Ray, ND and The Links of North Dakota

We had a drive of about 175 miles from Medora to Ray and it was mostly very nice. We traveled north on highway 85 from Belfield to Watford, and then on to Williston. The traffic was pretty slow going from Watford to Williston due to construction and then some slow construction vehicles that refused to move aside so the parade could pass them. We found Williston to be a thriving city with construction everywhere. They were featured on NBC Nightly news as one city where you could get a job instantly but it was much harder to find a bed to sleep on. The oil boom in that area has everyone jumping and the trucks are rolling everywhere you looked. A little north of Williston we caught US Highway 2 and headed east toward Ray. Somehow I got the local Ray community golf course into my GPS and we were on a gravel road for two miles getting to that course only to discover it was the wrong place. To top things off the parking lot was pretty small and I thought I would have to unhook the car to get turned around. I searched my GPS for other golf courses and found the Links of North Dakota, 18 miles away. The parking lot had a circle of grass surrounded by the entrance/exit and I was able to cut across the grass and get headed back out of the parking lot without unhooking. So now we were off to the Links of North Dakota a short 18 miles away. Since I had no idea where it was or how to get there we relied on the GPS to get us there safely. Well 18 miles of gravel roads later we arrived at the course! The course was truly out in the middle of no where, about 12 miles south of highway 2 and 8 miles east of Ray. We were originally scheduled to stay in there RV park, 15 spaces, but they are now all taken up by oil workers. The golf pro said we could stay behind the pro-shop where we would have power only. Well the power turned out to be a regular 110 wall outlet and the breaker kept going off when the AC started up. Fortunately we had the roof air we added a few months back and that didn't bother the breaker and it cooled the coach off just fine. Tippy and I took a golf cart and drove around the front nine that afternoon and I was very impressed with the look of the course and the beautiful views of Lake Sakakawea which is part of the Missouri River system. On Monday, the 29th of August, our friends Wes and Janie Plummer came to see us from Minot. Wes and I played golf and Tippy and Janie went sight seeing, on the gravel roads. Wes and I had a great day playing golf and reminiscing about our days on the APL Committee. I found the course to be a little soft for a "links" course as they are typically hard and fast but I did enjoy the layout and the beauty of the scenery. Wes had a surgery planned for the 31st so they had to leave early in the afternoon. We stayed the night and departed the next day for the Larimore Dam Recreation Area. I had tried to get a spot at Devils Lake, ND but the park was full which was why we had to go all of the way to Larimore, ND. It turned out to be a very long day driving, probably over 300 miles, since we drove from the course down to New Town, ND to avoid 15 miles of gravel roads again. This took us about 25 miles out of our way but the drive was much smoother and time wise probably wasn't much different. I must apologize that I don't have any pictures from The Links of North Dakota but trust me the course was beautiful even if getting there wasn't so much.