Wednesday, 7 July 2021
It was definitely chilly in Bismarck this morning, thanks to the front that blew in last night, and when I turned on my heater, I discovered that it still isn't working quite right. Apparently bleeding the lines wasn't enough to keep it from turning itself on and off, on and off, on and off for no apparent reason. Well, I'm turning on the thermostat, which is the reason it should be on, but it shouldn't be doing this on-off thing. I guess at this point I just won't worry about it until it starts to be a problem, rather than worrying about why it might be a problem.
Before I left Bismarck, I wanted to do some laundry. I didn't do it at the KOA because my campsite was on the opposite side of the campground from the laundry facilities, and the choice between schlepping my clothes across 6 rows of campsites or unplugging and driving the RV over and parking nearby where they didn't really want me to park - well, I went into town instead.
But the place I'd found a few days earlier that I was sure had a person inside (and their vehicle outside) fairly early in the morning turned out to be closed until 9:00 AM. Fortunately, I'd noted the address of another one, but then got lost trying to find it and ended up touring the town a bit. But I found it, and it was fairly clean, and the machines were the usual price, so I got that done and walked the dogs while we waited. It was 9:25 when we left there, to head north and east.
Bismarck, by the way, has a Schlotzsky's. I remember their very first one, established in Austin in 1971. Fifty years is a while, I guess, though it doesn't always seem like it.
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| today's route |
All day I drove through green rolling hills, past wind farms, cows, corn and another crop that may be soybeans. I think that because I passed several facilities for Hefty Seed Co., which emphasizes its corn and soybean seeds and crop treatments, saying they've "spent years testing and experimenting with almost every possible active ingredient and polymer that can be applied to seed." Sounds kind of creepy to me, but it seems to be a successful business. Anyway, I think that unknown leafy crop I've been seeing may be soybeans.
I passed the Mine View Cemetery, which was backed up to large mounds of dirt. But I figured there was a story in that name, so I looked it up and learned that the cemetery "overlooks the spoil banks of the Wilton mines." And the Wilton lignite mines were the first large-scale coal mines in North Dakota, and were the state's most productive underground mines from 1900 to 1915.
As you can see by the map, the roads I was driving on today were never more than 2-lane roads (if that), and were mainly used to service the farming country I was driving through. At one point I was just starting up a hill, and saw something silhouetted at the top of the hill with the sun behind it. It seemed to be on the other side of the road and was huge - it looked like an arch across the road, and I had time to wonder why there'd be such a thing around here. But as I got closer I could see it was actually a piece of farm equipment riding on very high tires. I think those tires were maybe 7' tall. I have no idea how the farmer actually gets into that equipment, but it was definitely a person doing the driving.
I drove past a string of tiny towns: Wing, Tuttle, Robinson - all farming communities. Tuttle seemed to be about the largest, and has a population of 80. (I'm almost sure I had a book when I was little about Tuttle the truck, who drove himself around town but couldn't find any place that would allow trucks to enter. Then he got a job as a truck for the city and was allowed to drive all day in the park. Incredible what's parked in a person's memory bank.)
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
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| This is an internet photo - I only saw white boxes, each group with dozens more than here. |
Besides the cows, birds and crops, I also saw lots and lots of bee boxes. Apparently bees are a big deal here, agriculturally speaking. At one place I saw a person working with the bee boxes and wondered if they were protecting themselves, because I couldn't see any special clothing.
I passed a big field of some crop that had white flowers. Potatoes?
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| My knowledge of potato crops starts and ends with The Martian. |
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| Western Grebes |
I was aiming for Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge, said to be a primary breeding ground for White Pelicans. As it turned out, I saw fewer pelicans at the refuge than I did at other ponds along the way. But what I saw lots of at the refuge were Western Grebes. This photo of mine is a little fuzzy, because of being enlarged from a piece of another photo. But these are decent-sized duckies, about 25", and with that distinctive neck they show up well at a distance.
The only access road to the refuge is an unpaved road that wasn't quite 2 lanes wide and had many holes. The road twisted and turned, and my only instructions were from Google: "R on 48th St. for 5 miles; L on 24th St. for .5 miles; R on an unnamed street (that might be 49th St.) for 2.1 miles; continue (after a R turn) on 49th St. for 1.5 miles; continue on 27th St. for .1 mile." Of course, almost none of those "streets" had street signs.
After I'd come more than half-way down, I came to a sign that said, "Minimum Maintenance Road," suggesting that the part I'd already been driving on was being maintained much better. (Pause for hilarious laughter.) And later another sign saying "Chase Lake NWR 1 mile →." That was the first indication I had that I was going the right way. I spent a lot of trust on this drive.
At the end of it, the road ended. There wasn't really much of any place to turn around in either. It just stopped. Where it stopped was at the top of a hill, but I knew I'd come to the right place because of the signs.
I backed-and-forthed quite a few times to get us turned around, and then took the dogs out for a quick walk.
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| Chase Lake, apparently |
These photos are more legible when they're smaller but get a little fuzzy enlarged. I think you can still get the information, though. Note the amount of black on the wings of these pelicans. It's a surprise to me every time I see them spread their wings, because the white that's visible when they're swimming is so very white, and then the black that appears on their wings is so very black that it just startles me. But as I said, I didn't see many of them from the vantage point of the road's end.
There were a few other signs here, including these:
And then there was one more sign:
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| This is the whole sign, and I'm showing it because I thought it was pretty. Text is enlarged below. |
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| I figure this explained all those little ponds I've been seeing all day as I drove. |
After we took a little walk, we all sat down for some lunch. Just then a car with California license plates appeared, with 3 older women all equipped with binoculars. I apologized for parking in the middle of that area, and explained I was so happy to have been able to turn around that I just stopped, but I'd be glad to try to move over. But they figured their little passenger car (Honda Civic type) could turn around just fine. The driver said, "Not the best-signed place." Which seemed to me a major understatement, and I said so. They said they'd recently been down in McAllen, on the border between TX and Mexico, to look for the birds that show up there in winter. They stayed for a very short time, looked at the few birds we could see in the lake, and then took off.
The only other visitors we had were a zillion flies. I'd opened up all the windows and the door, to avoid having to start the generator to run the AC, and I was really glad that my screen door now has an intact screen. They were swarming. It started feeling a little weird, so as soon as we'd eaten, instead of taking the dogs back out, I just shut everything up and we left. It was probably the flies that drove those women out.
On the way in and out, I passed several bodies of water, one of which Google claimed was named Lake Louise.
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| possibly Lake Louise |
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| Hooded Merganser |
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| Ruddy Duck |
Oddly, I saw a Great Egret that was being chased by Red-winged Blackbirds.
I saw several chipmunk-sized animals in the road, but from a little distance they looked like some kind of small weasel instead of like a squirrel, which is the way I remembered chipmunks looking. Finally I saw one up pretty close and realized, from the markings on its back, that it really was a chipmunk. I was curious about whether they might be related to weasels and found this information that explains a lot about chipmunks. https://www.treehugger.com/things-you-dont-know-about-chipmunks
I saw a crop duster treating a field that almost didn't look as if there was anything planted there. And the crop duster, when I saw it up fairly closely as it turned over the road I was driving on, didn't seem to be piloted - it looked much more like a very large drone. But I definitely saw something being dropped from the plane several times as it passed over this field.
I saw a bunch of cows wading into a pond up past their chests and wondered if the flies were bothering them, because it really wasn't all that hot today. Definitely warm, but I wouldn't have expected all this submerging.
I saw lots of gulls, which were apparently either Franklin's Gulls or Ring-billed Gulls, because those are the 2 types that nest up here that have wings like Mew Gulls, which is what I thought I was seeing.
I saw a beaver lodge. And a turtle climbing onto a rock in a pond. And many pelicans, one of them very near the road. Those are truly big birds. The American White Pelican is much larger than the Brown Pelican that's common on the southern coast. The White Pelican is 62" and has a wing span of 108". That 5' 2" is just barely smaller than me.
I saw all this in lots and lots of small lakes and ponds that, according to that sign back at Chase Lake, must be some of those Prairie Potholes. And I started wondering if this is what Minnesota - Land of 10,000 Lakes - is like. Because of my RV repairs, I won't find out until next year. Always something to look forward to.
I saw several cormorants with their wings spread out to dry.
I came to the town of Medina, population 308 in 2010, that seemed almost like a metropolis after all those tiny farming communities I'd been passing.
I passed more green rolling hills and finally came to Napoleon. I couldn't help but be curious and learned that the town was named for Napoleon Goodsill, a realtor who promoted the area. Although I'm guessing Mr. Goodsill was named for Mr. Bonaparte, the town wasn't.
From there, Google told me to go down 71st St., then turn L on 36th Ave. for a mile, then turn on 70th St. Here's what 36th Ave. looks like.
After I took the dogs for another walk (somehow keeping Dexter from seeing any chipmunks, though he could hear them chattering away), I found a tick on my bed. I'm assuming it came off one of the dog leashes that I'd dumped there for a few minutes, but it was still unnerving.
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