A long slog to windward.
We left the Cass Lake Rest Area fairly early, after the quick morning bird count. It was actually a pretty pleasant night considering it was a highway rest area. It was quiet, we had nice level parking sites and warm restrooms in the morning, much better accommodations than any of the nearby campgrounds that we couldn't get into...and it was free.
It was time for the long drive to Minot, ND. We hope to find places to get both the brakes and macerator pump replaced, but will undoubtedly have to wait until Tuesday to even start to get serviced. Why does it seem that we always have traveling Speedy problems on a weekend, this time a long weekend?
It was a pretty brutal drive as the it continued to rain for much of the drive, including a brutal thunderstorm when we got to Devil's Lake, ND. But the most tiring aspect was the continual strong crosswind for the entire drive.
About halfway through the North Dakota part of the day, we had hoped to stop at the "Geographic Center of North America" in Rugby, ND to get pie at the Coffee Cottage Cafe. Ellen and I had breakfast there on our first trip to Glacier NP and looked wantingly at their selection of pies. One of Ellen's regrets is that she didn't get pie for breakfast when we stopped.
So we stopped there again, right in front of the big sign that said "Open Seven Days A Week". It was closed. We did show Harry and Sally the geographic center monument, but sadly and pieless, we traveled on. Still no pie for Ellen...or Harry...or Sally...or Steve.
We arrived at the municipal RV park in Surrey, ND at around 3:30 PM after 336 miles of beating to windward and nine and a half hours of travel. It had stopped raining by then and it was dry and partly cloudy, but still very windy.
It is a pretty small and open park, only 10 sites, but it has electricity, water, restrooms and showers. We were particularly interested in the showers. We found two empty sites together, went to register and found out that we needed to call the town hall to get the shower door code. It is Sunday on Memorial Day Weekend!
There was a reference to calling the police if you had any problems and couldn't reach town hall. So wew did. A very nice police officer arrived about 15 seconds after we contacted him. He called around and found out that the punch code lock was broken...but there was a key and one of the other campers had it. He wasn't around, but when he showed up we got the key and Harry and Sally took their showers. We opted to wait until tomorrow and returned the key to the other camper, who said he'd drop it with us in the evening after they used it.
We finally relaxed and had dinner in Speedy. It was warm enough, but too windy for an outdoor meal. This was followed by a brilliant sunset.
After dinner, another Roadtrek Adventurous arrived, nearly identical to Speedy. It was driven by a single woman and it seems that we took her campsite. She'd been here several days and was away for the day. She was very nice though and found another as there were still several available. She was fto Alaska, although her Roadtrek, recently purchased, hadn't been there yet. She did have some tips for Alaska travel.
We retired, but the shower key never showed up.
Travel Details
Cass Lake Recreation Area to Surrey RV Park, ND
Distance 336 miles
Time 9 hours 27 minutes
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