Westbound on US 2 - Days 8 & 9 - Graham Island at Devils Lake ND

After leaving Turtle River State Park, we decided to head further west and set our goal as to Devil's Lake, also in North Dakota. We learned some things about Devil's Lake along the way:

The draining of wetlands to develop agricultural land in the area has aggravated flooding at Devils Lake. Drainage of the basin's wetlands and conversion of the basin's native prairie to cropland has resulted in water moving more rapidly into the lake, increasing water levels.^[14] In addition, the diversion of natural water flows is also considered to have contributed to the flooding.^[14]

An increase in precipitation between 1993 and 1999 caused the lake to double in size, forcing the displacement of more than 300 homes and flooding 70,000 acres (28,000 ha) of farmland

Because of a high salt content, the first Anglo-Americans to the area probably equated the brackish water with bad spirits, hence the current name. Today, without treatment, the lake water is not good for drinking due to the high amounts of sulphate, lime and other natural minerals.

We drove on down onto Graham Island State Park, and wandered among the sites looking for the type of camping we like to do. What is really nice is that the park is basically divided up into four areas. 

One area in the middle, it's all row upon row of parallel parked RVs on full service sites complete with electric water and sewer. It is called the LaRose section. It's not our kind of thing, but for people who enjoy that, there are plenty of sites available for that type of camping. They were higher priced called "premium" sites. 

The next section to the east was rolling grassy hills with trees here and there. This is the Ziebach section.  Open landscaped grassy sites and a lot of room with trees scattered here and there. These sites were electric and water. We considered maybe taking one of them but thought we better finish driving around and check out the rest. 

To the far section in the east was a section of rustic camping with primitive sites. More suited for boondocking or for tenting. No electric, and just pit toilets nearby. Very nice though and situated pretty far apart from each other. This was a very quiet section of the park.

The fourth section, to the west, called Howard. It was a winding road through the woods with nicely separated sites, tall trees, and patches of grass. Each site is protected from each other with large sections of dense underbrush and tall trees. This is the section that we would call home for two nights.

We chose a very nice site. I got out to walk to the back of the site to check it out, as well as help guide Steve backing into it. I suddenly noticed something on the picnic table. It made a little noise and moved. It was a huge hawk!

It must have been hurt or dazed. It kept making a little shrieking sound over and over. But it would not move away from the site. So I slowly walked away while I filmed it. It's in the video link down below. We decided instead to take a different site and leave the hawk alone.

We went further on down around the loop and found a really nice site. It was a pull through site with a beautiful grassy area that sloped down to nicely filled in woods with thick shrubbery. We really liked this one!

I don't remember what the premium sites were. But the regular sites that we chose were $25 a night.

Again, with the North Dakota state park system we had to pay online, with the $5.80 reservation fee, and the additional $7 for the vehicle fee. I tried to buy the vehicle fee permits for the next two days but it only allows you to buy one permit per day. So now I had to remember to get back online the next day, and the day after, to purchase two more vehicle fee permits. Or ride our bike up to the office and purchase them in person at the counter when they were open.

Regardless, it was a very nice campsite and we got settled in. 

Walking around, we noticed a couple of these big huge pelicans. They were flying overhead and dipping down into the water. It was amazing to see such big birds. We have pelicans over by Lake Michigan, but they are not as big as these guys!!

The first evening, we heard a strange humming noise off in the distance over the water. It was a low tone but actually a buzzing sound. We weren't sure what it was. 

After dusk, we were inside the motorhome watching TV and I was finishing up the dishes. Steve went out after dark with Nicholas for a last call potty break. 

Well well well! We were just completely bombarded by lakeflies! (I think they call them "midges" out there)

There were literally millions of them finishing against the glass of the kitchen window, looking to come in where the light was on inside. All I could see was the squirming of a million little insect bodies from the darkness outside. INVASION!!!

Steve had me turn off all of the lights inside of the motorhome so he could get in the door with the dog. 

As it was, probably 50 or so lake flies made it in the open door with him and the dog.

We spent the next hour hunting them down and squishing them carefully with tissues, not making a mess on our walls or ceiling. They don't bite. They're about an inch to maybe inch and a half long with pretty long wings. They make buzzing sounds like a mosquito, only louder! We are used to them, they hatch on Lake Winnebago and along the shore of Lake Michigan in the springtime. Sometimes there's a second hatching in August. And I guess that's what was happening here...

While it might have really grossed some people out, it really didn't bother us too much. We knew what they were and we knew it wasn't bad. And we knew during the daytime they would pretty much go away.

In the morning, there was probably about a hundred hanging underneath our awning. It was a nice breeze out and they were hanging on for dear life. 

That evening, we just made sure that we didn't keep any outside lights on to attract them, and we pulled our shades on the motorhome when the inside lights were on. They are pretty much room darkening blackout shades so it wasn't as bad letting the dog out one last time before bedtime.

During our stay at the campground, we took out our e-bikes. We wandered all around through the park and checked things out.

We left Nick in the motorhome with all of the shades drawn, the TV on loud so it would drowned out any outside noise, and our Wi-Fi camera surveying him. He curled up on the love seat with his chew toy and behaved himself while we were biking around the park.

We put on almost 4 miles, just within the park boundaries itself. It was kind of fun, and we discovered something that we would be going back to later on in the afternoon.

We took a little break and then we loaded the little trailer on the back of our bicycles. Into the little trailer hopped Nick, not knowing what adventure was going to await him...

It was a visit to something brand new to him, his very first time in a fenced-in DOG PARK!!!!

Since we got him last December on Christmas Eve, he has never been off a leash unless it was in our little fenced in potty yard at home. We are extremely concerned about his ability to return when called if he ever got loose. That's why his previous owners gave up on him. Twice he got loose from them and was hiding in the woods, avoiding anyone and anything trying to catch him. Actually the second time his leash was tangled up in something and he was bound up and starving and dehydrated for 6 days before chewing himself free. We finally caught him in a live trap but he was skin and bones, dangerously close to death. So we will never ever let him off a leash. 

It was important that we walked the entire perimeter of the dog park, checking the fence for any holes or anything dangerous. After double-checking everything--- we were able to let him off the leash!!

We brought along a little toy ball to play fetch. The temps were increasing and so was the humidity.

But he didn't care....

He played and played and played, fetching that ball and racing around like a crazy dog with no leash attached to his harness. It was an exhilarating experience for him.

Totally exhausted, he dropped down underneath the bench, with his tongue hanging very very low. We had brought along his water dish and a bottle of water for him to take sips from during the afternoon.

I think he was too tired to even get back up again. After a long time he was able to compose himself and we loaded him back into the trailer behind the bike.

It was nice to come back, and relaxing our chairs under the awning. But we did notice that there was getting to be a haze in the air, and saw reports of the North Dakota air quality being hampered by the wildfires up north and to the west. I was noticing a difference in my breathing, and we started to track the maps online.

Here is a video over time at the park, it starts with the hawk, the lake fly invasion, our bike ride around the campground, and Nick's happy time in the dog park:

After two nights and 3 days here, it was time to move on. Our next stop was going to be at Lake Sakakawea at Little Egypt Campground.

We had traveled 89 miles on Monday 

717 mi total 

Fuel fill up in North Dakota was $3.24 a gallon for premium diesel, averaging 13.6 miles per gallon with some wind