Crookston, Minnesota (GA599)

Mary is no longer available for RV traveling, but we remain good friends.
Because we have 5,000+ postings, I’ve invited her to continue posting entries on this blog.
Sadly Mary is struggling with health issues. To see the latest about her situation, click here

To view past blogs, scroll to the bottom of this page and use the menu.

I’m currently in my 24th year of full-time RVing and my lifestyle is changing, For more info click here

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails RV resort in Palm Desert, California. I’m scheduled to depart here March 26th.

 

 

 

Since my RVing life is changing (see above), I’m starting to re-visit previously visited places. So rather than constantly re-blogging past entries, I’ve decided to do something different.

  In 2011-2013, Mary and I did a 682 day, 12,679 miles in the motorhome and 8,000 miles in the Bronco, circumnavigation of the United States, which I called The Great Adventure. I called it so because other than my oldest granddaughter’s high school graduation in June in Connecticut, I didn’t know where we would be going or when we would be there!

So, unless I do something really different and unusual warranting a new blog entry, I’ll be posting entries from that trip.

This entry was posted September 3, 2013…

 

 

 

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the about 90 miles from Bemidji to Crookston, Minnesota.

 

 

We continued traveling along U.S.Highway 2 West.

 

 

 

 

 

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

 

 

 

 

 

Labor Day Weekend Monday Morning traffic was light…

 

 

 

 

 

The area is thinly populated. We passed through only a few small towns like this one..

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived just before noon in Crookston and parked alongside the railroad tracks behind the VFW…

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch we decided to take a walk around town and shoot some photos…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw this sign on the back of a large building…

 

 

 

 

 

The front of the building turned out to be the Grand Theatre. Built in 1911, it remains as the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States. You can read about this place by clicking this link… http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/11591/

 

 

 

 

 

They allowed us to take a few photos before the afternoon movie started…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This old church has been boarded up…it apparently ran out of customers…

 

 

 

 

 

Adjacent and behind the church we stumbled upon Central Park. A city park that has camping…

 

 

 

 

 

We liked it so much, I went back and got the motorhome…

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the usual dinette photo…

 

 

 

 

 

We continued with our walk along the river…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Central Park proved to be a pleasant and quiet place. We enjoyed our stay here very much…

 

 

Yesterday was a decent weather day. 73 degrees with 43% humidity. I could still stand lower humidity. Forecast for today is 86 degrees. YUK!

 

 

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

 

 

Enjoying pretty campgrounds is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

 

 

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Minnesota. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! MARY WROTE A MANY GREAT BLOGS…SO WHENEVER SHE PUBLISHED A BLOG POSTING THE SAME DAY THAT I DID…YOU WILL BE ABLE TO READ HER BLOG BY CLICKING THE BELOW LINK! DO IT NOW!

https://otrwjam.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/crookston-minnesota-2/

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Forecast for today is mostly sunny and 53 degrees.

 

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

 

“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.” –James Madison

 

 

“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” —Mark Twain

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet -2019

Devils Lake, North Dakota

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the 117 miles from Crookston, Minnesota to Devils Lake, North Dakota.

We continued traveling along U.S.Highway 2 West.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Highway 2 traffic continues to be light…

Places like these are seen occasionally along the way…

Just east of Devils Lake we gassed up and I saw my first flex-fuel pump…

Here’s a closer look at the five fuel selections that are available…

At this same station we propaned-up for only $1.39 a gallon. It’s been a long time since I’ve run across propane so reasonably priced!

I have a good friend named Randy Vining. He didn’t tell me he owns an oil company…  🙂

I do not want to call Devils Lake an unattractive place…I’ll simply say I cannot understand why anyone would knowingly live here.

The Elks Club was closed, so we swung by the VFW which has a very small parking lot, so we parked on railroad property across the street…

Mary wanted to visit the only museum in town…the old Post Office Museum, which we got to by walking a portion of the two blocks away in this alley…

The museum was a guided tour which I found very boring. Anything worth photographing was either under glass or shiny plastic making for difficult reflections. The heat and humidity were too much for me, so I left Mary to complete her tour of the museum and I retreated to the VFW air-conditioned lounge for a couple of cold Miller Lites. Mary finally joined me. We decided the better place to park for the night was back at the Elks Club.

Upon arrival there we found out the Elks Club is not open on Tuesday. The nice folks at the next door Nite Owl Lounge told us we could park there for the night and even provided us with an electrical outlet so we could run our air-conditioning without having to run our generator…

While the motorhome cooled down, we went into the Nite Owl lounge for about an hour for a couple more cold ones. We had a nice conversation with the owner Mary Lou.

Here’s the usual dinette window photo…

Not everyplace we visit is a Shangrila!

You can read about Devils Lake by clicking this Wikipedia link… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Lake,_North_Dakota

Yesterday was a lousy weather day. 87 degrees with high humidity. Today’s forecast is for 79 degrees. Next two-day forecast is 92 and 94 degrees. YUKKITTY!

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

Enjoying electrical plug-ins so we can have air-conditioning on a hot day is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of North Dakota. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

CROOKSTON, MINNESOTA

Crookston, Minnesota has a population of about 8,000 people. It was wild land prairie, home to Indians, hunters and trappers, and didn’t really get settled until about 1872. It has a unique distinction, the Grand Theater, the longest, continually operating theater in the United States. It opened in 1911 as a vaudeville house. For movies in 1918.

The box office employee allowed us to go in and take pictures just before the current show started.

Seats, carpet, balcony and a lot of updates have been made,  but this fixture is original. We bought a box of warm popcorn and walked the town.

Crookston City Park has electric hook-ups for campers, no sewer or water, but a comfy spot, within walking range of Polk Co. Museum, VFW, Eagles and American Legion. Monday, Labor Day, most business were locked up tight.

Nearby, a boarded up Catholic Church. An attractive edifice still, but sad.

Cookston is part of the Red River Valley and has several wildlife refuges. At Glacial Ridge, the nation’s largest prairie restoration, over 24,000 acres,  about 10 miles East of town you can see original prairie grasses, prairie chickens and loads of rare indigenous plants and butterflies.  Another Prairie, Pankratz Memorial Prairie lies south-east of Cookston by 6 miles, where ancient buffalo herds wallowed and rubbed boulders smooth with their massive shoulders.  Hiking, bird watching and geocaching are popular here in this wooded, and prairie, community.

We ambled along the Red Lake River to town and back on what was a beauty of a day. Then we sat in the sun and read for a couple of hours and just kicked back and enjoyed the quiet until some native, biting fly attacked Jim’s ankles. When he took refuge inside, they decided my ankles were fair game. How dare they?

Under the bridge reflections are always fun to photograph. Since I like unusual museums, Cookston qualifies with a sugar beet museum-closed, of course.  Next trip.

Rene Wiley’s series of paintings of alleys has given me a new appreciation for them. We saw her work in Galveston, Texas. A few alleys are worth photographing.  Jim noticed the fire escape doesn’t touch the ground.  Jim asked,  “How could they escape?” This one is too dark and bare.

This sunny side resembles half an alley and the fire escape touches the ground. I like it better than the alley.

This alley picture I took yesterday in Bemidji has a bit more character.

Speaking of yesterday’s photos, I spotted this guy practicing skiing in the summer. Or maybe Ice Skating in summer. Looked like fun.

Bemidji also extolled the giant wolf named Lobo. I think I read a better story than the one above about Lobo. Someday, I’ll find it.

Crookston, Minnesota

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the about 90 miles from Bemidji to Crookston, Minnesota.

We continued traveling along U.S.Highway 2 West.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Labor Day Weekend Monday Morning traffic was light…

The area is thinly populated. We passed through only a few small towns like this one..

We arrived just before noon in Crookston and parked alongside the railroad tracks behind the VFW…

After lunch we decided to take a walk around town and shoot some photos…

We saw this sign on the back of a large building…

The front of the building turned out to be the Grand Theatre. Built in 1911, it remains as the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States. You can read about this place by clicking this link… http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/11591/

They allowed us to take a few photos before the afternoon movie started…

This old church has been boarded up…it apparently ran out of customers…

Adjacent and behind the church we stumbled upon Central Park. A city park that has camping…

We liked it so much, I went back and got the motorhome…

Here’s the usual dinette photo…

We continued with our walk along the river…

Central Park proved to be a pleasant and quiet place. We enjoyed our stay here very much…

Yesterday was a decent weather day. 73 degrees with 43% humidity. I could still stand lower humidity. Forecast for today is 86 degrees. YUK!

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

Enjoying pretty campgrounds is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Minnesota. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust