Making Tracks- Minnesota to Utah

After leaving Canada, we stopped at the Red River State Recreation Area campground in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.  Following devastating floods the cities of Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota joined together to create a greenway that provides recreation and protects the cities from future flooding of the Red River.  We enjoy our stay in this area to restock the cupboards, enjoy the city parks, browse through Cabela’s and view a movie and pretty much all within walking distance!  This year we immersed ourselves into Disney-Pixar’s new movie “Brave”.  We were also treated to a reshowing of “How to Train Your Dragon”.

(photo courtesy of Disney-Pixar)

From point A in East Grand Forks, Minnesota we traveled to Mitchell, South Dakota for an overnight stop.  Wouldn’t you know there’s a Cabela’s there too?  Then we made our way through the edge of the Black Hills and decided to return to Chadron State Park in Nebraska (point C).  We stayed 3 nights before a long travel day with an overnight stop in Lyman, Wyoming.  Moving on to our current location (point E) in Marysvale, Utah to ride the trails before returning home.  According to Google Maps that is 1486 miles from point A in East Grand Forks to point E in Marysvale!

We stopped in Chadron a few years ago and had a great time.  The same was true this year, except there was a bonus!  Due to the drought, there weren’t nearly as many ticks! 

We swam in the warm pool, practiced archery, walked the grounds, played on the playgrounds, and watched the turkeys meander through our site.

Now we are settled in at the South Forty campground where we stayed earlier in our trip to ride the ATV trails!

(Deer Creek Reservoir, Utah)

On the Border- Baudette, MN

We spent two nights at the Larimore Dam RV area.  This seems to be a popular spot for locals, so we were glad we landed mid-week.  We went down to the water for a swim, but only Chris and Caleb ventured into the water. I thought the water was a bit too brown and had too much algae… so I soaked up some rays on the picnic table.  This morning we listened to the weather radio and waited for a few storms to pass.  We found our window of opportunity and headed east to the Grand Forks area for a shopping stock-up before entering Canada.  Super Target stop over, we traveled north-east into Minnesota to the border town of Baudette.  We pulled into the Timbermill Community Park, which is a town park that just added RV sites.
This is a border crossing town and we are taking advantage of some USA services before entering Canada.  Since we are part-timers, there is no good mail forwarding option available through the USPS, because they will only “hold” your mail for 30 days and if you have it forwarded then you have to be in one spot to get it!  So we have a good friend collecting our mail and sending it to us in USPS Priority Flat Rate Envelopes every few weeks.  We also need to comply with the Canadian firearms rules and Chris was able to work with the local Sheriff’s Department to store his firearm.  Our weather radio has been on and we’ve been listening to the tornado warnings for the area.  We seem to be in a good spot and are prepared to go to the shower house if needed, but the storms are moving around us. 
Tomorrow we will cross the border into Canada, earlier than we originally anticipated, but Caleb is anxious to swim and fish!

Red River State Park- East Grand Forks, Minnesota

OK- so here's a few more pictures of the Wylie Park Campground...
We biked around the park searching for geocaches. We searched for 3 and found 3! The first one was fooling us with some GPS bounce, and then the mosquito armies tried to attack Caleb and I ... so we had to run back to the safety of the bike path. Chris fought off the swarms and found the first one for us! The next two caches were micros, which are always a bit tricky. The last one we found Caleb is holding between his fingers. That's how small this magnetic micro cache is!
Here is a picture of Wylie Lake... how nice of them to give us our own lake! We saw a few pike being pulled out of the water, but we didn't have time to get out our poles.
With this gigantic American flag in the center, each state's flag lines the sidewalk. What a great country we live in, and an early Happy 4th of July to all of our friends and family!
Tuesday and Wednesday night brought us to Red River State Park in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. Cost per night: $24 +$5 daily vehicle fee. We can see North Dakota over the river from our campsite. This is a hidden gem of a park just a short 2 miles from I-29. According to the information, this campground is located where many of the 560 homes that were destroyed in East Grand Forks in the 1997 flood were once located. The property was redesigned as a state park and recreation area. They are currently adding more sites to the property. The Red River is very high and many of the trees are in the water. According to the weather station, we are still under a flood watch until the river crests. This is a great stop to take advantage of the many services in the greater Grand Forks area.... we got the oil changed in the truck along with the fuel filter and made a Super Target stop to reload our grocery supply. Caleb is having a great time at this park playing with some of the other children camped here.

Thursday we will head into Canada... stopping first in Baudette to pick up our new converter. Hopefully it will be at the post office waiting for us. Then we will cross the border and make our way into our campsite in Sioux Narrows. We will get be able to get out the loungers and relax... we plan on staying for two weeks!

Good News!- I paid for a day's worth of wi-fi at the Wylie Park Campground and was determined to get my new EnV3 phone tethered for internet. I searched and found a driver for my phone online. This may sound like an easy thing, but it is not "officially" known to be a driver that works... so even the technicians from Verizon weren't able to help me out. That's why the internet is so great! People who are tech wizards can tell the rest of us what to do! .... So I'm posting via my EnV3! However, I did find out in speaking with a Verizon representative, that I can't use this feature while in Canada even though I have the nationwide + Canada plan. Some of our friends do have the luxury of internet at their cabins, so I will try to make a blogpost.

We wish everyone a safe and Happy 4th of July!