Hazen, ND

It's time for another update from Hazen Bay. The weather continues to be hot and dry. However it is only in the 90's instead of the 100's as it was. We have had some rain this morning it it is raining as i write this. The camp ground continues to be rather busy on the weekends but is pretty dead during the week.
a flax field in the distance I think it is a lake until I get closer and realise that it isn't a lake. I will make The North Dakota landscape this summer has been like a giant patch work quilt that continually changes colors. When we arrived in late May there were the green pastures with brown fields of bare dirt and green fields of growing wheat & barley. That soon changed to a patchwork of varying greens. When the canola fields came into bloom some of the patches in the quilt changed to yellow and some of the pastures started to take on a tan tint as the heads of grass began to mature. In a week or so the barley fields turned to a gleaming white tan color and the winter wheat fields turned to a golden brown while the spring wheat fields began to change from and deep green to lighter green as they began to turn to their eventual golden brown color. Now the sun flower fields are starting to take on the deep yellow colors as the seed heads form and the grass on hills has turned to the tan green color of mature grasses. I forgot the occasional blueish color of the flax fields at the same time the canola fields had their yellow colors. Every time I Seeanother post in a week or two.

Hazen, ND

It has been a while since I have posted a blog. Things have been pretty routine here in No. Dakota. The weather has turned hot and dry. Mon. & Tues it was 106 degree's. It cooled into the lower 90's yesterday so the heat is more bearable now.
Last Wed we journeyed by car to Imperial, Ne to take part in the bi-annual Wheeler family reunion on Fri. & Sat. It is 640 miles so it is a 12 hour drive each way. We stayed in a motel while there. I know now why we like to travel in the motor home as the mattress was really hard. We got to see a lot of old friends and view some of the damage from the 12 to 14 inch rains in the area last month. There were around 50 family members at the reunion. Our Sat afternoon and evening were spent in the canyon on the old Wheeler farm that my mother and here siblings grew up on. We have been having our reunions there since 1976. On occasion we have held them at places away from Wauneta but people seem to always want to go back to the canyon and the farm.
On the return trip winter wheat harvest was in full swing from Pierre, SD and north to the state line. Here around Hazen we saw one field of spring barley being harvested but most of the other spring crops are a week or two away from harvest.
Things here in the park are pretty routine. The mowing has pretty much come to a halt due to the lack of rain and high temps.

WOW Almost 2 weeks since the last post. The weather has changed from rainy, cool & windy to hot and dry and not as much wind. Not much to report as we have been pretty much here taking care of the camp ground. We didn't take Tues. & Wed. off this week as Sheryl had company from Chicago and wanted to spend time with them. The camp ground continues to be nearly full every weekend. That is a change from last year when some weekends were nearly empty. Yesterday I had my first chance to go out fishing and we limited out by 10 AM. From all reports the fishing hasn't been as good as it was last year.
The picture is Hazen Bay Campground. I climbed the hill to the east of us this morning to take the picture. I am sure glad they turned out as I didn't want to climb it again. The coming down was more treacherous than the climb but not as exhausting.

Sunsets at Hazen Bay on Lake Sakakawea

Another week has passed in No. Dakota and we have enjoyed a beautiful sunset every evening. We will no longer be seeing them as we moved our motor home to a different site yesterday. It is one that has some protection from the wind but we can no longer set at the table and enjoy the view thru the bay to the west. They said we had sixty mph winds in the night last night but we didn't even feel them. If we had been in our old spot we would have been rocking & rolling. The new site puts us closer to the office and amongst our old friends from last year.

Wed. of last week we went to Bismarck and toured the No. Dakota Heritage center located on the grounds of the state capitol. It takes you from the dinosaur age through present time. We enjoyed it very much. When we tell people what we have done we always hear you see so much and we have lived hear for years and haven't seen any of those things. It seems that is true all over this great land of ours, the travelers see things and the natives don't ever take time to see them.

Last weekend we opened up the 22 new sites to the seasonal campers that have them rented. That will make for a busier campground on the weekends than we are used to. We do enjoy the seasonal campers as you make close friendships with alot of them. They seem to keep us feed and supplied with fish too.

This past week has been busy with friends from Buttonwood Bay and taking care of the park. Mon. was the usual with me mowing and Nancy taking the weeks receipts to the city office and doing laundry while in town.She does some laundry in the motorhome but prefers taking it to town where she can do larger loads in less time. Also the water here tends to yellow thing after a while. Tue and Wed. were our days off we didn't do anything exciting. Tues afternoon we had over an inch of rain. Thur. afternoon our friends Carl & Jackie Zimmerman and Clair & Mary Smith arrived to spend 3 days with us. Fri. we arranged for the tours of the Freedom mine, Antelope Valley Power Plant and the Dakota Gasification plant. They were totally amazed and impressed with those operations. We certainly enjoyed the time spent with them even if the ladies did beat the men at pegs and jokers. They left this morning to continue on their journey to Alaska.
This is the second weekend that we have been completely full. Last night about midnight the sheriff called to tell us that a thunder storm with strong winds, hail & heavy rain was moving our way. We ended up with 1.75 inches of rain but missed the winds and hail. Since we are the camp hosts we get those calls and then it up to us to decide if we need to notify the campers. One time last year we all went to the comfort station but so far this year it hasn't been necessary.

Views From our Motor Home

Wow what a difference a day makes. Friday dawned sunny and warm and it looked like we would not have a lot of campers for this weekend. By the time the sun went down we only had four spots left and two of those were taken on Sat. It seems people were just waiting for a nice weekend and they sure got it this weekend as it has been in the 80's both days and no rain and very little wind. It appears that the fishing has also started to pick up as there have been a lot of people cleaning fish at the fish cleaning station.
The two pictures are taken from out motor home. As you can see we have very nice views and scenery from where we are parked.

It is a nasty day in North Dakota 45 degrees, rain and winds out of the north at 30-40 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. Our motor home is parked so that we get to enjoy the full benefit of the wind as there are no trees for wind protection to the north or west, we do however get to enjoy the beautiful setting of the sun over the lake and the wildlife that we view from our window. It seems like our first two weeks here have been mostly rainy and cool. I think we have received around 6 inches of rain since our arrival here. We have had a few nice warm days. Tomorrow is supposed to be 75 degrees with 80s this weekend. Larry and I have managed to get the park all mowed and have it looking real nice. It will all need to be mowed again next week. I hope the weather is going to be warmer from here on out.
Tues. Nancy & I went to Minot for the day. We saw the movie Knocked Up it was really a funny movie that we both enjoyed other than the frequent use of the f word.