Some views of The Quarry Oaks G.C.

A few more looks at The Quarry Oaks G.C.

A view of the Platte River and the I-80 bridge

Our Greenwood, NE site

Pipestone to Greenwood, Nebraska

We decided to hit the Interstate today instead of the red roads mostly to get better resting places. It is sometimes hard to find places to park for lunch and rest stops on the red roads and when there is a rest area often it won't accommodate our coach. So we headed west from Pipestone to catch I-29 south in South Dakota. We took that route south and planned to hit the I-680 north of Omaha, NE but wouldn't you know the road was closed ten miles north of our turn-off and we had to detour to I-680 east and take that to I-80 and then head back west through Omaha to Greenwood. The route was a little longer but we didn't get wet so that was a good thing. I-29 is closed in several locations due to the flooding from the Missouri River. This is apparently all of the water from the winter snow pack that has melted and flooded places in Canada and North Dakota. Ot seems they didn't start to release water from the dams on the river soon enough so now they have to release so much it is flooding low areas. Boy I wish they would send some of that water to Texas, we could sure use it! We have a nice site here in Greenwood and I was able to play golf today at the Quarry Oaks Golf Club in Ashland, NE, about 10 minutes from here. The course had been in the top 100 public courses in the country but has fallen out of that group the last few years. It is currently ranked 5th in Nebraska but I found it to be pretty rough around the edges and had to rate it quite low in several categories. The design is great and the scenery quite spectacular in places and even includes views of the Platte River that runs by several holes on the back nine. Tippy is off to Mass this afternoon as we will be traveling tomorrow to St. Joseph, Mo tomorrow and then off to Columbia, MO on Monday. I will play a course, The Club at Old Hawthorne, while in Columbia and we will catch up on some shopping since this is the biggest town we will have visited in several days. More from Columbia, be safe and enjoy the pics.

Back and front of the Calumet Inn

Pipestone site

Detroit Lakes to Pipestone, MN

We had a very nice drive, over 260 miles, from Detroit Lakes to Pipestone, MN. The drive was especially nice if you like corn, peas, and other cash crops as that was all we saw for the entire trip! The Rv park in Pipestone was quite nice and we had a great site on the end with a big lawn area. We went to lunch at the Calumet Inn in downtown Pipestone and had a great luncheon. The inn was named to the National Register of historic sites in 1975 but unfortunately was closed in 1978 due to faulty wiring and other unsafe conditions. The hotel was originally built in the 1880's for a cost of $25K but was burned to the ground in two hours in 1886. The hotel was rebuilt in 1888 for a cost of $30K by two local bankers. The hotel underwent a complete restoration in 1979 at a cost of $3 million and re-opened in 1981 and remained open ever since. It was quite lovely inside and as I said earlier we had a good meal. You can see a couple of pictures above.

Our site at the Forest Hills Golf & Resort

A few shots from the Forest Hills G.C.

Detroit Lakes, MN

We have spent five wonderful days here in Detroit Lakes, MN. I played golf twice, 85 & 86, and we have eaten out a few times as well. We will begin heading south and east tomorrow with stops in Pipestone, MN and Greenwood, NE before heading into Missouri to see John, Christine, and Florence. I will post a picture of our site here at the Forest Hills RV Resort along with a few shots from the golf course. The weather has been in the 60's the past few days although it has gotten into the 70's today and is very comfortable. It has finally gotten below a 100 at home and hopefully the temps will continue to go down as we get closer to home. Alex is due for a bath this afternoon so she is probably hiding somewhere, especially if she heard us talking about it. More on Thursday from Pipestone, MN. Be safe.

Larimore, North Dakota

We arrived, finally, around 4:30 in the afternoon at the Larimore Dam Recreation Area in Larimore, ND. We found the park to be wonderful and the RV spaces about triple the normal size. There were many seasonal sites and some folks had built decks by their rigs and some even had above ground swimming pools. The manager of the park told me that about three years ago the previous management had let the site renters pretty much do what they wanted and it got away from them. They now have some restrictions but the old sites have been grand fathered in so they don't have to tear down any construction. Most of the sites are occupied by the same folks every year and the site cost was $1K for the entire season - April to October. There is a nice 9 hole golf course right next to the park and I was able to play nine one afternoon and had a great time. This is really a spot I would enjoy returning too for maybe a month or so. We stayed here for three nights and truly enjoyed it very much. But, again, no pictures! We must have been to busy doing nothing. I will promise to have pictures from our next stop in Detroit Lakes, MN. Be safe.

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.

A few shots from The Bully Pulpit Golf Course

Medora, ND

Okay, so with a stop over in Miles City we arrived in Medora, ND on Thursday, August 25th. The golf course there had been devastated by the flooding of the Little Missouri River. They had only nine holes available to play - six from the front nine and three from the back. The holes that were open were quite good and very scenic. A lot of the back nine was along the river but the bad lands holes, higher elevation, were open and quite challenging as you will see from the pictures above. We stayed at the Red Tail Campground and had a nice spot but I forgot to get a picture, sorry. You've got to love a town with three ice cream stores! We were able to visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park while in Medora and the scenery was spectacular as I hope you can see from the pictures. Alex took the tour with us and we all had a great time watching the buffalo and prairie dogs go about there lives. Alex was very curious about all of the critters and watched them intently! We had one day of rain which allowed us to catch up on our reading a bit and enjoy some refreshing rain. We watched all of the news about the flooding in the north east from the hurricane and sure wished some of that water was in Texas. Our lake is now down over six feet and I am sure there is no water under our boathouse now. We had planned on heading north to Ray, ND to play The Links of North Dakota and then head south to Nebraska to play at Sand Hills G.C. Unfortunately the folks at Sand Hills decided that they didn't want me to do a Golf Digest visit as their new policy was you had to play with a member or be sponsored by a member. Since I don't think I know any members there we had to re-schedule several days of our trip but I will get to that next.

A few shots of the Jawbone Creek Golf course.

A few shots from Stan & Enid's wonderful sunroom. Alex just loved Stan and Alex was curious about Groucho the cat. I think you can see how he got his name.

Yikes, how did we get to Minnesota?

Well, let me see. The last time I was here we were in Eureka, Montana and were headed for Columbia Falls, MT. It was a short, 61 miles, trip but very scenic. We have a nice spot at the Columbia Falls RV park and the town is very cute. We met our friends Carl & Barb Henry at the Back Door for a rib dinner on the 17th, the day we arrived, and had a wonderful dinner and got to catch up a bit with them. We pretty much just took it easy for the next couple of days before we departed for Great Falls, MT which was just a one night stop as we headed to Harlowton, MT to see our friends Stan & Enid Kalberg. They have a wonderful home that Stan has pretty much built himself and lots of work room and storage in a giant garage that holds their motorhome, a couple of other vehicles, and it also has room for several work rooms and tool storage. Harlowton is a small town about 90 miles from Billings and 130 miles from Great Falls where highway 12 meets highway 191. Stan was instrumental in the building of the municipal golf course for the town, Jawbone Creek Golf Club, and we enjoyed a round one day. The course is very fun to play although it was quite windy the day we attacked it, and in pretty good condition considering the staff they have to do the maintenance - one. Stan & Enid were wonderful hosts and we reluctantly left heading for North Dakota after a great three night stay. I will post a few pictures from the golf course and their home. From Harlowton we headed east on highway 12 until it met interstate 94 in Forsyth, MT. From there we continued on to Miles City, MT where we stayed the night before continuing on to Medora, North Dakota. But I am getting ahead of myself so stand by for more info and be safe.