Lewis and Clark RV Park - Hazen, ND

We moved from Devils Lake to Hazen, North Dakota yesterday and we exhauled with a sigh of relief when Dave was able to gently pull the Turtle out of the mud and up the incline. Almost had a playmate for Chip and Grace - a little kitten bugged us and wanted to play while we were cleaning out the holding tanks. Chip would not have been happy. We had a beautiful ride to Hazen, driving about 240 miles. Again, we stayed off major highways. Still lots of flooding where roads were washed away and now are temporary dirt dams over the water. And most of the water (now major lakes) were never there before this past spring. We are right near the first winter fort of Lewis and Clark which is now called Fort Mandan. During the winter of 1802 Captains William Clark and Meriwether Lewis with their Corps of Discovery built a fort and spent the winter with the Mandas and Hidatsa Indian tribes. It was during this winter trading with the Indians and surviving the harsh winter that two new members joined the trip - Toussaint Charbonneau and his Indian wife Sakakawea, as guides. What really thrills me about this area - I have been an American Indian buff for many years and now I will get to see what I have read about! There are so many historic places to see here and we hope to see lots. We will be staying in Hazen until Thursday morning when we start our trek again, just staying overnight one more time in North Dakota before getting into the Badlands of South Dakota. This campground is a city-owned park - the second city park we have used. And cheap! Last night we paid $10! Full hookup - 50 amp service, pull-through. Life is good! And - it's level.

Some interesting facts about North Dakota. First - if you need a job - come to the North Dakota. They say within 10 minutes of showing up at a site you will be employed and working 7 days a week. Making at least 90K a year! Between repairing and fixing the roads and infrastructure due to flooding and the largest oil production find in the 48 states, makes North Dakota rich! They have 4 billion dollars sitting in the bank and everyone is scurrying to get a piece of it. Dave suggested that North Dakota buy Minnesota since they went bankrupt not too long ago and call it East North Dakota. The Missouri River, Knife River, and Lake Sakakawea's 6 major power plants within 30 miles of where we are produce enough energy to serve 9 states. Starting this Saturday anyone trying to camp here will not find a spot - the power plants begin a downturn to retool, repair and do preventative maintenance. Worker-bees coming to set up an RV and stay during the downturn has locked up all campgrounds for miles - glad we got here when we did.

You have to remember that the population is nothing compared to the mid west, Texas, California or even the Atlantic coast. Some towns we drove by were booming - with a population under 1000. Very rolling hills, like the Badlands, very pretty, very desolate. Seeing field after field of sunflowers, wheat was cool. About 30 minutes prior to getting here we passed the largest coal mine in North America - the Freedom Mine - with some of the world's largest earth moving equipment - a drag line shovel which is larger than a 3 story house and we saw this for miles before coming up to it. Euclid trucks were moving enough coal in one dump to fill 3 railroad cars. Huge!

And last - seemed like we drove and drove and drove and didn't get far. Now that I studied the map - here's the difference between Ohio and North Dakota: North Dakota is 2 times wider than Ohio but the same distance from north to south. We are driving east to west and no wonder! But - we are going at our own pace.