Towner, North Dakota (GA601)

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

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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 5, 2013…

 

 

 

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the 77 miles from Devils Lake to Towner, 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. No vehicles visible in front of us…

 

 

 

 

 

And no vehicles visible behind us. Speed limit is 70. Set the cruise control on 55 and watch the miles roll by. Sweet…

 

 

 

 

 

Along the way we stopped in Rugby, North Dakota which claims to be the geographical center of North America. You can read about this place by clicking this link… http://www.rugbynorthdakota.com/AttractionDetail.aspx?AttractionID=6

 

 

 

 

 

Just down the street we met up with a John Deere tractor bigger than the motorhome…

 

 

A short distance away, we spent an interesting two hours visiting the Prairie Village Museum. It does a great job showing what early prairie life was like in 30 buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

The first photo is of one of their postcards showing an aerial view of the buildings…

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the photos I took there…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This may be the very best prairie museum I have ever visited. Here’s their official website link… http://www.prairievillagemuseum.com/#!

 

 

To see the other 86 photos that I took, you will need to click this Picasa Web Album link… https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/PrairieVillageMuseumRugbyNorthDakota02

 

 

 

 

 

From there we continued on to the Town of Towner, North Dakota where the citizens provide a free city park campground with four electrical hook-up sites…

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the usual dinette window photo…

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s Mary enjoying her afternoon…

 

 

We enjoyed a very pleasant and restful stay here. Thank you, Towner!

 

 

Yesterday was a lousy weather day. 80 degrees with high humidity. Today’s forecast is for 90 degrees. Tomorrow is forecast 92 degrees. YUKKITTY!

 

 

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

 

 

Enjoying free, pretty city park 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 North Dakota. 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/2013/09/05/prairie-village-museum-rugby-n-dakota/

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Forecast for today is sunny and 78 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

Stanley, North Dakota

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the 101 miles from Towner to Stanley, North Dakota.

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

Along the way we passed through Minot, for which we could not find a good reason to stop. These many last days of basically traffic-less driving on Highway 2 has come to an end. Once we left Minot, the traffic picked up noticeably as we are entering North Dakota’s oil boom area. You can read all about it in this Wikipedia link about Stanley… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley,_North_Dakota

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…

This was one of the few times we were not accompanied by a number of trucks…

Arriving in Stanley, Mary and I took a walk down Main Street to find something we had not seen before. On every street light pole was a large speaker playing rock music! Mary and I both found it most irritating…

We were in search of Stanley’s claim to fame. The only remaining original operating Whirl-A-Whip ice cream machine left in the country located in the Dakota Drug Store which still has the soda fountain…

Terry, the owner, showed us the machine…only it is no longer functioning. The motor had burned out…

Here is the cover of the machine…

He told us the newer model is the same internal machine, but now covered in a stainless steel case…

What’s so special about this machine? Well, other places may advertise 100 different flavors and have to keep them in stock. With this machine, by having only three flavors in stock and then adding unique ingredients, you can create hundreds of flavors. So, of course we just had to try it. Here’s the menu of flavors…

I had the chocolate ice cream and added Oreo cookie, whopper (a malt ball) and bit o’ brickle (a crunchy granola-like substance) which cost $4.00.. Here’s what it looked like before the machine processed it…

And here’s what it looked like after the machine processed it. Kind of like a flavored softee ice cream. It was tasty!…

Terry, the owner, contacted Bruce Rohtenheiser and told him we were interested in the history of the machine. Bruce, together with his son owned the drugstore for more than 50 years. Bruce, who is a lively 83 years old and once served as the mayor of the town, filled us in on the history of the machine. Here he wears a T-shirt identifying North Dakota’s two most valuable commodities…grain and oil…

The drug store even has Whirl-A-Whip T-shirts for only $13.75. We did not buy one…

Here’s a YouTube Video showing the Whirl-A-Whip machine at the Dakota Drug Store in Stanley… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDnuGwHPYBw

The once free municipal campground is no longer free and full of oil boom workers. Bruce put me in contact with Harry Braddock, a past Commander of the local American Legion which no longer owns a building in town. Harry was kind enough to offer to let us park across the street from his home…

Here’s the usual dinette window photo…

Yesterday was a lousy weather day. 96 degrees with high humidity. Today’s forecast is for 94 degrees. Tomorrow is forecast 89 degrees. YUKKITTY!

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

Enjoying unique Whril-A-Whip ice cream machines 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

Towner, North Dakota

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the 77 miles from Devils Lake to Towner, 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. No vehicles visible in front of us…

And no vehicles visible behind us. Speed limit is 70. Set the cruise control on 55 and watch the miles roll by. Sweet…

Along the way we stopped in Rugby, North Dakota which claims to be the geographical center of North America. You can read about this place by clicking this link… http://www.rugbynorthdakota.com/AttractionDetail.aspx?AttractionID=6

Just down the street we met up with a John Deere tractor bigger than the motorhome…

A short distance away, we spent an interesting two hours visiting the Prairie Village Museum. It does a great job showing what early prairie life was like in 30 buildings.

The first photo is of one of their postcards showing an aerial view of the buildings…

Here are some of the photos I took there…

This may be the very best prairie museum I have ever visited. Here’s their official website link… http://www.prairievillagemuseum.com/#!

To see the other 86 photos that I took, you will need to click this Picasa Web Album link… https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/PrairieVillageMuseumRugbyNorthDakota02

From there we continued on to the Town of Towner, North Dakota where the citizens provide a free city park campground with four electrical hook-up sites…

Here’s the usual dinette window photo…

And here’s Mary enjoying her afternoon…

We enjoyed a very pleasant and restful stay here. Thank you, Towner!

Yesterday was a lousy weather day. 80 degrees with high humidity. Today’s forecast is for 90 degrees. Tomorrow is forecast 92 degrees. YUKKITTY!

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

Enjoying free, pretty city park 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 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