Made it to My Destination and Rode the Enchanted Highway

 Location: Patterson Lake Recreation Area (Bureau of Reclamation); Dickinson, North Dakota

The campground is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation but run by the City of Dickinson.They have 22 campsites with water and electricity. I snagged one the five with 50 amp service. It's not the fanciest campground but it will do just fine and with the senior pass, it's half price.

Campsite #2

Patterson Lake. You can see how the tree is bending due to the wind and the lake has mini whitecaps. 

 When I left Mansfield, Louisiana last month, I set a long range destination of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. Well, tomorrow I'll be exploring it, so I made it. I've towed Liberty 2,007 miles and we've stayed in 12 campgrounds in 7 different states. It's only been a little over a month ago that I began this trip but it seems much, much longer. When I think back, the campgrounds begin to blend together. I have to write down on my calendar when I empty my waste tanks so I can remember and plan for the next location. By the way, this campground has an excellent dump station and with so few campsites, there was no rush. 

The rain had moved on into Canada, but the wind was left behind

The clouds look confused.

Now the sky was clearing. Those hill on either side of the road is typical for this part of North Dakota. They are scattered out at random locations. I'm not sure what formed them and I'm probably not curious enough to find out. 

The weather made one final attempt to cloud up on my ride down the Enchanted Highway.

When I pulled out of General Sibley Campground, the dump station had 4 RV's waiting in line. That was fine with me because the weather had turned cold, windy and rainy. One of my ceramic heaters took care of the cold and the rain was spotty and light. The wind was the problem. As I was hitching up, the wind was blowing a steady mid-20's MPH with gusts of probably 35+ mph. There was a wind advisory that said some parts of North Dakota was going to experience 50 mph wind. So, I skipped emptying my tanks at General Sibley so I could carry the extra weight to help Liberty out with the wind. The wind continued all the way to the current campground but luckily it was hitting Freedom and Liberty on the driver-side corner. For those Navy people and Coasties (Rob), the wind of hitting us on our port bow. All in all, even as strong as the wind was blowing, it only reduced our gas mileage. Liberty shook her booty a couple of times, but it was no problem.

I arrived here early because the forecast was for the wind to increase in the afternoon. I planned to arrive around 1:00 but actually arrived around noon thanks to a time change to Mountain Time. Since I'll only be here for 4 days, I'll probably not get used to the new time zone. 

Since I got here so early, I found the Taco Bell and ate lunch. It was still early in the afternoon so I decided to ride the Enchanted Highway. It is about a 30 mile stretch of road with giant sized scrap metal sculptures scatted out every few miles or so. I've heard about it from other people so I wanted to see it for myself. The guy who made the sculptures started building them in 1989 to draw business to his old home town of Regent, North Dakota which is the southern end of the Highway. He was using his own money, plus donations, to maintain the sculptures until the state finally ponied up $75,000 in the year 2019/2020. The highway attracts about 6,000 people per year. 

"Geese in Flight"

"Deer Crossing"

"Grasshoppers in the Field"

"Fisherman's Dream"

"Pheasants on the Prairie"

"Teddy Rides Again"

"World's Largest Tin Family"

Tomorrow I'll explore the National Park so I figured I'd make this post so I could clear out the pictures stored in my cell phone. I hope to see some "wow's" tomorrow. 

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.