Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Lewis and Clark State Park weekend #2


Another weekend done and this is a busy place with only a few open camping sites. 

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

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Last weekend at the amphitheater was a presentation and crafts regarding snakes and amphibians. This weekend it was about birds. I enjoy helping with the crafts. Curt is usually selling firewood (or driving around trying to) at that time. Friday night we made bird feeders with toilet paper rolls, peanut butter and bird feed. The second night they (not me) dissected owl pellets.  (Indigestible material left in the gizzard such as teeth, skulls, claws, and feathers are too dangerous to pass through the rest of the owl's digestive tract. To safely excrete this material, the owl's gizzard compacts it into a tight pellet that the owl regurgitates. The regurgitated pellets are known as owl pellets.) They also colored owl masks. Sunday we had bird Olympics and the kids got prizes. The kids stood on one leg like a heron, had a stare down like an owl, tried to flap their arms fast like a hummingbird and had a race (fast like a falcon).

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One of the shelters was rented to a group called SCA, The Society for Creative Anachronism. It is an international organization that does research and recreates arts and skills of the pre-17th century Europe. One of the men told us the time period from 600 to 1600. The group that was here is the Kingdom of Northshield. Most of the people there were dressed from that time period. We watched some armored fights and fencing.

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We had a severe storm watch one evening so we helped the park rangers go from door to door to let people know. We didn’t get any bad weather luckily. If people didn’t feel safe in their tents or campers, they are able to go to the comfort station.

For more pictures, please click here. I have a lot more pictures of the SCA and the kids at the amphitheater. Katie (our supervisor) asked if we wanted to take pictures (since we’ve usually got the camera with us) for their Lewis and Clark State Park Facebook page. If any of the links on here don’t work, please let us know. Thanks!





Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Lewis and Clark State Park, weekend #1


Our first weekend at Lewis and Clark State Park has been a busy one. We’ve been assisting guests, selling firewood, helping the interpreter at the amphitheater Friday, Saturday and Sunday, helping sell ice cream treats Friday and Saturday after the amphitheater, keeping track of who is leaving and who is coming in, cleaning sites and fire pits after guests leave, watering flowers, picking weeds and picking up litter. We don’t have to clean bathrooms (rangers do that), but we do check them daily. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are our days off.

So, the first few days we walked a lot of steps until we got our Toro vehicle to drive around with. There’s only two days we haven’t gotten over 10,000 steps. The Toro needs a little work; it kind of bucks now and then and is hard on the back. I think today will be a day of rest.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

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We don’t get any TV reception here, but do have free wifi in the park which usually works pretty good. We have Verizon cell service, from 4G 1 bar down to almost nothing sometimes. We are on Central Daylight Time, and at 10:00 at night it’s still light out!

For more pictures, please click here. I’ve started an album for Lewis and Clark State Park and will add pictures with each blog post that you can scroll through. It may take it a little while to load as I add more. You can click on them to enlarge them.


Thursday, July 14, 2016

Lewis and Clark State Park, camp host position #2


We moved on to our second camp host position with North Dakota State Parks, to Lewis and Clark State Park 20 miles southeast of Williston, ND. This campground has 101 camp sites and 2 cabins. Some of the sites are full hookup, some electric and water, some electric and some primitive. Near our site is a comfort station with showers and toilets, the dump station, a playground, shelter and amphitheater. The full hookup sites are in the newer upper loop, pull-through with a playground and newly planted trees. The rest of the sites are a combination of trees or open. This Park has a ranger station and marina, on the Little Missouri River, but we can’t see the water from our site. There is a beach area for swimming.

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 our camp host sitehttp://followusinourtravels.blogspot.com/

For more pictures, please click here. I’ve included pictures of the drive from Little Missouri State Park to Lewis and Clark State Park. I will start an album and update as we go.


Monday, July 11, 2016

Little Missouri State Park–weekend #4


It’s much slower now, with a few campers here and there, so less cleaning. Once the big group left after last weekend, we cleaned out fire pits and picked up litter and cleaned the leftover hay and manure out of the corrals and off of the grass and road. We had a horse camper near us, and some horse campers on the bottom non-electric sites this weekend. There was a camper near the shower house. A few hikers came in this week. One man was practicing for the Appalachian Trail and was planning to do a 9 mile hike with his huge backpack. 

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Wednesday evening we had about a half-inch of rain and luckily missed hail. Sunday afternoon and evening we lucked out again; Killdeer, about 20 miles southwest, got hit hard with hail. Both storms went around us and all we got was rain. The hail picture is from the internet.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

http://followusinourtravels.blogspot.com/  Killdeer hail 2  http://followusinourtravels.blogspot.com/ 

The sky was beautiful after the storm though.

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We are finishing our camp host position tomorrow and moving on to another one.

For more pictures, please click here. For the more current ones, you will need to scroll down. It may take a while load.


Monday, July 4, 2016

Little Missouri State Park, weekend #3


This has been a busy week and weekend. Campers started coming in on Wednesday, with more coming every day through Saturday. There is a church group that has been coming every year for about 20 years. This year is their 50th year of the Trail Ride Family Camp. They pretty much double-fill every spot (except for six) with campers and horses. They have a huge tent they put up beside the large shelter filled with picnic tables that they bring in a truck. Half of the horses are brought in with a semi. They have organized trail rides, meals, games, etc. We saw license plates from North Dakota, Minnesota and Texas. Other campers coming from Wisconsin, Wyoming, Iowa. I don’t know how many people were here, but we went through a lot of toilet paper!

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

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Cliff Naylor, with the local news channel KFYR, was here Friday interviewing a few people and taking video. We can’t get the TV station here so I don't know if it has been on TV or not yet.  If I find it on the internet, I’ll post it.
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Happy 6th birthday to our granddaughter, Alaina.   http://followusinourtravels.blogspot.com/

For more pictures, please click here. It’ll take a little while to load. Scroll down for the most current pictures.