Hennesseys_Hangout: Canadian Rockies Day 3

Canadian Rockies Day 3

This morning was an early morning. Woke up around 5. Good time for a quick shower. As crowded as this campground is, shower time is even more difficult to get than internet time.

Anyway, as usual started the day with the traditional tea and coffee. A quick pack job and back on the bikes for another day of riding. Hey! I don't believe I didn't mention this! Jim and I got new tents this year! We both got the same type, the Coleman "Instant Up" tent. for space reasons, Jim got the 3 man tent, for age reasons, I got the 4 man tent. It still sets up in about a minute or so. Since I ride alone, although space is still at a premium, I have a little more leeway. The 4 man allows me to nearly stand up inside. Also I don't have to "crawl" into it. I can walk in. So much easier! It's hard on an old fat guy trying to use a small tent. Some things can't be denied. Age conquers all.

We went into Jordan to find a diner for breakfast and found the Egg and Pie Diner. Not too bad. Doug wasn't too thrilled with his chili omelet though. Hey, sometimes things aren't quite what you think they will be.

After breakfast it was back in the saddle for another day of high adventure. Before we left we spoke to a local guy who, after finding out where we were headed, gave a pretty good description of the country we would be traveling. It went something like this: From here you'll be heading west through corn and bean country, when you pass that you'll hit the bean and corn country, then corn again, then bean, and more corn, more beans.........corn.......beans....

From the Egg and Pie, we took 169 to 212 to 9 to 13 in Breckenridge then crossed into North Dakota north on 18, west on 27 on our way to Fort Ransom for the night.

Between days 2 and 3, we crossed the Mississippi 3 times.....more to come, I'm sure.

And that's pretty much the ride we had today. Really, it was a pretty ride, if you like beans and corn.

Anyway, we were headed for Fort Ransom State park to camp for the night. ....and that brings us to.......Fort Ransom State park. We arrived at Ft. Ransom around 4:30 or 5. We checked in at the park office. There we ran into the very nice park ranger lady who knew almost everything, (Jim says she's a dandy) who helped us out. While we were registering I asked if the park was busy, to which she replied "Oh We are very busy, nearly full" She initially wanted to put us in a primitive area where there was no electric and no showers. We would have to ride out of the area, and cross the river to take a shower. The camp grounds with services were 8 dollars more. I said that for 8 bucks it would be worth it to get a camping spot closer to the showers. She found a nice group spot but had to call and confirm that it was available. She called Fred or Barney or whoever and asked if #26 was available. Now, we couldn't see Fred or Barney or whoever, but I think we know what he may have been thinking. Anyway, as luck would have it #26 was open. We reserved #26. Now the nice ranger lady insisted that we should ride up to the stables and watch the farmer doing demonstrations with horse drawn farm implements.

So we followed her directions to the stables, and wound up going about a half mile on a cracked stone road. Just the thing you want to do with a Harley. We got up to the stables and saw that the horses were in the corral, the farmer was packing up and getting ready to load the horses. So we just turned around and headed back down. Now, on the way up we passed an empty portion of the camp ground, I figured it was closed for maintenance or something.

We continued on to an overlook at the top of the camp ground. More on that later.

After the overlook we continued to our camp site. We passed the camp ground hosts motor home, a pop up trailer, and another small motor home. We arrived at #26. This was really a beautiful camp site. Very large, lots of shade. Nice. But, the camp ground was nearly empty. We thought, maybe folks will start to come in later. We bought some beer and waited, thinking we would offer them a beer when they showed up. Nobody ever showed. Damn near had the whole camp ground to ourselves. Did have all the beer to ourselves.

Yep, Fred or Barney or whoever probably answered his phone and heard her ask if #26 was available, and thought uh, yeah, #1 through #36 are available along with #37 through #58. Oh well.

Now while talking to this nice ranger lady, she suggested that we go back to the only bar in town because they would be serving up a good dinner, and had cold beer.....I know.....I know.... anyway... We headed in to Ft. Ransom for dinner. The waitress greeted us....after a few minutes....brought beer, then menus. When she dropped off the menus she made sure to point out they were out of chicken strips and something else and if we ordered food, she was the cook and would have to be away from the bar. She made real good cheese burgers.

The camp ground was really comfortable, and we slept very well.