My Adventurous Life with Arthritis
I have RA, but RA doesn't Have Me!
Waterfowl Expedition
Today was again a travel day. We were up early, refilled the gas tank, again, and had our path mapped out taking back roads toward the Devils Lake area. We were hoping to see waterfowl. We took back roads the entire trip and did get a chance to see a lot of waterfowl.
We had seen huge trucks full of what we thought were sweet potatoes, but then the more we saw the more they looked like potatoes. So, upon research, we discovered they were sugar beets and happen to be driving by the museum on our back roads. Unfortunately, we could not figure out if it was open or not, so we stopped at a gazebo adjacent to it and ate lunch at a picnic table. Here is an article that I found interesting about the sugar beets. (A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production.)
These are not pictures that I took, but I wanted you to be able to see what we were seeing a little better.
One of the things that caught our site today was the size of the liquor stores. We could not pass up the chance to go into several of them and did find a liquor one of our friends was looking for and had not been able to find in NC or any stores nearby in VA that Bailey had checked out. But we struck gold, peach gold that is when we found a large stock of Peach Crown Royal. I was amazed at the size of the liquor stores and was constantly sending Bailey pictures. She did ask me why I was spending so much time in the liquor stores when we didn’t “really drink” and I really didn’t have an answer other than they were pretty amazing. They were pretty turn-key meaning they sold everything from cups, stirrers, olives, salt, sugar, of course, the mixers, and then they even sold supplements for hangovers.
Along our ride, we saw a lot of unique looking campers and after we saw several, Chip said he thought they might be ice houses. So, you know me I google it and sure enough, that was exactly what we were seeing. Of course, I spent a lot of time researching them as it was fascinating to me. We may have to travel back that way someday just to go ice fishing as I think it is pretty cool that you are in a camper, hut, or cabin, that is heated, with a hole cut in the floor of whatever you are staying in, and then a hole in the ice to fish. I can not imagine catching a fish while reclined back inside and then reeling it in. Just the thought of it is so funny to me and a must-try someday.
We did not find any neat boondocking opportunities for tonight and ended up planning to wallydock in Duluth, Minnesota. I had read on-line that Walmart had signs posted that specifically said no overnight camping, but suggested calling the store manager for permission, which I did. I spoke to Ed and he assured us that it was fine and said there would probably be other campers there when we arrived.
Randomness pictures I took on this leg of the trip were these clouds. They were just so beautiful to me, even though they did bring rain.
We saw this amazing rainbow en route to Duluth. I took a zillion pictures because it was so vivid. But here are a few.
Before going to Walmart, we decided to grab something to eat as it had been a long day and we were tired. We wanted to be set up and ready to watch Survivor. Yes, we are die-hard, Survivor fans, and try our best to never miss an episode. We decided to Chipotle which was at the local mall. While we were cutting through the mall, we saw an icehouse on display and captures a couple of snapshots.
All the black circles in the inside picture are removable to fish from. Doesn’t that seem cool?
We were glad to get to the Walmart parking lot, which did have signs on every post about no overnight camping, but with Ed’s name written down just-in-case, we settled in to watch Survivor while enjoying Chipotle.
Tomorrow we will visit around Duluth, adding to our list seeing a great lake and continue our journey back home.
My Adventurous Life with Arthritis 