in our last motorhome, the Safari. We removed the two burner cooktop and installed an RV stove / oven combo in there too. So this wasn't our first "rodeo". 

We had fired it up after we first installed it to make sure any of the newness and metal smells were baked off. It operated perfectly and came up to temperature. I kind of like the pretty blue backlighting on the knobs. It turns red when a knob is actually in use. That way you can tell it a glance if you left a burner on. We now have three burners and a large square cast iron grid area to slide pans around on. Much better than the little wire supports on the Coleman cooktop that only held one little pan or one large pan. 

There is also a switch that you can turn those off if you are trying to preserve 12 volt battery power.  The very best part is that there is also an oven light! I have not had a light in an RV oven in our last three RVs. I did have one back in my 1972 Winnebago Chieftain! Go Winnebago!!! 

The muffins turned out perfectly and Steve's coffee was done. We had recently bought these mugs at Aldi's, and thought they were really nice because they were heavy ceramic and had travel lids. But with the fluted edges, it seems that the coffee dribbles down your chin unless you press your lips really hard to the fluted edge. I think we're going to continue to hunt for the right coffee cups that fit in our cup holders of the motorhome.

P.S. while just editing this blog right now, Steve was filling up our freshwater tank at the fill station. As he drove away we are now 5 miles down the road. He just realized he left his coffee cup at the water fill station! Oh well, we really didn't care for them anyhow. So that's one gone. I think we will leave the other one at a Goodwill. Lol! 

One other thing I wanted to mention is that with any RV oven, the oven burner is usually situated right in the center. People complain that things burn in the middle and are raw around the edges. Especially pizzas and cookies. We've learned this trick long ago to get an old-fashioned pizza stone.

Lay it inside, underneath the cooking racks, on top of the bottom metal portion, just above the burner. It helps to distribute the heat more evenly within the oven and things bake better. It works!

I do see they sell pizza stones again in the grilling areas of stores, for people to grill them outside on a gas grill. Same idea as an RV oven. So if you can't find an old pizza stone at a Goodwill or a thrift shop, check the grilling department of places like Target or Walmart.

Enough about cooking, let's get back to the campground review. 

We walked down by the dam and looked at the beautiful shoreline with cattails and wild flowers. The river was flowing by swiftly and this was no place to even consider going fishing or swimming right by the dam.

I did film a video that I'm still editing to put up on YouTube. Once it's done I'll come back here and add a link. 

ON EDIT- here is the link:

It was an absolutely beautiful morning walking alongside of the Mississippi River.

The water was rushing out of the dam through quite a few of the open gates. We walked up on top of the dam to cross to the other side. There are hiking trails all along that side of the park. Some of that footage is in the video I will add later.

Nick really enjoyed rollicking around here and there along the banks of the river. He was watching intently for the grasshoppers that seemed to be jumping all over. Between grasshoppers and birds, he has a fascination for flying things. For some crazy reason he thinks if he launches his little dog body in the air, he can fly right after them and catch them??

Again, this is a very neat and clean campground. With the office staff and the maintenance building right there, things get taken care of and maintained. There's a lot of attention to detail.

In my last blog I mentioned about my sister giving me a great big huge kohlrabi.  We sliced it up and shook a little salt on it to have as a snack along with our sandwiches. I put the rest in the fridge for the next day.

Speaking of fridge, I tallied up in my mind and I have 22 meals worth of meat packed into our freezer from our home stash. The pantry cabinets hold enough canned goods and boxed dry items for about a week or so, along with baking goods. So I grabbed another 2 weeks or so worth of canned goods from our pantry at home. They are riding in a tote back in the trailer. As we use them up gradually the tote will be empty. For now, all we need to stop for is a gallon of milk, maybe some bread, and a few fresh veggies. Our grocery expense line of our spreadsheet is only a couple dollars at this point. 

Then we can stop and do another grocery shopping before we head up into the Rocky Mountains. We do most of our cooking here at the campsites, and rarely eat out.

Another thing we discovered in our kitchen, is that if we go over bumpy roads, our faucet handles in either the bathroom or the kitchen sometimes open up and start drizzling water. Usually we turn the water pump off when we travel. But there are a few times where if we've stopped at a roadside quick bathroom break, the pump is inadvertently left on. It can make an especially big mess if we have the sink covers on the kitchen sink.  That has happened to us twice since we bought this motorhome. Or if the one in the bathroom sink opens up, it can fill our black holding tank without us even knowing it. The sink in the bathroom drains into the black tank. It just happened to someone on our Winnebago group. Everything accidentally filled up and overflowed through the toilet on them. Not fun! 

So I came up with the handy little idea of looping together two larger rubber hair ties. Kind of in a figure eight. Works really well! When we travel I just slide it up over the knob. When we stop I just slide it off again.

Well, after 2 days at Pokegama, it's time to hit the road. We're heading further west on US 2 to another Corps of Engineers Campground that we had in mind last spring when we visited Minnesota. The name of the next one is called Winnie Dam on Lake Winnibigoshish.  The weather is turning cooler during the days and in the nights, but we did have some rain clouds rumbling up overhead as we drove west.

Traveled 110 miles from Amicon Falls Wisconsin State Park to Pokegama Corps of Engineers Park 

Traveled 414 mi total so far 

Averaging 14.7 mi per gallon diesel