Graham Island State Park - Devil's Lake, ND

The border at the International Peace Garden

We hunkered down at the Day's Inn in Brandon, MB last night, waiting for the storm of the century. In reality, we only got a little rain, but we saw, on the news, that other areas were hit fairly hard, so we don't regret being cautious.  Staying in Brandon, cut out 90 minutes of travel from our planned campsite from the night before.  The shorter distance combined with not having to do our normal morning chores, meant that we had oodles of extra time.  So we did an extended visit to the International Peace Garden.  This garden was established in 1932 to be a place between the US and Canada that would represent the long lasting peace between the two countries.  We unpacked the bikes and went for a nice bike ride.

Flowering Suculents

 As we got to the end, we stopped at the "Interpretive Center" which is tourist jargon for gift shop.  Actually, it turns out that there is an absolutely amazing botanical garden, designed using the border as an axis, and a succulent garden donated by Don Vitko a tire salesman from Minot, ND who has been collected them since he was eight years old.  This is an absolute must see for anyone traveling from the middle of North Dakota into Southwestern Manitoba.

From there, we headed to Devil's lake which is an endorheic lake (thank-you Prof. Google)...there is no outflow.  The lake has been rising dramatically due to farming which has increased the amount of runoff and due to more rainfall in recent years, so the lake keeps rising and they have to keep moving the road.  Our site is interesting, we have our own private yard, I mean a riding mower sized yard.