June 30, 2012 - Havre, MT

Well my trip has been pleasant and uneventful, but you always have one day that you wish you could do over and that day was yesterday. After getting up, having breakfast and putting everything away and disconnecting, I drove over to the service station next door to the self serve RV park because they had cheap fuel. I drove up to the truck pumps (they have larger high capacity nozzles) and started fueling up. Went into the coach to check on a few things and then went out to the pump after about 5 minutes and the pump had only put about 6 gal into the tank - 1 GALLON PER MINUTE!!!!! I needed about 50 gal and did not want to wait an hour for the fill up. I called the attendent to kick on another pump and he told me to try another location which I did. Not better luck - after 15-20 minutes of screwing around, I had about 20 gal in the tank so I told him I was leaving and going somewhere else to finish filling up. Drove to the next town and the fuel was about 5 cents cheaper. I was able to fill up the rest in about 5 minutes. I wondered what else might be in store for me during the day.

As I drove thru most of North Dakota, saw nothing but drilling rigs, oil & gas services, a lot of temporary buildings, lots of construction going on, lots of pipeline construction - I think there is an oil boom here !!!!! Say many Enbridge buildings and facilities. I was heading to Wiliston to stay at the Lewis & Clark State Park  on lake Sakakawea. With all the oil & gas activity, most of the roads are dirt and gravel since they have just been built in the last year. Well Tom Tom had me turn off of good ole route 2 onto one of these dusty gravel washboard roads. He said that I had about 15 miles to go on this road and it would take me right into the park. As I started down the road I remembered a similar adventure last year with Barb where we lost about 2 hours doing the same thing. On this road I could only drive about 10-15 mph because the road was so bad. After about  10 minutes I could no longer see out of the rear camera due to it being covered by dirt. After about 3 miles of this I came to a drilling rig location so I turned into it and was able to make a U-turn and head back to the paved highway. Once I got back to route 2 (after wasting about 45 minutes) I pulled into a truck stop and pulled up google earth on my computer. I saw a single paved highway that connected to route 2 and went in the direction of the park so I backtracked about 20 miles to the highway and turned onto it. Tom Tom promptly told me to turn around but I turned off his annoying voice. Eventually he showed that by taking this route, the distance would be about 30 miles which was fine with me. Problem was even this paved road had 50-100 foot sections of it missing and replaced with gravel and pot holes - had to really keep my eyes open for these sections so I didnt hit them at 60 mph.

FINALLY made it to the park after an additional 2 hours of driving time, so much for Tom Tom.

This is a really nice park just like the wooded state parks in Texas. After my gravel road adventure the car looked gray from the dirt instead of blue, and the back of the coach had about 1/2" of dirt on it. I broke out the hose and cleaned most everything off.

Paved level sites with 50 amp and water. Problem was - no cell service so no phone or internet for the evening. Lots of families came in during the evening and played and ate dinner up to about 10:30-11:00. It did not get dark until about 11:00!!! Well today I discovered that I missed a couple time zones so my watch was off by 2 hours - I was thinking that North Dakota was always light like Alaska.

I have a weather service that I set up on the computer everytime I set up at a campground. I go to the web site and put in my new location, then if any severe weather comes thru, I get a phone call and an email. Well wouldnt you know it, without any warning, about 3:00 in the morning a very bad storm came thru, lots of hard rain, rocking the RV and then to top it off about 10 minutes of BIG hail. I laid int the bed just waiting for the plastic skylight over the shower to shatter or the plastic domes over the 2 air vents to crack, but we made it thru the night just fine. This is the same storm that knocked power out in Indiana and Ohio. Checked everything the next day and did not even have dings in the car or RV. I am really glad that day is over and behind me.

I left this morning and headed to Havre, Montana to my next campground. Town does not sound like BRETT FAVRE but pronounced, HAVER - go figure. On my way here again saw a lot of oil & gas activity and lots of new construction including roads - even route 2. I came to a 10 mile section of 2 that was being repaved but they had removed all the pavement and replaced it with.........DUSTY GRAVEL!!!!!! So when I arrived at my campground, Evergreen campground (Good Sam), I had to do ANOTHER wash job.

This is a nice peaceful campground with lots of trees. All grassy sites that are fairly level with 50 amp, water and sewer. I am drinking my 5:00 toddy to chill out after a couple adventurous days. I saw a Guadalajara Mexican restarant as I came thru town so since I have not had a mexican fix in a couple weeks, I think I will head over there for fajitas and margaritas!

Will be crossing the border tomorrow, so see ya later.