Running South

Last Sunday we left Manitoba, today, Friday, we are in Missouri.

We were a bit taken aback to find our route from West Hawk Lake Campground in Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba across the border to Roseau City Park in Minnesota started south on a dirt road. This was Manitoba Route 308, and it was wide and pretty smooth, but it wasn’t paved.

Each stop we made was just for one night. We were happy that the site at Roseau City Park was long and level enough that we didn’t have to unhook the trailer.

This was a very nice park with disc golf,

ball golf,

bike trails,

and the pretty little Roseau River. We would have happily stayed longer.

But Monday we moved on to Gull Lake Recreation Area.

Our Corps of Engineers campsite was pretty and private, but sloped downhill, so we had to unhitch the trailer to get it level. Also, we discovered once we’d backed into the site that there was no water at the sites, so Bud had to pull back out and go to a water faucet so we could put some water in our fresh water tank. All our reservations at U.S. federal facilities are made on recreation.gov, and though the site is easy to use the campground descriptions are not good. They call any site with an electrical hookup “standard electric”, whether it has just electric, water and electric, or water, sewer and electric. That’s a pet peeve of mine.

On Tuesday we drove on down to Madelia Campground in Watona Park, Madelia, MN. This wasn’t as picturesque as Roseau City Park, but we didn’t have to unhook and they had disc and ball golf,

and a little creek. I played 18 holes of disc golf the day we arrived and since we had a short trip that day, Bud and I played 18 holes of disc golf Wednesday morning.

Then we drove again to Kennedy Memorial Campground, a county park near Fort Dodge, Iowa. No need to unhitch here.

This place has a lovely ball golf course,

and trails. There’s disc golf in nearby Fort Dodge. This is another place where we would have liked to stay longer.

But Thursday we drove again, to the appropriately named Bridge View Corps of Engineers campground on Rathbun Lake in Iowa.

Again we lucked out with a level site and the trailer remained hitched.

There wasn’t much there, but I walked the park roads to a far campground loop and came across these two deer. They were white tails,

and this was a tulip tree…we’re not in the north anymore.

Today we finally came to a place where we’re going to stay a few days. This is Abel and Annie Van Meter State Park just outside of Marshall, MO.

So we didn’t move south this fast to escape the cold, it’s too early for that. We did it because tomorrow we are going to meet Jamie in Branson, MO. I’ll fill you in on why in my next post.