May 24, 2006—Moseying Into Minnesota

We are nearly to our destination of Stevens Point, Wisconsin and should arrive tomorrow by noon. Since we left Montana and our ride on the Wing to Yellowstone’s entrance, we have pretty much just driven freeway and looked for free camps. The first night out of Livingston we hit Glendive, MT and I had pulled up a listing for a free JC park with sewer dump and garbage in the city limits. The directions weren’t real clear from the listing so we stopped and asked. If you are coming from the west, take the main (middle) Glendive exit and travel south to the first stoplight. Turn left, go up one block to another light and either turn left here into and through the Albertson’s parking lot or go up one more street to the left turn lane before the bridge and the park is visible. We were the only ones taking advantage of the parking and other than being a hot and muggy night, it was a very nice stay with our own picnic table and plenty of park for Marc to metal detect. Quiet, free and undisturbed.

The next day dawned cloudy and before long, very windy. Our entrance into North Dakota seemed ok, with some interesting scenery from the road of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which we didn’t stop for. Before long, the interesting parts were over and North Dakota became a fairly boring drive through mostly treeless, flat farm country. There were an abundance of abandoned farms in the western portion of the state; a sad derelict shadow of what they must have once been like. We noted a strange thing: even the rest areas, although showing up on the map, were non-existent or all closed and abandoned, much like the rest of this country. Suddenly, upon hitting the eastern portion of the state past Bismarck, the capital, rest stops appeared every 40 or 50 miles and with free wi-fi no less. Farms, although for the most part simple, appeared much more prosperous as well. Since we know Minnesota to be a prosperous state we can only surmise that the closer you get to it the better things become. This night’s camp was a truck stop in Jamestown which allowed us to park free since we bought fuel there. The wind continued to howl and we had burned through almost a third more fuel than usual because of the fierce head winds all day.

Today, coming into Minnesota was just rainy. It would come and go, but showered enough that all the truck traffic really kicked up the spray. Since crossing into Minnesota at Moorhead, the truck traffic has increased twenty fold compared to North Dakota. I-94 through North Dakota has one of the lowest per mile traffic ratios we have ever encountered!
 

We were headed to our old stomping grounds of the Maple Grove KOA this afternoon, a rural campground we lived in for over four months back in ’97 when Marc was doing a project in Minnetonka. This is originally where we purchased our rig and we have some fond memories of the area as we had Rachael in local school here (excellent school system) and generally found this big city to our liking. As we entered Rogers, what we last remembered as a rural outpost, we noted that things have grown a lot here and they now have a new Cabela’s store. Well, any RVer knows that there is free parking for trucks and RVs at these stores so we decided to pull off and check it out. I can now tell you that the myth of free parking is busted! We could have stayed at the KOA for $30 plus tax but our cost for this parking lot “free” stay was $272 by the time Marc and I found everything that we needed to buy! Tip for other RVers: this particular store in Rogers had signs posted No Overnight Camping but when we checked with an employee she said staying over was fine. We took her word for it and figured the town of Rogers probably has an ordinance that required the sign to be posted. Be sure however, to follow the truck and RV signage to the back of the store.

Wisconsin on Thursday
 

Our arrival occurred under cloudy and showery skies and we drove the downtown length of Steven’s Point and nearly to the eastern side to find our destination of the assisted living facility. We set the rig up in the parking lot while Marc made the introduction of the management. Wisconsin is very green with gently rolling hills and the interstate was quite busy with truck traffic and a great many dead deer. There are dead deer all over the roads here; more in 100 miles than we have seen along western highways in total for years and years and years. The place must be crawling with them.

This is not a big rig friendly area. Most campgrounds have no sewers and only 20 or 30 amp electric service. All close by October or November first. This is Northwood’s camping, and an entirely different deal than we are used to in western RV parks with full amenities. Given that, we found a seasonal campground in Plover, which is 11 miles from the job site. Seasonal means just that. You are charged to stay the entire season whether you actually do or not, since it is by lease. We are the only one with a foreign state license plate if that tells you anything. No one here knows the meaning of a fulltime RVer. When we tell them we live all the time in the RV and travel the country they give us this weird look, like “oh you poor things”. Most owners seem to use their RVs here as weekend getaways and it is very quiet during the week when they are mostly all gone.
 

The pluses: it is right on the Wisconsin River and even had a river site should we have chosen; the fishing is supposed to be great here; it is rural, so all we hear are frogs croaking and birds chirping, no highway noise and no sirens; the sites are very large, probably 3000-4000 square feet and ours backs up directly to a large pond with crappie and also has 50 amp connection and lots of grass. The cats are allowed out without leashes. The owners are really nice. We don’t get charged extra for and can park all of our vehicles on our site. The downside: there is no sewer connection, instead we have pump out service twice a week and we can’t get internet, and Marc’s work cell phone won’t even get reception here. But that has been the case all across this northern tier of states so is a good trial basis to not ever get Sprint service if you travel the USA. My Verizon has worked everywhere and also works here in this rural area.

We are trying to figure out what we are going to do about internet; we probably will be without it here at home and have to use Marc’s office connection, which will be a royal pain. Our Direcway seems to have bitten the dust and we’re not sure we want to purchase another. We are also thinking of buying some type of outside holding tank to boost our holding tank capacity by 250 gallons so that I can use my washer. There is no Laundromat here on site.
 

However, our first impressions of Wisconsin are good. It is clean, prosperous, a very diversified economy, nice housing that is way less costly than what we are used to in the west, green, and a ton of stuff within a short distance to do as it is a small state compared to where we are from. The events calendar I picked up from the Chamber of Commerce lists all sorts of festivals and diversified events that will occur nearly every weekend within Wing distance from our camp. Examples include the Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival; the Super National Truck & Tractor Pull, which brings the top pullers from both the US and Canada as well as a huge flea market; a polka fest; antique and old car and motorcycle shows galore; Bay Days, which features off road bike racing and a lobster boil; Brews and Blues in Oshkosh and also in Oshkosh the super renown EAA AirVenture which brings in 750,000 people to watch the largest fly-in in the country, with over 10,000 airplanes; Green Bay’s Tall Ships Festival where 10-16 tall old sailing ships come to port and are available for not only touring but for sailing on; the Great River Jazz Fest in LaCrosse along the Mississippi; more civil war re-enactments than you can shake a stick at, and finally of equal interest to us, is the Green Lake Wisconsin State Chili Cook-off which advances the winner to the World Championship cook-off. If we can find a way to get Internet our web pages should be full of some great activities and pictures in the coming months!
 

There are little country roads and towns (they actually call them villages here) of only 300-400 people about every 4-6 miles down any given highway. It’s like the entire state is rural. You don’t get a sense of sprawl because everyone has a huge lot and there are no fences and it is so woodsy that nothing seems crowded. The woods are thick! It reminds me a lot of the Oregon coast except that it is not so steeply mountainous. We have however, already had our share of rain and to us Westerners, the humidity seems high, but not nearly as bad as in Florida. So far we get thunder showers every afternoon. We have yet to explore the downtown area of Stevens Point, which should be really interesting given that it is old, and brick, and right on the Wisconsin River. More of that to come. Right now, it is Memorial Day weekend and it’s time to ride the Wing!