We left Devil's Lake on Grahams Island in North Dakota and headed on Westward. We were aiming our sights to get further west, maybe even into Montana.
The skies were dark and rumbly, and we had some intermittent rain on and off as we headed westward.
But it was soon getting worse in the skies were turning very dark.
We stopped at a small town called Granville in North Dakota. They had a small city campground and we decided to pull over there and wait out the downpouring torrential rains.
Expected rainfall was approximately 2 inches, in torrential sheets. Good reason to be off the highway.
Here is a little clip while we waited:
After the storm passed, we kind of glanced around the little city campground in Granville. If we really needed a place to pull over for the night, it would be pretty handy. But it was right by the highway.
Here is their website:
The only information we could find was that it was $10 a night. That might have been old information though.
But once the skies cleared up a bit we figured we could head further west and maybe get into a little county park we had read about near Ray, North Dakota.
We love the changing terrain. We noticed some of the oil fields now as we were in the western side of North Dakota.
We even spotted out a couple "fixer uppers" in case we were so inclined....
The sun managed to poke out a little bit, but notice the grey sky in the background. Those aren't clouds. That is campfire smoke blowing down from Saskatchewan, Canada.
We saw some rangeland with cattle, and sometimes they were up near the road. Usually they were pretty far away.
Soon we found our way down to this little county campground called Little Egypt in Williams County, North Dakota. We saw some pictures and read some reviews and thought this might be the type of place we would want to spend the night.
Here's their website for more information:
There are 21 sites, and a campground host. There are only pit toilets but there is a small dump station and water. We did read some warnings that the water had very high iron content, so we didn't use it.
Most of the sites are pull through, all in a row up on the ridge overlooking the water. Four of them are down below in a little valley by the camp host site. Those might be nice if it's windy conditions?
These maps aren't the best, but it's what they had on their website that I could cut and paste.
The last section of road into the park is gravel, we drove along slowly admiring the beautiful Russian olive trees planted alongside the road. The Russian olive trees extended through the campground along the backsides of all of the campsites.
We chose a site and tried to get level. Up at the end where the trees were, to be in the shade, but it was really slanted and tilted. We had to pull forward on the site, almost to the front end of it to find a level spot. Now we were out in the wide open area and no shade.
If you are in a travel trailer you might have an easier time leveling yourself because a travel trailer will pivot in the middle. Raising the front or the rear helps with the leveling when there's only an axle in the center.
But with a motorhome you are stuck with a more square shape, with wheels at each corner. It's a little more difficult to level. We finally did just as the skies opened up and started raining again!!!!
We could see the beach that was down over the ledge of the ridge, through the fence posts. We could faintly see the shore on the other side. It looked like it was going to be really interesting once the rain stopped.
It rainef and rained and rained for the entire afternoon.
The best thing to do was to hook up the Starlink, which we did in the overhead skylight. Then we put on some old movies on Hulu and sprawled out across the bed. Nick enjoyed the afternoon very much, sprawled out between us.
Earlier in the day we had stopped for a few extra groceries. I was surprised to see our favorite brand of pizza that is made in Minnesota. We grabbed one and took it along for a quick meal if we were unable to cook outside. It looked like tonight would be the night! Plus, it was taking up a lot of room in our little freezer.
I am so happy that we now have a propane oven in our motorhome. If you missed it, here is my YouTube about sacrificing a drawer and moving around a few things to have space to install this three burner RV stove with propane oven:
Also I am happy that a full size pizza pan fits inside of the oven. Turning on the oven light, I have an extra oven thermometer inside just to monitor the temps. We have to adjust the settings on the valve, we haven't done that yet.
Ahhhhhh in no time the whole camper smelled wonderful, and the pizza was ready. Nick helped us by eating a few of the crusts.
At just about dusk, the rain had stopped and we had enough time to get out and walk the dog. A tiny bit of sunshine was peeking through the clouds to the west. The weather report looked really good for the next day, minus of course the warnings about the wildfire smoke.
Ahhhhh The next morning was beautiful! We could now see across the lake. The name of the lake is Sakakawea, named after the famous Indian princess who helped with the Lewis and Clark expedition. This is a full sunshine morning, but note the haze and the sky?
In this photo you can now see why we had to pull forward to get level on the pull through site. Back further into the trees is where it was tilted. If this were a hot day in the 90° sunshine, we might not have been so comfortable on this campsite.
We hooked the dog up to his harness and long leash. It was time to go to the beach!
What a wonderful time we had all morning out playing along on the sandy beach. Although there was a funny smell in the air, the smoke held off enough that we could really enjoy ourselves. I would love to stay here for a week if we could. This was a really really nice place...
I will let the photos speak for themselves:
Here's a YouTube that I made of our traveling that day with all the rain and then our evening as well as the morning on the beach. Please like and subscribe if you click on it? It's non-sponsored and I don't earn anything. But the last part of the video is the fun part on the beach.
We made up a little lunch and then decided it was time to get moving further west. This was such a nice campground and the view out the front windshield was absolutely beautiful. The winds seem to be coming up from the south which helped alleviate some of the wildfire smoke. The skies were actually looking blue again for a bit.
For only $15 a night, with electric hookups, this place really can't be beat. We walked up and down the rest of the sites. There were only three or four other campers here.
Just before we were ready to leave, three or four large trucks and trailers pulled in with a number of zero-turn riding lawn mowers and other lawn equipment. A whole crew of County workers hopped out and started working in the campground. It got noisy really quick. It was probably a really good time to leave! At the other edge of the campground there was also a golf course that had mowing equipment out and about. I suppose after all of the rain, they were anxious to get things taken care of.
So off we went, heading towards Montana!!
We traveled 231 miles this day
That is 948 mi so far.
We fueled up for $3.74 for premium diesel and averaged 14.4 mpg
Without the smoke, it is very pretty country
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