Sakakaweka Park Campground - A FUNNY Story!

The following day, we drove 5 more hours farther west and decided to stop at Sakakaweka Park Campground in Stanton, North Dakota.  I chose this located because the Knife River Indian Village National Historic Site is in Stanton.  According to the website, when we got to Stanton, the visitor center had just closed so we had to stay the night so at 8 a.m. the following morning I could see the villages, stamp my book and we'd be on our way.

There is a really funny story behind this campground.  When we Googled this it showed me that the site was on the left side of the main drag.  When Scott Googled the site, it showed it in a park on the main drag.  Which was correct?  We didn't want to drag the RV all over this little tiny town...so when we came into town, we turned at the railroad track where my Google map showed where it was.  Once we pulled into the area, there were a few mobile homes and a WHOLE lot of weeds and cactus!  We scratched our heads since the reviews gave this place a 4.0 rating!  So, we walked around trying to decide what to do.  A really shady, but nice guy, drove past us and didn't think anything of us being there, so we picked a site among the weeds and cactus and just got situated.  Clearly this was an abandoned site.  Ironically though, the electricity still worked!  So weird.

Well, we stayed the night.  Had Knife River Indian Villages been open, we just would have continued on our journey to something better.  Here's some photos of the crazy campground!  Clearly, it must have been abandoned but WHY was the electricity still on?!?!?!  With all the cactus, we had to be very careful with the dogs.  They managed to get a few small needles in their fur and we got them out and just made them potty on the doggie pads in the rig.  

The next morning before going to Knife River Indian Villages, we decided just for fun to drive to the other place.  When we got down the street we saw that it went down a steep hill.  Should we gamble and hope to turn around?  We did and lo and behold, there was a nice city park named - Sakakaweka Park!  The campground was really there and apparently had been moved from where we were to this location.  Someone clearly goofed at Google!!  There were only a few back in spots and it was quite remote hidden down in a valley where no one would have known we were there.  So, it was a toss up either way!  At least we got a free night camping in cactus!

At any rate, we gave this park a 1 rating...had we been in the correct city park, maybe a 2.  I'm just glad to be on our way!