Our first stop was back in my old hometown of Milaca, visiting our old friends Jim and Julie. They graciously hosted a get together of some of my closest friends from high school. It was good to see Tim and Mike and their families. The friendships I made in high school and college are generally stronger than those I made later in life, so it was very good to meet up with them and to see that they were doing well.
The drive from there took us 5 hours northwest, just over the border into North Dakota. We found an amazing little campground, Jurgen’s Hollow in the Sheyenne National Grasslands. It’s rolling hills with a mix of oak forests and open grasslands. From our exploration we could see it looked to be former pastureland converted into a park, maybe an old ranch donated to the country.
This morning I was up before the sunrise sitting outside seeing this view.
It was perfectly quiet, a great spot to enjoy my coffee and watch as the sunrise slowly changed the view. As the sun came up though I started to hear a slight din of cows, making some noise to punctuate their own morning. It reminded me of our walk the previous day where we crossed over from park into pastureland, the difference was clear but not drastic. Now sitting here I wonder about the sustainability of ranching, like how much does it impact the land compared to the days of the buffalo roaming. Previously I had always felt a bit disappointed to see how a pasture changes the natural landscape, but recently I realised that this landscape was once a giant pasture for the buffalo. And the prairie likely depended and grew up around the grazing of these animals. I wonder how the current ratio of cows to acres is different from the time of the buffalo. How much less meat production on some pastureland would allow the prairies return to their previous state. I don’t have the answers, but assume production would be much lower. Maybe someday larger swaths of prairie could be returned to the former grasslands. Today I am thankful for this little chunk here, but I really believe we could be doing much better.
The camper is starting to turn into our home, it’s comfortable for sleeping and not to big to make it unwieldy going down the road, as long as the winds are low. We have a small issue where the heater doesn’t start immediately, when it is cold it cycles a few times before running smoothly. While we have been able to make it work here where we only need it in the mornings, it concerns us when we end up in colder spots. I have tried a few troubleshooting options so far with no luck, but hopefully we can figure it out soon. Overall I think we will really enjoy this style of travel.
