Turnaround to Wisconsin - Days 15 & 16 - Gull Lake COE Brainerd Minn

I am way way way behind in posting these blogs. I got the photos on and I never got around to finishing all of the dialogue. 

In my last blog post I left off leaving Lake Ashtabula Corps of Engineers Park in North Dakota. 

We woke up early and decided to get moving and get some miles behind us. We loaded everything up and hit the road.

We crossed into Minnesota by 10:30 a.m., and the smoke situation seem to be getting a little bit better. The sign made us feel very welcome. We were just one state away from getting back to Wisconsin. 

We stopped and fueled up at a Casey's. We found fuel for $3.53 per gallon diesel and our mileage was back up again. We're at 14.1 miles per gallon. That made us feel better.

We decided to try and reach at least the middle of Minnesota if we could. One of the campgrounds that was on our bucket list earlier this spring was Gull Lake. We were wandering around in Minnesota earlier this spring hitting a lot of the Corps of Engineer parks. Gull Lake was one we had set our sights on, but there was a bunch of road construction going on, so we passed it and went somewhere else.

Now it was almost directly on our way back, right near Brainerd, Minnesota.

We looked ahead on the website and found out we could get a camp spot, for not just one but two nights. We decided we've been pushing ourselves and it might be nice to take a break for a day in between driving sessions. We took our chances and picked a campsite off the pictures and the aerial map of the campground.

We took the detour around and made our way into the park on back roads. We did see the area that had been closed down earlier in the spring that was almost now complete. 

It was such a pretty area in the rolling countryside. There were quite a bit of large nice homes nearby and a few golf courses. But the campground itself was surrounded by tall trees and some very nice scenery.

We passed by this pond full of birds. At first I thought they were domestic geese or maybe some kind of trumpeter swans. Nope, they were pelicans! We really hadn't seen these species of huge white pelicans with the black tipped wings. I know the picture is blurry but it brings it up to my mind when I see it. We just flew on past but we knew it was something different that we hadn't seen before.

When we got to the campground, there was a travel trailer ahead of us making its way through the campsites. Because we were pre-registered we knew where we had to go. But we had to wait patiently for this person ahead of us to work his way into his campsite. Little did we know he was actually stopped before the entrance of his potential site. Because his potential site was still occupied by somebody else! So instead of moving somewhere else in the park, maybe a parking lot or by the entrance shack... and maybe waiting until his site was available, nope, he was going to sit right there blocking any and all traffic until the people were done packing up and leaving. We could kind of see ahead around his vehicle that these people weren't even unplugged yet nor did they even have their slides in. They seem to be quite upset and they were trying to back in and hook up and get everything thrown back in their travel trailer. Now we and all the people behind us, could have kept moving on to our sites if this one idiot in front of us would move. But he didn't. His wife was out walking around with a little yippy chihuahua in her arms. She was wandering around and talking to some people further down. It turns out they are camping with a group of three or four other people who are on nearby campsites. I guess the people on their intended site were gone somewhere and hadn't vacated yet. They were beyond the checkout time by almost 2 hours. 

We sat there, trying to be patient. But are irritation at the guy ahead of us and his rudeness to everybody else lining up behind us was growing. We sure didn't want anybody behind us think we were causing the problem! We were thinking it was about time to go and find a park ranger or at least a campground host, when suddenly the guy decided that yes, he would drive around a loop and pass up the people who still were not yet hooked up. So as he moved forward, now we could move forward trying to get to our campsite. We saw the flustered people trying to get off his intended campsite and I think they were having some difficulties. It looked like quite the marital spat in the making. I think everyone was upset and short-tempered. Best for us to just let it go and wait. 

So what happens? From the map it looked like we could enter our campsite from the third loop. Nope! We actually had to go all the way around it and come in from the second loop. The entrance to our campsite was on the second loop. Guess what? That same guy in front of us decided to go very slowly also down that second loop and figured he would stop again and wait THERE for his campsite to become available. So again, we were backed up behind him and waiting. 

Aarrghhhhhhh

Finally, finally, he moved on and we could get into our campsite. Aahhhhhhh. It was a very nice site and we were pleased that we had picked it off photos. But little did we know that we would have to wait all that while, approximately 25 to 30 minutes to get into it.

Steve hauled out the Blackstone griddle and I steamed up some sweet corn in the microwave.  It was a quick dinner, along with some veggies, but since we had to go through such difficulties to get into our site, we didn't feel like cooking an elaborate meal.

Our campsite was really nice, and it was sheltered on all three sides by thick shrubbery and trees. We still got a good Starlink signal, and it was very pleasant sitting out in our chairs. Every once in a while, that guy from down the road would walk by with his wife with their little yippy chihuahua. They were friends with the people camping just on the other side of the shrubs from us. We could kind of hear every word they said as they were complaining about how it long it took them to get on their site. He sounded like quite the "hot head". Glad that we didn't have a confrontation with him. 

You think he ever considered how long it took for us to get on OUR site because of him?

As we ate our dinner at the picnic table, we smiled at how his perceived problem was the only problem in the world. Oh well, this too shall pass. 

Nicholas enjoys scouting out underneath the table just in case a little piece happens to fall his way. Smart puppy.

In the evening we took a nice walk down by the dam. The weather was pretty temperate and we were losing all that horrible humidity from earlier in the day. It was nice to relax, and also to know that we didn't need to pack up the next day and drive. We had taken our site for two nights. The sites here run $28 a night. Again with our senior access pass we get it for $14. Pretty nice for a site with electric and water. Even if we had to struggle to get into it.

We were getting a little behind on laundry and our clothes needed to get washed. If you had seen back the week prior in my blog, you would see the little Costway portable washer/spinner that we carry along in our shower stall.  Since we had water available at the campsite, I thought it would be a good time to catch up some laundry. We really didn't know how many days we were going to be in Minnesota or in western Wisconsin before returning to our home near Green Bay on the far east side of the state.

Here's the little washing machine and spinner. It uses about 6 gallons of water to wash and another 6 gallons to rinse.

 I had actually three loads to do so I started with the whites. After they were done washing I set them aside in a laundry basket lined with a plastic bag. Then I did the colors. Set those aside. Then I did the towels and blue jeans. Once everything was washed, I drained out the soap water and added fresh rinse water. Now I repeated with each load of rinsing. As each item is rinsed it goes into the spinner basket. The spinner spins really really fast! I only spin a few things at a time. They come out actually almost dry just damp. We hang all the t-shirts and towels and pants up on hangers. The rest of the unmentionables either go on a line between the awning arms or inside hanging from the shower curtain rod.

And there you have it--- LAUNDRY DAY!

The next morning started out with some of Steve's most favorite coffee cake. It's the cinnamon swirl mix from Krusteaz. It's in the video in the link below. I cannot tell you how wonderful the motorhome smelled, intermingled with the smell of fresh perked coffee.

We decided to do an early lunch and Steve fried up some bacon. We had some delicious BLT sandwiches for an early lunch. We had along some really thick bacon from the local Mennonite store back in Wisconsin.

Just look at that! 

After our lunch, we decided to take a bike ride and get out and explore this campground. We put little Nick in his cart and took him along. He really enjoys his rides around the park.

We explored over the dam and through the picnic area and boat landing. We also drove down a really nice bike path to where the construction had been taking place. That's why the road had been closed off earlier in the spring. We went quite a ways but not all of the route made it to my video link down below.

It was good that the smoke had finally cleared enough that we could get out and do a little exercise and breathe. Otherwise my lungs could have never managed 3 miles under the previous conditions.

Here's a little video length of our time in the campground. Please like and subscribe?

We traveled 214 miles today 

That is 1,819 miles so far 

Fueled up at Casey's in Lake Park, Minnesota for $3.53 per gallon diesel. Averaged 14.1 miles per gallon