We arrived at Lindenwood Campground just after 2:40PM MDT. This is another city campground with water and electric hookups. The site I originally selected was down along the river, #18, which it turns out is in the B-Loop. Somehow in the process of purchasing the site, it switched to A-18 (even though I picked the site off of a map). So we were disappointed to arrive and find out that we aren’t along the river. Oh well. The price is right, but we’re packed in like sardines, which I was wiling to accept for a site along the river. On a positive note, the staff did allow us to wash all the bugs off of the front of the RV.
We departed from Spearfish City Campground at 11:00AM MDT and headed North to Butte View Campground in Bowman, ND. We spent the full trip (131 miles) on US-85 which is a whole lot of STRAIGHT. Other than in the town of Buffalo, SD, I think we might have seen three or four homesteads once we were North of Bell Fourche, SD. We stopped for fuel at the Bell Fourche Exxon station because there weren’t going to be many opportunities along the way and the diesel prices are about thirty cents higher in North Dakota.
We arrived at Butte View Campground just after 1:48PM MDT. This is another city campground with the option for full hookups. Having just been in a full hookup site we opted for the privacy of one of the pull through sites on the outside of one of the campground loops with electricity only (for $26/night including taxes). We parked backwards in order to place our cabin entry door to the outside of the loop providing additional privacy. There are a couple dozen other campers here (mostly work campers), but only a few have vehicles parked with them implying most of them may be gone for the holiday. We have one other camper in our loop.
Site #13Site #13Site #13Phoebe Enjoying Her IndependenceFun with TreesHappy Independence Day!Happy Birthday America!Burger Night
Today we continued East on US-2 and then a bit North, well off the beaten path to what is basically an old farm that is now an antique tractor museum. The Dale & Martha Hawk Museum & Campground actually has a campground on site with full hookups (30 Amps). We are here with three other campers and we hear there will be a fourth this evening. I told Beth on the way here to get in any necessary communication before we get there because I couldn’t imagine there would be any cell service. Boy was I wrong. I just did a speed test with our new AT&T hotspot and set a new record for it at 83Mbps download and 2.35Mbps upload speeds (that’s better than Beth’s iPhone 12 does on 5G at home). Beth’s Visible phone isn’t doing quite as well, but is still receiving good service (4 down/1 up). Tomorrow I intend to take a full tour of the museum and regale all of those who will listen with stories of my youth working at LaGrange County Ford Tractor throughout high school.
We left Antelope Creek Campground today and continued northeast on US-191 to Malta, MT where we picked up US-2 and started our long trek straight east. Similar to our road trip in 2019, my lovely co-pilot has reached her limit on switchback roads that climb mountains with no shoulder so we hit pay dirt today when we got on US-2. Although there are some occasional grades, The Great Northern Highway is one long straight road. We stopped for fuel in Culbertson, MT and paid $3.07/gallon. We left the state of Montana at mile marker 667 (that’s one wide state). US-2 follows the Missouri River through eastern Montana to Williston, ND. There were numerous historic markers along the way and as a fan of Lewis & Clark (and Sacajawea) it was difficult not stopping at each marker.
We passed through the southern end of Williston, ND on our way to our campground. Williston is/was an oil boom town. There is a lot of industry here heavily related to the oil industry, railroad industry, and farming. We are camping at Lewis & Clark State Park located on the Missouri River about 20 miles east of Williston. This is a nice campground with large sites and it is fairly empty for a Tuesday just after the Independence Day weekend. Although there are a lot of trees around our site, none of them are very tall and we were able to access the DISH Western Arc satellites from our roof mounted antenna. There is no Wi-Fi in the campground, but our cell phones (Beth’s Visible and my Tracfone) riding the Verizon infrastructure received roughly the same data throughput as our AT&T hotspot (3Mbps/0.2Mbps download/upload speeds).
Lewis & Clark SP – Site #24
Lewis & Clark SP – Site #24
While we were in the area we went back into Williston for groceries and a meal out. Beth found a highly rated restaurant, Williston Brewing Company, that was right up our alley (and not far from the Albertson’s). We knew we had hit pay dirt when we discovered that the front door handles were old lever action rifles although seeing perfectly good rifles relegated to door handle duty did sadden me a bit. Later we got a second surprise when we learned that the bathroom door handles were 6 shooters.
We saw a sign on the bar advertising their pretzel appetizer on sale all month for $4. When I looked on the menu and found that they usually sell for $16 I had to have one just so I could feel good about saving $12. We had no idea the pretzel would be the hugest one we’d ever seen accompanied by cheese queso. It was delicious and we managed to eat about 2″ a piece. We took the rest home (its take out box was a pizza box if that gives you an idea how huge) and should be finished nibbling on it by the end of the month. Having been slightly disappointed with my previous cheese steak I decided this would be a good place to give it another shot and was very pleased although I think Beth still won the overall “pick the best meal” challenge with yet another delicious burger that came with a homemade spicy barbecue sauce that was quite tasty.
