We left North Dakota impressed. The state was much more beautiful than we were expecting and, of course, the vibrancy that is a result of the oil boom was pretty cool. One thing I didn't get a photo of was the huge fields of sunflowers that are being grown. Of cousre I know all that sunflower oil has to come from somewhere but, jeez, some of those fields were at least several hundred acres. Very amazing!
We left Dickenson, ND and headed for Newcastle, WY to spend the night. There we made a major error and stayed at one of the worse places ever: it was a small park associated with and behind a motel. Just getting in was a hassle since the whole thing is built on the side of a hill. Access to sites was limited by overgrown trees and about a third of the sites were closed off with traffic cones anyway. Needless to say they weren't level! Lousy sites with a busy road on one side and a train on the other. They didn't move many trains in the night but in the morning and evening there was literally one every 10 minutes. The odd thing is that they still haven't charged our credit card! Who knows!
The photo shows the hookups for FOUR rigs: ours, one either backed up to our rig or pulled up right behind (if it was a Class C!) and two more in spaces 6 and 8. Thank goodness there weren't other rigs trying to stay that night. We carry two sets of leveling planks: a 2 inch one and a 4 inch one: we needed the 4's here.
The next night we stopped in Loveland, CO. Amazingly enough we found another park with problems. The sites around the outside of the park were all wide, deep and nicely treed. The ones inside were short, perpindicular to the road and narrow. Our living room slide was lless than 18 inches (.5m) from our neighbor's bedroom slide. Thank goodness that the guy knew how to park his rig.
The stay at Loveland was prompted by a desire to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. We aren't real fond of roads with drop-offs so avoided the higher parts of the park. We know that we miss a lot but the stress of traveling the roads overcomes the enjoyment. The lower elevations were beautiful though. Even the lower elevations were 8,500 feet (2,600 m) so it's not like the air wasn't a trifle thin.
We stopped in Estes Park for a meal at "Smokin Dave's" bbq place. HIGHLY recommended! We split a 3 meat platter with ribs, pulled pork and brisket with two sides. Everything was excellent. Driving back down to Loveland we were in the canyon created by the Big Thompson River: very impressive.
After Loveland we took a short trip down I-25 to Colorado Springs to visit friends. We haven't seen these folks since 2011 so it was time. To our amazement, the trip through Denver was pretty simple. Turns out it was just our day: we were south-bound; the north-bound folks got treated to a miles long backup. "Sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug."
I'll do more on our trip later. That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.
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