Seeing The USA In Our Chevrolet: Farewell Island Park and Hello Minnesota and fall

On Monday September 18, we got a great sendoff by friends at Red Rock RV Park in Island Park, Idaho, and moved on down the road after a stay of one month. We will miss Red Rock, probably the friendliest camp we have experienced to this point. We plan to return for a long visit next summer.

September 16, 2006: Gordon is 60 years old! By campfire in snow at Red Rock RV in Idaho

Goodby beautiful Red Rock....we will return

Juanita started out driving the mountain road north of West Yellowstone up to Bozeman, Montana, and I finished up the day’s haul to Billings for a two-night stay at the first KOA established in the country. This is a very nice park, well maintained, clean, and comfortable (sites are a little tight). We spent a day for replenishment of supplies and took a little time to visit the Billings branch of my old employer, McJunkin Corporation. My desire to depart from the interstate highway at Glendive, Montana, took us up to Williston, North Dakota, for a one-night stay-over. Prairie Acres RV Park is located about a mile west of Williston and practically on the shoulder of busy Highway 2. There was a constant parade of eighteen-wheelers all night long, but lacking a Wal-Mart, this was as decent a place as any for a sleep over.

Seemingly endless North Dakota

Thursday brought a gray, overcast early morning departure eastbound on Highway 2 across the empty stretches of North Dakota. Along the highway are fields of hay, wheat, sugar beets, soybeans, and corn, and a good number of pump jacks bringing costly oil to the surface. Highway 2 was a major disaster! Mile after mile of terrible roadbed made the ride absolute hell on earth. We must have left parts of our “home” and contents along the entire length of North Dakota landscape (this wasn’t too good for our backs either!). The construction projects (maybe to repair this mess?) were almost continuous across the state. Because of this severe pavement distress, we violated our number one rule of travel (no more than 250 miles per day). I put in ten hours of continuous driving and managed to put Minnesota under our wheels by day’s end and 460 miles down the road in Bemidji. Since I am a martyr of the highest order, I insisted on driving the entire distance with no help from my dear wife, Juanita.

Juanita and Bodie resting at North Dakota stop

Bemidji, our current location, is certainly restful on the eyes, nerves, and soul. The open Great Plains have given way to the rolling, tree-covered hills of the north country, and early fall has put color into the foliage. Today we played tourist and drove a short distance up to Blackduck, a small town of about 800 located on a fair sized lake about 25 miles north of Bemidji. The town is named for the ducks that thronged the nearby lake (natives called them Black Mallards). The continental divide is located just north of town separating the waters to the Gulf of Mexico from the waters flowing to Canada’s Hudson Bay. A drive from the town off to the southeast took us through the fantastic color palate of early fall and past more lakes (I’m not entirely sure all of them even have names!)
Before returning to Bemidji we passed over a small stream about ten feet in width and lined with reeds. The small sign on the side of the bridge read “Mississippi River”. In a blink of an eye we had crossed the northern source of the Mighty Mississippi River.