Discovering distilled sunlight

An unexpected encounter at Lake Metigoshe, North Dakota

We spent a few more days enjoying the buffalo, wild horses, and prairie dogs of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, taking drives and doing short hikes into each of the separate “units.” 

Each day, the park delivered with some new surprise: a wild mustang band crossing the road at sunset. Bison calves nursing, their pale fuzz contrasting with stolid mothers. Another evening of the hilarious whistle pig reality show. Outside the park in the nearby town of Medora, an entertaining historical musical at an open-air theater. 

Once we’d truly seen the place, we girded our loins for a long haul, heading toward our next major destination, Voyageurs National Park on the border of Minnesota and Canada. We rolled up our mats, shook the buffalo dung from our shoes, and drove toward Lake Metigoshe State Park in North Dakota. Our plan was to try to get into Voyageurs after a night or two at Lake Metigoshe.

We were concerned about that, though, as we’d been unable to get any reservations or a boat pass to the main park, which is deep in wetland with little camping area.

Halfway to Lake Metigoshe, we hit a major storm. Rain poured down, drowning us in sheets of water as we drove along the busy interstate. The conditions became dangerous as big rigs roared by, burying us in waves every few minutes. Miles crept by at the speed of years.

Mike was gray with fatigue nine hours later when we pulled into a the Lake Metigoshe state park. The place was empty and rendered invisible by rain, dark, and heavy tree cover. Any features but dripping trees and deep mud were hard to see. Somehow, Mike was able to park the rig in the wind-whipped sludge of the campsite we’d been assigned. 

He set up the rig with a flashlight after changing into head-to-toe rain gear (I’d forgotten to bring any on the trip.) Once the camper was detached and stabilized, Koa and I exited the SUV and ran through the elements toward the Wanderlust Retro. 

We were immediately soaked and filthy by the time we reached it. Inside the trailer, all three of us dried off with the same beach towel. We were engulfed in the perfume of wet dog.

“I’m not sure whether I dislike rain, or smoke and fire more when camping,” Mike said.

“I’ll take the rain.” The pummeling of water on the rig’s roof and the whole situation with the towel reminded me of camping and van living with my family on Kauai growing up, right down to the smell of wet bodies in a confined space.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to drive in it,” Mike reminded me. “I think we’re hitting a change of seasons. We took too long getting this far across the country.” He got his weather app going. “Looks like we’ll have a break for a couple of days, then more storms are on their way. They’ll hit when we’re in Voyageurs, if we can even get a campsite there.”

We had begun our trip at the beginning of June. We’d had to abandon our mapped out, ambitious route due to heat waves and fires. We’d ended up hugging the western coast for most of the summer. Now, at the beginning of September, we were only two-thirds of the way to our ultimate destination of Acadia National Park in Maine, after which we’d planned to drive down south and eventually, back to California through the southern coastal states. Now our timeline was running into seasonal weather changes.

“You know what they say about the best-laid plans,” I said.

“What?”

“I can’t remember so I’ll paraphrase: they’re not worth making.” 

We barely had energy to heat up something canned to eat before falling into bed. 

***

We slept in so late the next morning that poor Koa had an accident on the rug of the trailer, which didn’t add anything savory to the interior. But when I pushed up the blinds, I was glad to see that the intense storm was petering out. The campsite, miserable, blustery and muddy in the dark, turned out to be overlooking sparkling Lake Metigoshe, invisible when we arrived. Patches of sunlight poured over lovely deciduous forest around us. The place was so different from the previous day’s campsite that it seemed as if we’d been teleported from another planet.

Lake Metigoshe, North Dakota

I opened the door of the trailer and sucked in some big, deep lungfuls of fresh air. Breathing the humid, clean breeze with green all around was quite a contrast to the Badlands-esque desert buttes of eastern Montana and the Dakotas.