Day 10

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Day 10 - Obfuscator writes: Maybe I’m allergic to North Dakota. Waking up even near North Dakota (in our campsite in East Grand Forks, MN) my eyes were puffy and itchy, and that just sort of spread more as the day went on. Honestly, at this point (Day 11) I’m hoping that it’s just allergies and not something more awful. (Onaxthiel adds: I’ve got him on allergy meds. We’ll see if they help.) It rained on us again last night, which wasn’t too much fun, but again, we were fairly lucky. The rains, though longer than the night before, were still fairly short and the Bivy’s again kept us nicely dry.

We packed up our camp and went to Cabela’s, or according to Onaxthiel, a disappointingly under-equipped Cabela’s. We needed to pick up a few things, and were able to find about half of them there. After that, we found a Laundromat in Grand Forks (you guessed it - near the campus) and checked out the UND Grand Forks campus. While we waited for our laundry, we walked around some and saw a pretty garden with an interesting sculpture, and ate some tacos at a place called Red Pepper. They were passable, but didn’t sit well with my stomach, for what it’s worth.

Highway 2 coming out of Grand Forks is pretty, in a sort of plainsy way. If you don’t like plains, well, it’s probably too plain for you. Eventually we got to Devil’s Lake, which is rather unique. Apparently two rivers flow into Devil’s Lake, but none flow out of it. This means that in recorded history, the depth of Devil’s Lake has varied by as much as 59 feet. What it means for the tourist is that much of the area that was once above water is now below it. Thus I now have a collection of pictures of trees and things that should be above water, but aren’t.

Since it was still pretty early in the day, we went to Fort Totten, which is pretty nearby. It’s an affordable Fort to visit, at $4/adult. It’s pretty clear though that either a.) North Dakota has no money for historic site preservation, b.) North Dakota doesn’t consider Fort Totten particularly worthy of preservation, c.) the Reservation that Fort Totten is on doesn’t have the money to care about the Fort’s preservation, or d.) some combination of the above three. Fort Totten served as an infantry and cavalry outpost for about twenty or thirty years. Fairly quickly, it was obsoleted by the forts further west of it. It also never really was much of a fort militarily, being primarily used as a Indian relations base. When the army pulled out, the fort became a boarding school for the education of natives. That school closed down in the 60’s, but not much has been done since that time to really restore the fort. It’s interesting, but shabby and the exhibits are sort of laid out in a shotgun approach to history. (Onaxthiel adds: an interesting theater is located there that I would like to hit again some summer, when the shows are playing, and also a very good looking hotel in the officers barracks. Aside from that, just a fort with less perimeter than you are used to seeing in this part of the country.)

We left Fort Totten, and went back into Devil’s Lake to find Graham Island State Park. Let me tell you, although Devil’s Lake is one of the larger cities in ND, and it has it’s own blow-up map on the state map we picked up, the map was incredibly poor, which made navigating even this small city quite the annoyance. Eventually we got on the correct road out to Graham’s Island though, and on our way there we found a sunken farm (approx. 48° 05.490N, 099° 04.250W), which was rather . . . Sunken. Graham’s Island itself was pretty, and the wind really kicked up on Devil’s Lake at night. Campsites in ND are cheaper than in MN or WI. It was really deserted too, so we had our pick of the litter. (Onaxthiel adds: DEER! Three groups of them, or at least the same group three times, ran right past our camp. About fifty-75 feet away each time. We’re just slow on the cammera draw.) Delicious imported ham (Danish) and rice for dinner, and hot chocolate. A nice combination, and relaxing dinner, and another great night sky for stargazing. Onaxthiel’s Lesson Learned: Never shop a specialty store when Wally World will do. You’ll pay more for the same selection, and probably be more inconvenienced.

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