The Itinerary
All thirteen stops with dates, drive times, hookups, and what the trailer needs at each one.
Open the itinerary Where we areRoute Map
The whole run drawn on one map, with progress that advances by date on its own.
Open the mapThe shape of the run
Thirty nights, front-loaded with short overnights and back-loaded with two long stays — six nights at the Minot rally and a full week at Metigoshe before the border.
| Stop | Dates | Nights | Leg miles | Drive | Campground |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Archbold | Aug 13–16 | 3 | 201 | 3h 05m | Sauder Village Campground |
| 2. Grayling | Aug 16–17 | 1 | 232 | 3h 34m | Camp Grayling Trailer Park |
| 3. Au Train | Aug 17–18 | 1 | 229 | 3h 31m | Au Train Lake Campground |
| 4. Duluth | Aug 18–19 | 1 | 289 | 4h 27m | Wild State Cider |
| 5. Clear Lake | Aug 19–21 | 2 | 146 | 2h 15m | Minnesota Airstream Park |
| 6. Jamestown | Aug 21–22 | 1 | 282 | 4h 21m | Jamestown Campground |
| 7. Minot • | Aug 22–28 | 6 | 174 | 2h 41m | North Dakota State Fairgrounds |
| 8. TR North | Aug 28–30 | 2 | 145 | 2h 14m | Juniper Campground |
| 9. TR South | Aug 30 – Sep 1 | 2 | 79 | 1h 13m | Cottonwood Campground |
| 10. Pick City | Sep 1–3 | 2 | 160 | 2h 27m | Lake Sakakawea State Park |
| 11. Bottineau • | Sep 3–10 | 7 | 164 | 2h 32m | Lake Metigoshe State Park |
| 12. Cavalier | Sep 10–12 | 2 | 138 | 2h 07m | Icelandic State Park |
| 13. Winnipeg ★ | Sep 12–15 | 3 | 109 | 1h 40m | Town & Country Campground |
What this route actually asks of the trailer
Four nights without shore power
Juniper and Cottonwood are back to back in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and neither has hookups. Juniper at least has drinking water and a fill-and-dump station open through October 1; Cottonwood has neither — seasonal water and nothing else, no dump on site. Arrive at Juniper empty, leave it full, and treat the two nights at Cottonwood as the real test of 200 Ah and the Onan.
Generator hours in both units are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. with an effective muffler. That is the whole window — a mid-day run inside it covers the day easily, and the Truma on LP means the furnace and hot water never touch the batteries.
The border, at Pembina–Emerson
I-29 north out of Cavalier, into Canada at Pembina–Emerson — open 24/7, four auto lanes, the busiest crossing in North Dakota and one of only three in the state that never closes. On the far side it becomes Highway 75 and runs straight north to the Winnipeg Perimeter.
What has to be settled before the booth: tanks dumped, fresh produce and meat eaten or gone, no firewood, alcohol inside the personal exemption (1.5 L wine or 1.14 L spirits or 8.5 L beer per adult), passports and the dog's rabies certificate reachable from the driver's seat. All food, plant and animal products must be declared — failing to declare runs to a $1,300 penalty.
Arriving a day early
The caravan rendezvous is Sunday the 13th at site 165. The plan puts the trailer on the pad Saturday the 12th — level, hooked up and settled before the first handshake, with a full day of slack if the border takes three hours instead of one.
One local note that carries over from the caravan research: Town & Country is 56001 Murdock Road and Lyncrest Airport (CJL5) is 57119 Murdock Road, 2.9 km up the same road with two grass runways and club circuit traffic overhead. Sub-250 g exempts the Mini 4K from registration and the distance rules; it does not exempt it from the hazard rule. Not at the rendezvous.
Why it lives here and not there
The public caravan site covers the caravan — the 31 days from the Winnipeg rendezvous to Churchill and back, written for twenty families. This one covers the month before it, which is nobody's business but ours: a shakedown run, a rally, two national park units and a border crossing.
It is a separate site on a separate repository. Nothing on the public site links here, nothing here is indexed by search engines, and no roster, phone number or personal detail belonging to anyone else appears on it. Share the link with whoever should have it.