Magnus Goes North With Summer, Day 19

 Saturday, June 14

It was planned to be a short drive—under three hours!— to Sandhills State Park in Kansas. When we added in the gas stop it became a 3:30 drive, which is weird because the stop was right on the route. And when we executed it, it became a whole lot longer because we never came close to hitting the 75 mph speed limit on the Interstate or the 70 mph speed limit on the secondary roads. Blah. 

I found myself getting cranky. Long trip, I guess, with lots of interpersonal aggravations. I must exercise patience and keep my dumb mouth shut.

And by the way, for planning gas stops I need to shoot for 450 miles with a maximum of 475. Because if route planning is no longer my job, then all assurance that we’ll take the planned route is lost.

I made the note that Nebraska was really flat. It should be called the one-dimension state. But changed my mind later.

 Close to the Kansas border I started seeing coneflowers and other pretties at the side of the road. The road also got rougher, but only for a few miles. But when we crossed into Kansas it all stopped. It was just grass at the roadsides. I guess they mow at the wrong time to let wildflowers set seed. Maybe I should call Kansas the “Plow the Plains to a Pulp” state. But Nebraska is okay; it can be the wildflower state.

But at least we arrived by two-ish.Or maybe two-thirty-ish. Or maybe it was three—I didn’t think to check until after we’d unhooked, parked, and started connecting the utilities.

Sandhills is a really pretty state park. The camping sites have concrete pads, nice smooth fake wood picnic tables, fire pits, barbeque grills, fiber-optic poles but I don’t think they’re connected to anything, and full hookup sites along with water/electric ones. The only thing missing from complete luxury would be pull-thru sites, but that would mean that fewer people would have the lovely little “backyard” access to grass that walks down to the mosquito habitat.

Sadly, the sites around the other side of the pond are much more empty—the ones by us are pretty much all full—but those sites didn’t have sewer hookups and I kinda thought we needed sewer by this time.  The last four or so places we’ve camped at were all electric-only sites, where we had to fill the water tank at the potable water station when we entered the park, and we had to stop at the dump station on the way out. No big deal either way—we’ve become experts at those tasks—but it’s a welcome change to not have to.

 

 

They’d had a good bit of rain early in the morning, so there were pools of standing water here and there. But the grass had mostly sucked it up when we arrived. It was extremely hot and a little bit humid, though. The thermometer said 80 but it felt hotter.

I dragged Ed on a walk up to the Dune Overlook trail and really wished I hadn’t.  There were Bell’s Vireos in the trees all around. Merlin heard them, but I could never see a single one and soon gave up trying.  It’s not fair to non-birders to force them to stand around in the sun while you try to track down a little tiny thing no bigger than your hand just so you can tick off an entry in your life list.

(But I’m planning to go back next day and snag one.  Maybe even this evening)

There were Mississippi Kites all over too—I saw at least four.  And field sparrows in the distance, and one box turtle in the grass.  And a Yellow-breasted Chat in the bushes. Lots of blackberries and persimmons there…quite lovely.

House sparrows all over. I hate those things. They make an awful boring noise and crowd out native birds.

 

After two nights of sleeping on the bed and two days of driving in the Motorhome, my right leg pain is back.  Damn!  What’s causing this?  I suspect the Motorhome, but I can’t prove it. Maybe it’s both?  I’ll try moving to the floor tonight and see if that helps any at all.

 

Magnus Goes North With Summer, Day 18

Friday June 13 

New life bird—Willow Flycatcher. I went over to the marshy spot to look at the Yellowthroat and heard a wheet! Whit-tehh.  Merlin Id’ed it and I saw the shape, wingbars, head, and of course the flycatching behavior.

After that adventure, I pronounced it a lovely morning. Partly overcast; gentle breeze out of the southwest.

 

Some kind of weird sculptures by the interstate
 

We had a very long drive to Mormon Island State Recreation Area in Nebraska. I’d originally planned it as about 4:10, which is a longish drive for us these days, but I’d noticed that there was an “all interstate” route that brought it up to five hours.  When I asked Ed about it, he said that he preferred a shorter drive, even on secondary highways, to a five-hour drive. So allrighty.

But when he used his new Trucker App to plot the route himself, he decided to take the interstate route. Which kind of makes sense to me, because our experience in driving the secondary highways these last few days is that they are excessively slow, partly because of all the stops in small towns; partly because he lets the hills slow us way, way down; and partly because the rough road surfaces frequently limit our speed even more.

So that’s what we did. I didn’t calculate the actual drive time but I fell asleep for the last hour of it. Oops.

 

The Mormon Island place was rather odd. It was large, very close to the Interstate, and crowded. But pretty—lots of little lakes with campground loops in and around them and grassy paths mowed so you can walk here and there. The lake we were camped near was set up for fishing, but I noticed that the lake nearer the entrance had a “beach” and a roped-off swimming area. Very nice. I didn’t see anyone swimming but I didn’t see that until later in the day, so I might have just missed them.

Our site was pretty and had a nice lake view. But we didn’t spend much time sitting outside. Still, I’d camp here again for the convenience of it if nothing else.

 

 

Lots fishies in the lake

 

Molly and I took a long walk past the nearest lake and ended up on a trail that paralleled the Interstate and seemed to go eastward for a long way. We eventually had to give up and turn back, so we may have missed still another lake back there. (We had a map but it didn’t show the trails, just the campsites)

Later we decided to walk around the nearest lake. We had to backtrack and circle around out of our path because a fishing person had taken up the entire trail area with their gear, but that only took a few minutes. Going around the entire lake took us 45 minutes.  The sun was still up at ten before nine, but it set shortly thereafter.  Gee, these northern folks sure have a lot of daylight!

 

REVIEW Mormon Island State Recreation Area 69/2=$35  site 65 cedar campground

Sort of like an interstate rest area but very pretty

Okay, the first thing I have to say is that the place is right off I-80 and the noise is constant. Over the lake and through the trees, you can see the big trucks roll by.  And hear them.

But it’s a beautiful place!  A huge campground with about three loops and several little lakes where you can fish or paddle around in your kayak.  Or sit and watch birds. And pick off ticks, but that goes with the territory.  It’s very well-groomed in a wild and natural sort of way, like a city park.

Our back-in site 63 had 50-amp electric. No water but there are plenty of water fill stations around.  I’d read that there were enough spigots that you could Y-tap one here, but that’s definitely NOT true for the Cedar camping area that we were in. 

The roads are well marked and easy to get around. The lady at the check-in station was extremely nice; we only had to pay a park entrance fee for the toad, not the motorhome.  The sites are long—ours was long enough for the 35’ motorhome and toad—and there is a parking area nearby.  On the negative side, the sites are pretty close together, much closer than the usual state park spacing but nowhere near as close as an RV park’s.

We had no shade (so Starlink worked well) but there are plenty of big trees around. And I could walk 20 feet from my picnic table to fish in the lake if I wished.  There is also a network of  trails; the map indicated about 1-2 or 2 miles of them but it might have been more.

Nice little swimming beach for the kiddies.

Magnus Goes North With Summer, Day 17

Thursday, June 12

It rained in the morning, so I snoozed my alarm for 15 minutes and got up at 6:15. Mosquitos were awful--it wasn’t cold but I kept my hood up for bug protection.

Complaint written at the time:

How come I wake up in the night feeling fine but when it’s time to get up, My right leg is shrieking pain?

 Cool statue at rest area

 

After three great results from my choosing of campsites at South Dakota State Parks/Recreation Areas, I found the fourth to be a non-charmer. Not that it doesn’t seem to be a lovely little park alongside a lovely little lake, but because the site that I chose sucked.  I know that I had chosen  what I hoped was going to be a pull-thru (they called it something different) and it was supposed to be just long  enough for the Mammoth and the Jeep without having to unhook.  But instead it was a “pull off” meaning a wide arc in the road surface where you could park, and it was only just long enough to hold the Motorhome and Jeep but not long enough to make the swing that we needed to get both vehicles off the road.  And barely wide enough for the Motorhome to extend its side slide-outs out.

So we struggled and eventually ended up unhooking the Jeep, which fixed the length issue. The width issue was addressed by putting the Motorhome tires on the gravel that was alongside the pad we were supposed to park on. Not that it would hurt anything, because the site was so unlevel that the jacks, which were on the pad, were going to support the entire weight of the right-hand side of the motorhome.  There would be no sinking into the gravel, but it seems awfully weird to have your right-side tires four inches off the ground.

Peculiar plant I need to identify--it's like a sagebrush, but it's a tree! 

After that we discovered that the 50-amp power didn’t seem to work. Our tester was saying “no common”  or some such error..  Ed tried the 30-amp and it was okay, so we went with that.

Later a park employee and a campground host came by.  The employee tested the electricity and it worked for him, so Ed tried his own tester again. That time, no problem.

The host asked me where I’d gotten my park entrance pass, and when I told him the story, he informed me that you didn’t have to pay for each vehicle so long as they were attached when they entered the park. So, fine. Wasted money. Call it a donation to South Dakota parks and recreation.

After that we took Molly for a walk,where she discovered the campground was infested with 13-lined ground squirrels.  She really, really wanted to catch one of the ground squirrels.  I may have a torn rotator cuff when we leave. But at least one of us liked the campground.

(Actually, I liked the campground, just not the site I’d chosen. The little lake was lovely. And the host was very nice.)

 But there no birds except red-headed woodpeckers, robins, red-winged blackbirds, turkey, pheasant, chipping sparrow, and goldfinch. The usual. [The next day I found out differently; stay tuned.]

Add to trip notes: when choosing driving distances between stops, give a little attention to locations of diesel fuel truck stops.  When we planned the route for the next day’s drive, a 4:12 minute drive used during planning turned into a 4:48 drive due to having to go out of the way to get fuel and then take little crappy roads to get back on the route.  This wouldn’t have been a problem if I learned to keep all legs under three hours except the first and the last.  Then an out-of-the-way fuel stop won’t ruin our drive.

Food: adding a bag of sauerkraut to amp up my vegetable intake is good. But maybe not Kimchi, or at least, not a great big jar of it. I’m getting tired of eating it every day.

At 8:30 I wrote:

It’s chilly and breezy, like a storm is blowing in. But not. I’m sitting outside so I don’t have to go in the screaming demon noisy and freezing cold Motorhome. Sucks. Wish I had a tent. 

Sorry—just blowing off some steam  

 

REVIEW: Lake Vermillion Recreation Area site 62 $42

Nice little campground; not so great site

East site campground. Firepit, picnic table, asphalt

The first five or so sites on the way into the campground are “pull-offs”, which means that the road widens slightly and there’s an electric box at the back end of the site. Our site ended up being too short for our 35’ motorhome and toad without unhooking—we needed more space to pull off so we could get both vehicles off the road and not have our driver’s side slideout protrude out into traffic.  So we had to unhook the jeep and seesaw the motorhome into place.

The site was very low on the lake (right-hand) side. We used pads under our jack stands and were able to level our Class A, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  Most of the other sites were more level.

Past the first five sites, there was a loop with lots of nice, long back-in sites.  Some with shade and some clear, and almost all with good views of the lake. I’d recommend getting one of those.

The 50-amp circuit didn’t seem to work at first--it was giving a ‘no common’ error on our power monitor.   But when the maintenance worker tried his tester and we shut off/on the breaker a couple of times, it was fine.

There is no water in the east side campground sites, but there are two water fills on the way in.  I recommend that you skip the first one and go to the second; it is much easier to get to.  The first one is in a very small parking area and on the right-hand side, so if your water fill is on the left, you’ll have to turn your rig around or throw the hose under.  But the second water fill is in a big parking area, easy to get to, and on the left.

There is no dump station in the East Side campground, but there are paper maps at the entrance that show the location of the dump station on the west side. It only took five minutes to get there.

It was a very pretty place, about half full on a Thursday in June.  The campground host was very nice. The only traffic I heard was in the campground and on the lake.  There’s a small boat ramp with courtesy dock (I think) and plenty of boat trailer parking. Late in the evening the place started filling up (3 trailers came by in 5 minutes) and quite a few people went out in kayaks or fished near the boat ramp.

I think there are trails over at the west side. There’s a map showing them; we didn’t have time to take any.

Both east and west side campgrounds are easy to navigate to using Google maps. Starlink worked well.

Magnus Goes North With Summer, Day 16

 Wednesday, June 11

Second day at Oahe Downstream Rec Area. Funny, I still don’t know where the Oahe comes from.  It’s the Missouri River…is the Lake called Oahe? Check this…yes.

Got up to the alarm for the first time in several days. It was 6:30 and a good thing—lightning struck while we were walking. We headed back and it started peppering rain on us just as we arrived back at Magnus.  The mosquitos were worse than ever.

We took a drive to see birds at the dam, but it was too windy to enjoy walking down to the water. In fact, it was too windy to enjoy getting out of the jeep at all, but we did. I saw a Western Grebe out in the water! Too cool. The next day I saw it in the river by our campsite.

 

 Then we tried to find the national grassland on the map but google couldn’t get us there. By driving randomly down gravel roads, we made it to the Fort Pierre National Grassland where there was a small lake and we could take a short walk along the shore.

That was pretty much all the excitement we could stomach for the day, but then—on the way back—we saw Upland Sandpipers!  New life bird for me. Also Bobolinks, but I’d seen them back at Sheyenne National Grassland.

 Bobolink (back view, female)

Upland sandpiper

 

In the afternoon I took Molly for a long, hot jog out along the bike trail. On the way back, we tried to take a shortcut on a gravel road that crossed the trail, but it dead-ended after five minutes or so. I could have gone on through the tall grass—I could see where the river was and I could guess that I was just a little short of the campground, but I chose not to.  For one thing, I wanted to finish my jog, and for another, the grass was pretty tall and my footing would be uncertain.

Then we went for supper. We ended up at Cattleman’s Club Steakhouse after leaving my first choice—Drifters—because the rib-eye was Market Price which was $48. In retrospect it would have been better to stay, because while Ed’s steak at Cattleman’s Club was okay, his blue cheese dressing lacked blue cheese and my meal, chicken fried cod and sweet potato fries, was horrible. It ended up costing more for sub-par food. But after hearing the price for rib-eye, Ed had already made up his mind he wasn’t paying it and would have gotten something else that he would most likely have hated.

Oh well, live and learn. The reviews said their rib-eye was really good, too.

On our evening walk Molly and I scared up two or three turkeys and a pair of phemale pheasants. Also one big buteo but I couldn’t get a look at him before he swooshed away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REVIEW Oahe Downstream Recreation Area site 205

Lovely riverside camping, with a generous helping of mosquitoes to feed a lot of birds

Long, spacious sites. Our site, 205 and the three or so beside it, were off by themselves with plenty of room to spread out. We could see our nearest neighbors but not hear them. The other sites in the loop (Loop 3?) had plenty of space too, but not as much privacy.

Check-in was unnecessary since we made camping reservations online and bought our entrance passes a few campgrounds previously. By doing it online, we thought our only option was to buy  South Dakota Park Entrance passes for both vehicles, which sucked. I later learned from a campground host (different park) that was unnecessary; we only needed one for the vehicle which was driving while we entered/exited the park. So we could buy one pass and move it from one to the other.

Our power worked fine (50-amp) and the water fill on the way in was convenient. And the dump station, too.

Everyone was pretty quiet and polite. Some people drove too fast down the access road and several others let their dogs run off leash and at least one guy was blasting his music in the main loop, but in general it was a polite and peaceful environment. The only real negative was the mosquitoes—on calm days with the temperatures in the 70-80 degree range, they were eating us alive. When the wind blew strongly one day, they were mostly kept off.  We had a few ticks, too, but only a few.

Lots of birds, turkeys, pheasant, yellow warblers, warbling vireos, robins and red-winged blackbirds and kingbirds. Pelicans, geese, and a Western Grebe, and lots of others.  Funny…we saw no animals except a deer or two and only one garter snake.

We were not impressed with Cattleman’s Club Steakhouse—the steak was okay but everything else (fish, salad, sweet potato fries) was not very good at all.