TWO PEAS AND THE POD: LITTLE MISSOURI NATIONAL GRASSLAND (ND)

SATURDAY - By 9:00AM we were pulling out off our site and headed for the dump station near the campground exit.

While Tricia was empting the tanks I was setting up the hoses and filters at the fresh water fill station when I noticed a non-potable water sign on the post. I checked that the water was indeed on and figured if it wasn't turned off then it would be OK to use for dish washing and toilet flushing.

There was another sign just like this one attached to the camphost site's water supply, so how bad can it be?

While we were still deciding whether or not to use the water a woman walked by with her dog and explained the water was probably OK and the reason for the non-potable sign was because the park had not renewed their certification after failing a previous testing.

We eventually decided to pass on filling up here because our route today takes us right back past the South Unit of the park where we know they have clean water available. A 13-mile detour into the park will assure us of not contaminating our tanks with bad water.

While we were on our detour to find fresh water we got another chance to watch the wild horses inside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park's South Unit. They were just standing around up on a hill overlooking the Cottonwood Campground.

They were quite a distance from where the water fill station was...

...so Tricia pulled out her big camera to take this photo to share.

A short while later we were pulling off the Interstate and headed for our campsite at the Buffalo Gap Campgound inside of the Little Missouri National Grassland. The National Grasslands are administered by the United States Forest Service which means using our Lifetime Seniors Pass we get 50% off the camping fees, making it a more affordable $10 a night.

There are no hookups here (water or electric) on the campsites, but we don't need either of those. What we do need are hot showers and that they do have, even though that will cost us extra, it's not included in the camping fee.

NOTE: Showers ended up being FREE because the coin-op mechanisms were broken.

The site we reserved, #11, is huge, has great sun exposure for the solar panels, a clear view of the northern sky for our Starlink dish and a trail up the side of the tallest peak around which should give us a great view of the surrounding area.

What I thought was a trail was actually just a drainage ditch coming down the hill.

SUNDAY - Not to rub it in or anything, but we awoke to temperatures in the low 50°Fs and reached a high of 72°F late this afternoon.

Alright maybe I am rubbing it in just a little! When most of the country is experiencing record heat this weekend, we're hanging out in the only little region (ND,SD,MN,WI) with below normal temperatures.

Around 2:00PM it finally warmed up enough to make it comfortable to go take showers here in the bathhouse. Before we did that however we drove over to the Trailhead Parking Lot for the Buffalo Gap Viewpoint. It's the back side of the hill you saw in our third campsite photo above.