Thursday, May 24: After spending the morning getting settled into our cozy cabin, we decided to take a trip around Devil's Lake. We again were amazed at the carnage from the rising lake--groves of trees bare and bleached white, and many more farms surrounded by water! Our first stop was historic Fort Totten, built in 1860 to control the Sioux. (Custer and his ill-fated army left from here for Little Big Horn.) It was later, ironically, a Native American School and then an industrial school. It is very well-preserved and our guide was very interesting. Feeling the need for a walk we headed for Sully's Hill, a nature preserve, with a high look-out where we could see buffalo grazing in the far hills. There was a cute, little prairiedog town and a beautiful interpretative center run by US Fish and Wildlife. I loved the praire garden there, but little was in bloom and there was poison ivy along the walk. We saw lots of cool birds--cormorants, redhead ducks, Franklin gulls, yellow-headed blackbirds and a cute little ruddy turnstone! Our old Coleman stove puked on us, but our kind camp host brought over a spare grill so we had hot food after what turned out to be a chilly day.