Magnus Goes North With Summer

 Tuesday May 27, 2025

Start of our trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park!  Like a lot of trips, I was worried it would never happen—I couldn’t get a response from Waynette about house sitting.  But finally she answered me and things were all set. On Monday we had a horrid grocery shopping trip, horrid because of all the food we had to buy, but then it was over and we were done.

The first day’s drive was not memorable. Just the same US-75 and US-69 we always take to Ed’s Mother’s house. And US-69 was as rough as always, with a few good spots. 

 I don't know what this random bridge was.

The Rocky Point COE Campground was a nice place. The road coming in was the the same horrid, narrow, rough road that all COE parks have, but at least it was straight and the place was easy to find. The hosts at the gate were very nice.

Our setup was performed in chilly, overcast conditions. But our picnic bench was dry so we could have a nice sit-down after hooking up.  Lots of birds—Orchard Oriole, Canada Geese, Spotted Sandpiper (2), Least Tern, Egrets, Killdeer.

Our site was very much like almost all of the COE lakeside campgrounds we’d stayed at. The lake—a reservoir--had the fluctuating lake level that causes the banks to crumble or be mostly bare. The trees and brush around the campsites were overly cleared, making for a wide view but not an exceptionally natural one. And the lake was pretty much empty of birds due to the time of year—all of the likely overwintering birds were up north for the season.

 

The lake level was high and possibly rising. Half of the park was closed—in fact, they moved our site reservation from 2B to 2A before we arrived because they were concerned the lake would be over the access road to the site. It wasn’t, but it was definitely over the boat ramp and the road that we would have preferred to turn around on when we exited our site. We were much worried that we’d have to unhook the Jeep and do a back-and-forth shuffle to get out. We didn’t.

 

 

The host said that the whole park would be closing on the next day. Electricity was being shut off; they didn’t say why.

 

The park was not very full, but it was noisy with kids and people’s music spilling out of their campsites. Not super loud, but annoying. And there was the usual COE litter scattered around.