Set the alarm for a slightly later start, knowing the office wouldn't likely be open until 9:00, grabbed a liquid breakfast and left right on time, having had to empty the rain barrel (so much water-and time-wasted here!) before getting the horses back in the trailer. Got to the office just after they opened, got a refund for the three days we won't be here, then headed back to nearby Fergus Falls, where we did some shopping at the local Farm and Fleet (the Midwest Farmers version of a multi-department store that has everything except groceries for humans!) to pick up more horse feed as well as a few other things we needed, filled up with gas, made a quick sandwich in the RV (half of mine I dropped when someone startled me coming out of the RV door), then headed out to Hankinson Hills in North Dakota. We both sighed with relief when we crossed the Red River out of Minnesota, SO glad to be out of that very unfriendly state. It's amazing, it only took half a week to drop like a stone on my list of favorite states, and after just a few hours on another day, down to the absolute bottom of my list, just slightly lower than Massachussetts, which had previously been my least favorite state. Following Google Maps Navigation on my phone, which thankfully had a signal all the way, and several miles on a gravel road, we arrived at the campground. Two loops, one livestock friendly, the other just for campers, we soon picked out a perfect site, nestled in the trees, with a good view for the satellite signal, perfect trees for highlining, lots of open space for grazing, just one other horse camper site taken, though no horses in their corral, so they were obviously out for a ride. Hubby checked the water supply, the hand pump in the horse area was a lever type, and in the regular campground there was a wheel-like pump we'd never seen before, you just crank it like an ice cream machine and water comes out of the hose pipe. Since it had a spigot, we chose to fill up the rain barrel that way, so after putting the horses on their anchors to graze, we took the rain barrel over in the horse trailer and cranked away! We tried to use a drill on it (which would have been really helpful!), but couldn't get it to work, but the water came out pretty well, and is less than half an hour the barrel was full. I very carefully drove back to our site, without spilling hardly a drop, and proceeded to get settled in. Though Hubby got the satellite dish set up, something went wrong with the receiver, and the only support Dish could give us was to offer to send us a new receiver. Question is, to where? Good question, one I can't answer at the moment, so I let it go. Over 200 hours of recorded movies and TV, gone. Disappointing, considering the unit is less than 6 months old, but sometimes going over rough roads is hard on electronics, and we haven't done as good a job surrounding this one with cushioning like we had in our old RV, so I guess we share in the blame. I'll do some research as to the nearest UPS distribution center, or at least along the way to our next destination, then decide what to do. Meanwhile, we pulled out an old stack of backup DVDs we keep just in case, watched most of a thriller, though I went out for awhile to watch the stars come out, and saw two shooting stars and a satellite pass by! Not the ISS (according to their website the timing wasn't right), but definitely something, though oddly, rather than getting brighter as it went west, like the ISS usually does, it faded out. Not sure why, but I'm sure there's a good explanation. Anyway, it's very quiet here except for the occasional train whistle and vehicle coming down the road next to the campground, and the temps are dropping, so we're looking forward to an excellent (and more relaxed!) night's sleep!
Set the alarm for a slightly later start, knowing the office wouldn't likely be open until 9:00, grabbed a liquid breakfast and left right on time, having had to empty the rain barrel (so much water-and time-wasted here!) before getting the horses back in the trailer. Got to the office just after they opened, got a refund for the three days we won't be here, then headed back to nearby Fergus Falls, where we did some shopping at the local Farm and Fleet (the Midwest Farmers version of a multi-department store that has everything except groceries for humans!) to pick up more horse feed as well as a few other things we needed, filled up with gas, made a quick sandwich in the RV (half of mine I dropped when someone startled me coming out of the RV door), then headed out to Hankinson Hills in North Dakota. We both sighed with relief when we crossed the Red River out of Minnesota, SO glad to be out of that very unfriendly state. It's amazing, it only took half a week to drop like a stone on my list of favorite states, and after just a few hours on another day, down to the absolute bottom of my list, just slightly lower than Massachussetts, which had previously been my least favorite state. Following Google Maps Navigation on my phone, which thankfully had a signal all the way, and several miles on a gravel road, we arrived at the campground. Two loops, one livestock friendly, the other just for campers, we soon picked out a perfect site, nestled in the trees, with a good view for the satellite signal, perfect trees for highlining, lots of open space for grazing, just one other horse camper site taken, though no horses in their corral, so they were obviously out for a ride. Hubby checked the water supply, the hand pump in the horse area was a lever type, and in the regular campground there was a wheel-like pump we'd never seen before, you just crank it like an ice cream machine and water comes out of the hose pipe. Since it had a spigot, we chose to fill up the rain barrel that way, so after putting the horses on their anchors to graze, we took the rain barrel over in the horse trailer and cranked away! We tried to use a drill on it (which would have been really helpful!), but couldn't get it to work, but the water came out pretty well, and is less than half an hour the barrel was full. I very carefully drove back to our site, without spilling hardly a drop, and proceeded to get settled in. Though Hubby got the satellite dish set up, something went wrong with the receiver, and the only support Dish could give us was to offer to send us a new receiver. Question is, to where? Good question, one I can't answer at the moment, so I let it go. Over 200 hours of recorded movies and TV, gone. Disappointing, considering the unit is less than 6 months old, but sometimes going over rough roads is hard on electronics, and we haven't done as good a job surrounding this one with cushioning like we had in our old RV, so I guess we share in the blame. I'll do some research as to the nearest UPS distribution center, or at least along the way to our next destination, then decide what to do. Meanwhile, we pulled out an old stack of backup DVDs we keep just in case, watched most of a thriller, though I went out for awhile to watch the stars come out, and saw two shooting stars and a satellite pass by! Not the ISS (according to their website the timing wasn't right), but definitely something, though oddly, rather than getting brighter as it went west, like the ISS usually does, it faded out. Not sure why, but I'm sure there's a good explanation. Anyway, it's very quiet here except for the occasional train whistle and vehicle coming down the road next to the campground, and the temps are dropping, so we're looking forward to an excellent (and more relaxed!) night's sleep!
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