Friday June 17, 2022. Travel from Bemidji MN to Devil’s Lake ND.

 Friday June 17, 2022. Travel from Bemidji MN to Devil’s Lake ND.

It was about 9:20 when we departed the Royal Oaks campground, with no glitches or forgetting anything. (always the bane of travelers with rigs.)

The morning was sunny with no wind,  65F, and in Western MN and Eastern ND that is  a blessing.The two previous days both areas had some 35-50 mph winds but that has long gone east I heard someone say.

The US 2 highway is generally a good road and for much of the way it is a four lane access highway. (roads crossing at certain points.)

The outstanding feature of western MN are the fields  of growing products, mile after mile and as far as the eye can see. At this time of the year the corn is just coming up, so you can see it all. For about 100 miles continuous, the fields were in full early spring growth. There was winter wheat, spring wheat, corn, alfalfa, and beans. Research shows that after 1940 Navy beans were mostly produced, but in the 1950’s to present the Pinto bean is the most popular. Also along with sugar beets as a large crop, the farmers can use their equipment on both of those crops as they take the same measurements and spacing.
 

Fields of beans in NW MN

More beans

Spring wheat

 

One stretch of the RR in that area was being redone with new RR ties.There were about 20 “automatic tie laying” RR cars all working about a 1/2 mile stretch of track. We wondered what do they do when a train is scheduled to come through.  (They work so fast that they get out of the way when the train comes). Again, in researching this I found (some of you know this) that there are actually 4 types of machines that do the work.

The rail anchor puller …(It can pull the spikes of 7 ties in a minute!)

2.  Tie Cranes, …that remove the ties once they are free of the rails.

3.  Tie inserters/extractors… (these work vertically to remove the tie from under the rail).
 
4.  Spike inserters …. use hydraulics to quickly drive down spikes in the tie plate and tie.

All of this replaced the work crews (hundreds of thousands) that used to do all of this by hand and at a very much slower rate. It was a huge cost for the RR.

Entering North Dakota, the land began to undulate a bit. Less large farms, more lakes and ponds,  and wood lots. There also appears to be  more tourism, fishing and of course winter sports in these frigid north wind swept plains. The fishing shanties by the lake here, are small houses for staying in for many days all hauled out on truck tires.

North Dakota’s main source of income, however, is TAX SEVERANCE from the taxes on oil and gas that is drilled from the ground. (Williston area where we will stay two stops ahead)
 
North Dakota’s economy is based mainly on farming that includes farm equipment and processing farm products.

We arrived at about 2:30  the campground in East Bay, Devil’s Lake. Actually it is in a small PO called Warwick, ND.

One of very small rains silos in ND

Welcome across the (What River ) to North Dakota!

Our Campsite on Devil's Lake.  (#28 site)

 

We are in a shady spot under an Ash tree, just down the hill from the Office, and about 200  feet from the Lake which we can see easily. (Both the town and the Lake have the same name. The Indians named it “The Great One” or “Lake Holy One.” But the settlers (white man) named it thusly, as it has no outlet and is situated on a a deep chasm .The main activity here seems to be fishing as it is right out the front porch.

Supper was my choice of toasted cheese sandwiches, (Muenster cheese) and tomato basil soup.

I finished re-reading a terrific WW2 book , written by a Marine (Sledge) who was in the battles of Pelileu and Okinawa. Critics deem it the best account of a front line “grunt” in any war. It is gruesome ,realistic, yet revealing of the Marines in war. (Sledge,  who was there ,wrote the book based on notes he kept in his Bible.)

Tomorrow we have buffalo and other wildlife on the docket as well as birds around the lake.

Happy weekend,—Jim