Northeastern ND

Camp Walmart welcomed us at Devils Lake. We took the car out and explored. We toured the Old Post Office Museum and Sheriff's House museum. Had a lovely chat with the docent and his wife who was full blood Dakota. He told the story that Lewis Merriweather had a son by a native and she was decended from that son.

We drove around checking on possible campsites but didn't find any. We checked out the casino & several campgrounds. The fraternal lodges we belong to are right in the center of town and have only street parking. This is one of the few towns we've been to that doesn't have a city park with camping.

In the evening we took a drive to Alice Lake NWR. The lakes are very flooded here. Since 1998 they have risen 28'. Since the all time low in the 30's it's 58'. They have raised two of the bridges twice and there are a lot of roads that looked like this. It's a boat ramp now. This scene used to be farm land. A fisherman we talked to used to hunt deer where now there is just water. Fishing is good.

After breakfast the next morning we toured Sully Hill Wildlife park. Saw 3 elk and 4 or 5 deer. Drove past Fort Totten. All forts look alike so opted not to tour. Drove around the other side of this now huge lake.

We moved north to the city of Langdon and stayed in the school parking lot with the sheriff's blessing. The next day we drove to Walhalla to do a Byway. We stopped at the Gingras general store historic site. Very interesting. We geocached on our way home. Going through Langdon we stopped at Dairy Queen and met a lovely YOUNG couple who just became Escapees. They don't even have an rv yet. We invited them over to our "home" and answered a lot of their questions.

We then went back out for one more geocache. We found it in the very small almost deserted town called Dresden. The geocache was on a train but then we discovered probably one of the best county museums. We toured it and talked with Sharon who is pictured here with the means of transportation she took to get to school. Her and several neighboring children rode in this and always had a hot brick to keep them warm.

One of the sad stories was this picture of 6 children who all died within 9 days of each other of dyptheria in 1898. The family had a total of 16 children. It is unclear whether the others were born before or after the outbreak.