Detroit Lakes, Minnesota and a BBQ with old friends and fellow bloggers

 

As we planned our travels through Minnesota, we anticipated 2 stops – one on the west side of the state, and another on the east side of the state.

We picked Detroit Lakes as our first stop because it was close to Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge where John & Bridget (who we had met at the very first RV-Dreams Rally in 2008 in Branson) are volunteering this summer.  We figured we’d have time to visit them at the refuge and explore one of the more popular resort areas in Minnesota.

 

Unfortunately, it is one of the more popular areas in Minnesota, and we must have called 20 different campgrounds, with no luck finding a site for the weekend!  John and Bridget even drove around to several near them to check them out for us, but with no luck in finding any availability.

We ended up getting a site for just one night, Thursday, at Country Campground.  We got an early start and arrived by 2pm to get setup on our site.

It was a small campground – only 35 sites – but very well-kept and clean, and we had plenty of room on our site.  I got a little bit of work done while the boys took Casey for a walk and then played some ping-pong in the Recreation Building.

Fortunately, John & Bridget were off on Thursday, and had already planned a BBQ with their fellow volunteer, Judy, and a blogger friend of hers, which turned out to be Sherry & David, who we had met at the 2011 Pigeon Forge RV Dreams Rally.  They invited us to join them for dinner, and a tour of some of the refuge backroads afterwards.

Before heading over there, I walked around the Campground with Nicolas and Casey.    

This really is a cute campground, and we wished we could have stayed longer . . . we’ll just have to come back to this area another year!

Casey wasn’t crazy about walking on that dock, but she made it to the end!

They don’t have a beach on this lake, bit it’s good for fishing, and they have several pedal boats that are free for campers to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got Casey settled back into the RV, and headed over to the Wildlife Refuge . . . and I greatly underestimated how long it was going to take us to get there!

We were a little late, but we made it and John met us at the gate to let us in.  Judy, Sherry and David had just gotten back from exploring the refuge, and were enjoying a southern treat of deep fried pickles, courtesy of John.  We joined the gathering and enjoyed the volunteers’ stories of “life on the refuge”, and David & Sherry’s adventures in our home state of Michigan.

Our Hosts –John, Bridget & Judy

Fellow Bloggers – David & Sherry, with Nicolas and Bryce

John grilled burgers, and we had several salads to go with them, and cookies for dessert.  After dinner, the conversation continued until it started to look like rain was on the way. 

David and Sherry had a bit of a drive back to their campground, so they headed out, and John & Bridget borrowed Judy’s “work truck” to take the 4 of us on a tour of the refuge. 

Unfortunately, it started to rain right about then, too, so we weren’t able to get out of the truck much, and most of the wildlife stayed hidden.  We didn’t see any of the bears or wolves, but we did spot a couple of Bald Eagles (they didn’t seem to mind the rain),

 

and a couple more in their nest, although we were pretty far away.  You can just kindof make out the shape of them in the left side of the nest.

There were swans out on a couple of the lakes, but too far out for pictures without getting out of the truck, and just before we made the turn back to the volunteer sites we spotted a couple of Trumpeter Swans with a baby in the marshy area close to the road.

We stopped for a picture, but they quickly hid themselves in the tall grass!  I could only get a picture of their heads.

Check out Sherry’s post from that day – she got some great pictures around the refuge!

We went back to John & Bridget’s RV and visited with them for a couple more hours – discussing trucks and RVs, campgrounds, and volunteer jobs.  It was great visiting with them, and hopefully we’ll cross paths again somewhere in our travels!

The owner of the campground had allowed us a slightly later checkout on Friday, so we didn’t have to get up too early, and I was able to get a few loads of laundry done while the guys got the RV ready to move.  We weren’t in a hurry because our next stop was less than 200 miles away, and we couldn’t get into the campground until Saturday, so our destination was a Walmart about 10 miles short of our final destination.

We had gotten more rain overnight, but fortunately none on Friday, so it was a good day for a drive!

Our last week at Lake Pleasant

 

The temperatures in the valley are continuing to rise, and the hibernating critters are starting to make themselves known (haven’t seen any rattlesnakes yet, but I did see a Gila Monster on the road today!) . . . so it’s time for us to move on!

 

Our hosting commitment ended on March 31st, and although we considered staying a little longer to take care of some business, we ultimately decided to move up to Nevada for a few weeks to take advantage of more economical flights from Las Vegas to Michigan.

Since we’ve been here for the last 4-1/2 months (really – 4 and a half!?!), Nicolas had a whole list of “checks” to complete on the rig before we moved, plus he wanted to wash the car, the truck, and the dog!  He’s been working on his “to do” list for the last couple of weeks, and finished everything up this weekend.  I’m not sure what we’re going to do when he isn’t with us . . .

Yesterday and today we did a bunch of laundry, stocked up on groceries, and packed up the garage.  We have one less thing to pack up, though . . . last week, Tom sold his motorcycle!

He found that he wasn’t riding it as much as he thought he would, so he decided to go ahead and unload it now, rather than waiting until we got back to Michigan in the fall (NOT the ideal time to sell a motorcycle in Michigan!).  So now we have lots of room in the garage, and that will make shorter stops (when we don’t fully unpack the garage) easier for Nicolas to use his room.

But it wasn’t all work and no play this past week . . . a couple of the maintenance guys had some buoys to move around on the lake, so we tagged along with them. 

 

We drove to the north end of the park, where we met them at the boathouse. 

Along the way, we saw this guy on the side of the road.

 

As Kyle and Jeremy moved buoys around to mark low water areas, Kyle also pointed out interesting features around the lake.

He’s been working at the lake for over 10 years, and he’s hiked almost every mile of the shoreline so he’s really familiar with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw several birds around the lake,

including great blue herons on Blue Heron Island.

 

 

The Agua Fria inlet to the lake has been closed all winter for bald eagle nesting, but was getting ready to be opened up again this week.  Since we were on official business, we were allowed to enter the closed area.  We didn’t have enough time to go all the way to the current nest, but Kyle was able to show us the “old” nest.

Kyle wasn’t sure why this one was abandoned, but it hasn’t been used for several years.  There are two pairs of eagles that call Lake Pleasant home, but only one couple is mature enough to have eggs.  Unfortunately, this year’s nesting was unsuccessful and there are no new baby eagles on Lake Pleasant.  Kyle told us that if the eggs had hatched, we would have been able to participate in banding the new eagles, and maybe even hold one of them . . . that would have been really cool!

Besides our boat ride, we also went back to Cave Creek this weekend.  The town was having their Fiesta Days Rodeo, so we went to check it out.  There wasn’t too much going on in town – just a few arts and crafts tents, and a motorcycle rally (Tom was having withdrawals!!).

We did wander through an interesting shop,

and saw some fun stuff.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was some nice patio furniture,

 

and then some that would be more of a conversation piece! 

Then there was Pluto . . .

and some cool metal flowers hanging on the walls.

 

Cave Creek is an interesting, artsy kind of town, with lots of choices for dinner.  We ended up at the original El Encanto Mexican Cantina, since we haven’t had mexican at all since we’ve been here . . . it was very good.  They have several other locations around Phoenix, and we’ve heard that they are all good.

 

 

 

 

 

We took a drive by the rodeo grounds,

but there wasn’t anything going on there in the afternoon.  We decided not to stick around for the rodeo, but instead got shakes at Big Earl’s and went back to the campground for the evening.

Tomorrow we’ll be moving on, as will another host, Peter, who is moving down the road to the shooting range for the summer . . . . so tonight the 2 remaining hosts planned a pizza dinner as a farewell party for all of us.    

 

 

It was a great way to end the season with our new friends, and hopefully we’ll cross paths with them again sometime, somewhere!

Spotted an American Icon today!

Tom and Nicolas and I were out walking Casey before dinner today, and as we got back to the RV, we saw a bird circling above the campground.  It looked like it might be a Bald Eagle, so I grabbed my camera and got a few shots.         

 

Sure enough, it was an Eagle!  We know they have several nesting pairs on the other side of the lake, but this was the first time we saw one close to the campground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It continued to circle the campground for a few minutes, and then gradually moved back out over the lake and out of sight.

While I was watching the Eagle, somebody was going out for a glider ride over the lake, too.  Here’s the glider being towed by the pilot plane,

and here it’s been released.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, that’s it . . . short post tonight . . . just had to share those pictures!