Defeated by the Minnesota State Bird

After leaving the North Dakota Badlands at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, we embarked on the section of our road trip that we have been long dreading… a monotonous drive through the prairie lands of the central US.  We drove through all of North Dakota, going from rolling hills on the West side to absolute flatness as we approached Fargo, ND.

Our destination was a free campsite in State Forest lands just about an hour into Minnesota from Fargo. We’d been driving for almost 8 hours, the last 3 being in constant rain, so we were ready for a stop! We did not expect much from this site, based on the Freecampsites description, but it seemed like it would be a safe spot near a lake to settle in for the night, before driving North to our next destination: Voyageurs National Park, MN.

Our site was a pull off along a very wooded gravel road.  We passed quite a few small lakes, and there was a small lilly-pad covered pond/lake within walking distance of the site.  Unfortunately, there was tons of trash all over the campsite, including a Keurig coffee machine someone had decided to scrap .   We decided it would was fine, since we were only planning to stay a quick night, anyway.  Overall, neither Leah or I had good vibes from the site (a feeling we’ve learned to trust since our step stool was stolen in Moab), but we let it pass since we wouldn’t be leaving the trailer unattended.

After arriving, Leah bravely set up the trailer while I prepped for mosquitoes by spraying myself with copious amounts of Deet.  We’d heard the mosquitoes were bad in July in Minnesota, so I didn’t want to take any chances!  Overall, they didn’t seem too bad.  They mostly left us in peace while Leah made dinner and I fed the dogs, amid a light rain drizzle.

Everything was going fine until we decided to take the dogs for a short walk.  Dusty refuses to go to the bathroom unless he is more than 100 yards away from camp, so it’s kind of a mandatory activity.  We’d walked a few hundred yards when the light drizzle turned into full-on rain.  We were walking back to the car when the rain turned into a torrential downpour.

Entirely soaked to the bone, we quickly loaded the dogs into the canopy.   Our focus was to retreat into the tent as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, all mosquitoes within a square mile seemed to have been alerted that we were here, and they were ALL making refuge from the downpour in and around our trailer.  They especially liked the brim of my hat, where they could stay dry AND feast on my head.

Frantic to escape, we now had to make a plan.  We couldn’t just load into the tent, because then our soaking clothes would flood the mattress and blankets, making for a miserable night.  But we also couldn’t strip down or stage near the tent with the flaps open, or else we’d have an equally miserable night from mosquitoes.

Before going further, I should emphasize HOW MUCH RAIN is coming down.  Imagine standing underneath a waterfall, and then apply a bit of wind just to make sure all sides of your body get equally wet.

So, while I stood under the growing waterfall, Leah gathered some dry clothes in a bundle, stripped down as much as possible, and climbed into the tent.  We were pretty motivated at this point, so I’m guessing it took her about 10 seconds to complete this task.  Afterwards, I handed necessary items, such as my laptop (for movie watching!) and a bottle of wine to Leah, and then I raced into the tent.

We didn’t make it completely unscathed, but we managed to only get a few mosquito bites, and kept the inside of the tent mostly dry.  Ahh… it felt so good to be in the refuge of a dry tent!  We watched a movie, drank some wine, and enjoyed the rest of the evening, thinking all was well.

Then we heard a strange noise coming from the dogs in the truck canopy.  “Andy, you closed the canopy, right?” Leah asked.  To which I replied, “Of course I did… I think.” Nope.  I was wrong.  I’d left the truck tailgate and canopy wide open, and had to to brave the elements again to close up the truck, all the while hoping that the dogs had actually stayed in the truck for over an hour unattended.

Lucky enough, the dogs did actually stay in the truck!  The only real consequences were that the truck now housed about 20 mosquitoes, and I received new bites from at least a few of them.  Since it was still pouring rain, there was no chance any Deet stayed on my skin or clothes, making us ripe for mosquitoes.  Fortunately for the dogs, their flea medicine seems to also kill mosquitoes.

We finished our wine after I returned to the tent, only to hear Leah say even worse news… “Andy, I have to go to the bathroom”.  Now, there’s a lot of amazing things we’ve set up in our expedition trailer.  Unfortunately, a bathroom is not one of them.  Under normal circumstances, going to the bathroom in the woods isn’t the most fun, but it’s tolerable.  When it’s pouring rain, and you have to expose very tender parts of your body, unDeeted, to mosquitoes, it’s outright torture.  I’ll save you the details, but needless to say, by the time Leah returned, we were both bug-eaten, tired, and thoroughly defeated.

Our conclusion: we can deal with mosquitoes, and we can deal with rain, but we need to do a lot more prep work to prep for both simultaneously!   And while the Minnesota state bird is actually the common loon, we agree with the colloquial designation of it really being the dreaded mosquito.