This day started out and continued relatively unsatisfactory, but ended up very nicely, thank goodness.
We headed east once again, looking for things to do along the way. Extremely unsuccessfully, I must say. The Valley City National Fish Hatchery promised various things for visitors to do, so we detoured in its direction.
Nothing in the least to see or do. Sigh. But we got to drive through the entire small town of Valley City, and found a nice place to fill up the gas tank and empty our bladders.
We did drive by many huge fields of sunflowers, and I do mean many and huge. Lovely.
Lunch at a Hardee's near Fargo, and then into Minnesota! A new state for us, if you don't count the airport.
We had no more luck here than in North Dakota. We were in lake country -- it is the Land of 1000 Lakes andi think there were several hundred in this immediate area.
The town of Pelican Rapids sounded interesting, so we abandoned the interstate and got on the local roads. Well, it turns out that due to major road construction you couldn't actually get there. We took the detour, or tried to, as a wrong turn due to a badly placed signs saw us bumping along on dirt roads for quite a while. We never did find the town.
We did, however, see many lakes, as advertisied. Big ones. in-between ones, small ones.
Aha! A state park! Always fun, right? The Maplewood State Park, right on a lake naturally, and with a reasonably good connection to our end destination. We actually found it, drove in, and went to the visitors center, where we found a big sign, "Scenic drive closed, campground open". No scenic drive, no fun for us. Anotmer bummer, and we were started to think was just a down day.
On to our final destination of the day, Detroit Lakes. Still too early to check in, so we made a stop at Dairy Queen. Ice cream always makes one feel better, right?
Our hotel was the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes -- Lakefront. It is located on the very edge of the city and really, it couldn't be more lakefront! The lobby itself was nicely impressive, and I was happy to hear that as a "Club member" or whatever they call it, we would be given free breakfast at the restaurant.
The room was quite nice, and boy, talk about waterfront! We dumped out things in the room, and headed immediately downstairs and out. Absolutely heavenly. I think we simply sat there for an hour or so, enjoying the water, the air, the view, and the general peacefulness
Upstairs to the room for a nap, and then out on the balcony.
We ate at the attached restaurant. It is going for a homestyle menu, but the food was, to me, actually quite mediocre. The view was nice, though.
We went back to the balcony for a while before turning in.
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