Day 7-9 North Dakota Sucks

Left Valley City Sunday morning, went 150 miles west to Fort Abraham Lincoln State park http://www.parkrec.nd.gov/parks/falsp/history.htm  

Very nice park, weather and Verizon service. Close enough to Bismarck for amenities. We planned a two day stay. We had hoped to get new tires installed on the rig while here. Figured Bismarck was the largest city to get what we needed. Boy were we wrong. Tires will have to be ordered and take up to 5 days to get here. Hummmm? So we ended up calling out to Columbia Falls Montana, having them order the tires and will get them installed while we are there on Friday or Saturday. Well, the weather turned nasty, again. Park ranger came around Monday, early evening, warned us of severe weather on its way (large hail, damaging winds of up to 60MPH, and possible tornado) and advise us to move to the cement block bathrooms/shelter in the park.

We had about 15 minutes to prepare than off we went to the shelter. Carl took his computer to monitor the storm. Guess we will add a NOAA weather radio to our list. Although there are about 5 or 6 campers in the park, only one other couple joined us in the shelter. They were from Minnesota and said they were in this same park last year when a storm went through and took down a few trees. We stayed in the shelter for about 40 minutes or so when park host came by telling us the storm was over. We really didn't get much of anything but were told about 15 miles from us a tornado touched down and did damage. He also warned us of strong winds starting in the early morning hours and lasting all day Tuesday. Shucks, we thought, we are planning to leave Tuesday. Well, here it is Tuesday afternoon and we are still here. Yes indeed, the winds got strong around 3am, 30-40 MPH with gusts in the 60MPH range. Not a day to be pulling the rig down the road. I guess if we have to be stuck someplace this is as good as any. We are down in a valley with good tv and internet service so keeping us busy. Carl went to town to get propane tank filled and said it is REALLY windy up on the roads.

A couple of deer on the tracks on our walk back to park from visitors center

Steps to the visitors center from a path in the park. We took the walk in the early evening after the winds finally died down. 

 
We will head out Wednesday morning as the weather is suppose to be much more favorable. We will be entering Mountain time zone. So far there is absolutely nothing about North Dakota that impresses us so I can't imagine we will ever plan another trip through here.    Sorry North Dakota!