Our next destination from the area of Theodore Roosevelt NP was to drive to Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.  It was a long drive, so we planned to break it up into two days. 

Along our drive, we saw a sign for the “Geographical Center of North America,” in Rugby, ND.  We stopped and took pictures at the marker point.  I thought that was a really neat place to be and amazing to think that this point is all the way in North Dakota!

At the same turnoff for the geographical center point was a Pioneer Museum.  It was lunch time too, and we needed a break from driving, so we pulled in there.  Charlie made lunch while the kids and I went in to start looking around. 

It wasn’t at all what I thought it would be.  I thought the museum would be focused on settling these prairie lands of ND and the difficulties that these pioneers faced.  Instead, it was collections of some of the historic family stories and their donated historic items, some from settlement days and others that were more recent.  It was a large museum with many different buildings representing various businesses, schools, homes, churches, etc.

We saw an old train station, a blacksmith’s shop, a dress shop, a creamery, a telephone office, a couple of homes, a couple of schools, a church, etc.  One of my favorite displays was actually of an old telephone switchboard.  I explained to the kids what that was as they definitely weren’t familiar with the concept.

While it may not have been what I thought it would be, the museum was full of old, intriguing items, and we had a great time. Charlie did finish making lunch and made it into the museum. I thought I would switch with him and do the cleanup, but I went in to finish my tour, and he went in at the same time. Before I knew it, he was done with the tour, and I wasn’t anywhere near finishing!

We continued on our journey and stayed just over the Minnesota line in the Red River State Recreation area along the Red River of the North in E Grand Forks, MN, and managed to get laundry done that night too.

On Friday, we finished our journey to Voyageurs; only we encountered a few problems.  When we arrived at the first visitor center (Rainy Lake), we could find absolutely no parking for the RV.  There was a great deal of parking places for longer vehicles, but showing up at a national park that is based on the lakes of the area on a Friday afternoon, just wasn’t a good idea.  The parking was full of trucks with boat trailers and none of them were leaving.  We tried to find a campsite in the area, but everything was booked.  We looked online near the other visitor centers for the park, but still there were no campgrounds with any availability.  I finally found one state park with one available site that was an hour and a half away.  We decided to just forego doing much of anything at Voyageurs and head to the state park. 

On our way to Scenic State Park, I really did enjoy the scenery.  This area is considered the Northwoods of Minnesota.  It’s very rural and full of trees and lakes as well as some large scale farming.  I was just enjoying the scenery instead of taking pictures, so I don’t have much to share, unfortunately. 

Rebecca