{"id":1964,"date":"2017-07-24T09:25:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T16:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2017-07-24T09:25:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T16:25:51","slug":"mississippi-headwaters-joes-lodge-campground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/2017\/07\/24\/mississippi-headwaters-joes-lodge-campground\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Headwaters & Joe’s Lodge Campground."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We headed north on US 59 from Detroit Lakes Friday morning to take that all the way up to US 2 heading toward Bemidji and Joe’s \u00a0Lodge about 10 miles east of town. \u00a0 We had a difficult time getting anything near Bemidji and ultimately found Joe’s which had 2 RV sites. \u00a0 It was a quaint little place a couple miles down a fairly well-graded dirt road. \u00a0 But as soon as we turned down their driveway, the tree branches dropped a couple of feet lower and were bouncing off the antennas. \u00a0 Then a much thicker branch scrapped the satellite and A\/C units.. \u00a0 Kind of sucked.<\/p>\n

Got down to the bottom of a small grade and found the office, checked in, and the lady lead me to the site. \u00a0 First thing I noticed was the electric pedestal was next to the road and the water and sewer were about 40′ away at the extreme back of the site. \u00a0 I knew this was going to be a challenge. \u00a0 I guess they had a lazy electrician as putting that pedestal near the road will be a problem for most RV’rs. \u00a0 As it was, I had to move the front of the rig all the way up to the road with my mirror sticking out into the road so the power cord could reach the pedestal. \u00a0And I have a pretty long cord at 30′. \u00a0 30′ of that 50 amp cord probably weighs a couple hundred pounds. \u00a0Thankfully I have a power reel to pull it back in.<\/p>\n

Anyway, \u00a0we got the RV set up, fixed some lunch and headed out for Lake Itasca and the Mississippi Headwaters about an hour away.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We arrived, paid our way into the state park and drove to the other side of the park to walk down the trail to the water. \u00a0 It was a very pretty, tree-shady trail out there, maybe a quarter of a mile or a little less, but we were there in a few minutes, and the dogs were allowed on the trails (Hooray!)\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s hard to imagine the headwaters, which is a small watering hole with a rock bridge so you can cross, is the beginning of the Mighty Missippi!!<\/p>\n

We spent maybe 20 minutes out there to get a picture and watch the kids playing in the water when I noticed very dark clouds moving in, so we hightailed it back to the car. \u00a0 Good thing as we had left our rain gear in the RV as it was beautiful when we left home and also when we arrived at the state park gate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>No sooner than we got the pups into the car, it started to rain. \u00a0Just a bit at first, then the winds changed an order of magnitude and we were in a big blow as we headed out of the trail parking lot. \u00a0 It poured and the wind howled like we hadn’t seen prior. \u00a0 It became as dark as night even though it was about 4 hours till sundown. \u00a0 Most of the drive back toward Bemidji was at 30 MPH on the 60 MPH road. \u00a0 That almost felt too fast for the conditions.<\/p>\n

As we got into Bemidji, the rain subsided and the sun almost came back out. \u00a0We had to drive over to Paul Bunyun and Babe, the Blue Ox, for a quick pic. \u00a0 Kathy wouldn’t even get out of the warm and dry car. \u00a0 We made a quick trip to the market for fruit and veggies and headed east to the coach.<\/p>\n

As we turned onto the dirt road, we saw two trees in the road. \u00a0We were able to go around one of them, but the other blocked the whole road. \u00a0(sign of things to come) \u00a0I tried to move it, but it wasn’t going to budge, so I drove over it at the edge almost in the ditch, to Kathy’s dismay.<\/p>\n

The wind had really ripped thru the campground, snapping large trees off at 10 feet off the ground, ripped the shade structure off the RV across from us. \u00a0Lots of damage. \u00a0 The power and water were out. \u00a0And as I noticed, so was my refrigerator. \u00a0 Not good as it should have gone into battery\/propane mode.<\/p>\n

Other than the fridge being dead, we saw nothing else with the coach. \u00a0 I spent many hours that night and the next morning troubleshooting it till I found a bad sensor the next morning and jumped around it till we can get somewhere to get a replacement. \u00a0 \u00a0Hey, \u00a0now I know where are the fridge relays, breakers and fuses reside – three completely different places in the RV!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh the Joys of Traveling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We headed north on US 59 from Detroit Lakes Friday morning to take that all the way up to US 2 heading toward Bemidji and Joe’s \u00a0Lodge about 10 miles east of town. \u00a0 We had a difficult time getting anything near Bemidji and ultimately found Joe’s which had 2 RV sites. \u00a0 It was … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mississippi Headwaters & Joe’s Lodge Campground.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-venturing-out-and-about"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}