Starting Homeward

2022-07-20
ND, MN, IA

Today we started home. It will take three days to get back if everything goes as planned. It is once again hard to say what time we got up because the phones were different, but I do know that we lost an hour shortly after leaving the campground.

Our planned midway stop was Broken Down Damn State Park, but the actual park didn't have a parking lot. There was just a bit of deeply rutted dirt that I was not sure my Subaru had enough clearance to drive over. With prudence taking a front seat, we opted out. The road to the park was a smooth dirt road, but then we turned in from Main Street which was also dirt. I don't know if it's "natural" the whole length, but at our end there was no pavement to be seen.

We went on to One Mile Lake Nature Trail where we had planned to walk after seeing the dam. It is only four miles away as the car drives. We walked for a mile, then took ten minutes to pull out pieces of the tent that were wet from last night and let them dry in the breeze. The fly, ground cover, and a sleeping quilt were all pretty damp from condensation but dried readily in the hot, dry breeze. It was over 90 already.

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes. I think we checked off a few hundred as we crossed the state, but didn't get bingo. We stopped at a rest area just north of the Minnesota-Iowa border. Minnesota rest areas are the best. This one had a nice little trail for some exercise; others have touted large playgrounds or have yielded lakes. We cooked up some dinner there on a lovely shady picnic table.

We stopped for the night about an hour south of the Minnesota-Iowa border. This motel is packed (glad I made a reservation!) but I'm not sure what the folks are gathered for. They seem to know each other, and they are a bit older than we are. On the way out the front desk said that they were just friends meeting up. I guess Clear Lake Iowa is relatively central to them; I don't think they are there for the night life.

With nothing to photograph today, I'm going to reach into the archives. At Great Sand Dunes National Park there was a social trail from our campsite to the bathroom. But upon closer inspection you realized that it was a very bad idea to take this Trail of Pain in the middle of the night. Any slight stumble could lead to disaster. And here's the same type of cactus in bloom (which doesn't make it less dangerous) from Capulin.

Driving Distance: 703 miles

Hiking Distance: 1 mile