Saturday, 10 through Monday, 12 July 2021
I spent most of this time in the campground, though I had to change camp sites after the first 2 nights, because that's all I'd reserved and someone else wanted that site I'd been in. It worked out well, though, because I moved to a site closer to the bathroom, which made it easier to take a shower.
This campground had a separate barrel specifically for recycling, and they accepted everything except plastic bags (which almost nobody accepts anyway). So I got rid of glass bottles and milk jugs and waste paper and so forth. Great to start the next part of the trip with a clean bathroom.
In Fargo
I took a trip around Fargo, partly for errands and partly for a little sightseeing. I went to Hornbacher's Grocery - a local chain; Petco for doggie poop bags; Happy Harry's Bottle Shop which had a decent selection of wine; an Ace Hardware to get a screwdriver that would let me open my portable fan up so I could clean out the hair. I also drove past the campus of North Dakota State University - nice campus - and visited Scheel's Sporting Goods.
You can see it's a big store - employee-owned, they claim. It's got such an amazing selection of items, I'd've bought something if I'd taken my wallet inside.
But I was there for another purpose: to see the Ferris wheel I'd heard they had.
Very sensible, having such an item in the store. Puts people in a holiday mood and makes them want to spend money - hence my impulse to spend money.
The name of this store (Scheel's) is pronounced "sheel." I asked an employee because I thought it might be an "sch" as in school.
The other place I visited was Kroll's Diner. There are 3 branches of Kroll's Diner in ND (Bismarck, Minot and this one in Fargo), and I'd been assured that the food was great and I should definitely try the Knoephla Soup. I also heard they had great milkshakes. The diner claims this soup is award-winning, though I'm not clear where or when they won what award. But I dutifully ordered a bowl of the Knoephla (pronounced "neff-la") soup and a chocolate malt. Here's what I got.
According to online information, the Knoephla soup is basically a dumpling soup with potatoes in chicken broth. Apparently local folks just love it, but I'm afraid I thought it verged on inedible. The broth was really greasy, those little alleged dumplings I'm holding up with the spoon in that photo are completely tasteless, but lumpy, and there was almost nothing else in my bowl of that soup.
On the other hand, the chocolate malt was absolutely wonderful. And you can see it was thick enough for a straw to stand up on its own. That was worth the trip. The diner also claims to specialize in those meat pies that I've found all over the northern mining areas of the US. But the ones I've tried elsewhere were also nearly inedible (to me, though loved by locals) so I didn't try them here.
A couple of times that morning, I saw a pickup truck flying a big flag saying, "Don't Blame Me - I Voted For Trump."
In the campground
When I made my reservations, I'd hoped and planned that this would be a time when I could catch up on the posts I knew I wouldn't have done during the last few days. But the damage to my arm muscles made it seriously painful even to edit the photos I'd taken, let alone find the energy to write the posts. I just couldn't do it.
From time to time, I walked the dogs around the section of Lindenwood Park attached to the campground. We saw deer often enough to make me nervous about taking the dogs out. I saw a bat that seemed to have attached itself to the trunk of a tree - I almost put my hand on it. I only concluded it was a bat because it was just about at my eye level and I got a fairly close view. Of course its wings were folded up, but its face wasn't hidden and I couldn't think of anything else it looked like. It being out in the daytime like that made me think thoughts of rabies, and I stayed as far away as possible.
We also discovered a raccoon family at the RV early one morning. I had the door open - screen door in place of course - and first noticed Lily getting quite excited and running to get in the stairwell to look through the screen and make lots of noises. That's when I saw a raccoon standing on its hind legs outside, looking through the door. When I moved, and when Dexter came over to check it out, the raccoon went away - but not very far because it climbed the tree that was just a couple of feet away, so it could get higher and look through the cab windows while hanging onto the tree trunk. When I looked out after both Dext and Lily had calmed down, I saw a whole group of them walking across the road - at least 5 of them.
Considering this park was completely filled with campers almost every night this weekend, and considering the park is in the middle of town, I was surprised to see so much wildlife.
It turns out I got lucky with this campground, getting a campsite on a summer weekend. They were turning people away who hadn't made a reservation in time. It got a little less crowded on Sunday and Monday nights, but I'd been right to make my weekend reservations more than a month in advance.
I was also lucky because this really is a well-run campground - showers are modern and clean (and you need an electronic pass key to get in), and the grounds are relatively comfortable and clean. And it's right in Fargo, when most campgrounds are outside a town, instead of part of the city limits. And it was nice to be right on the river - which is apparently a popular fishing spot.
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