Fundraiser With Quilts & Sweetcorn (ND)

The Williston, North Dakota, city event webpage is one of the best laid out information given that I have ever seen. Among the other things we found, and did, (see last week’s post) I saw Sweetcorn & Quilt Festival. Of course “quilt” caught my eye! Turns out this is a youth camp that started in 1946 – 80 years ago. We knew the event was 10:30-4:00 but wasn’t sure what to expect. It was about 20 minutes from the campground. We got there and a young man brought up a golf cart and offered a ride (it was a short distance) but we took it. 🙂 Stopped at a welcome booth and got a program of events for the day. He took us on up to the chapel where there was a service going on. The service was led by about 15 camp counselors. They lead some fun camp songs and we could follow along on the paper handed us. The message was a counselor who gave facts and information about the camp.

After that, lunch was ready and we followed the crowd to the dining room. They served for free, but took donations, pulled pork sandwiches, sweetcorn, macaroni salad (with cheese, a midwest thing), chips, and drink. The pulled pork was delicious and Kevin and our table mates said it was some of the best corn they have ever tasted. Two counselors came to eat at our table. One was from Mexico and the other from South Africa. Neither had ever had corn on the cob! Kevin told them to go get some butter and salt and slather the corn with them. 🙂 When we were done eating, we went outside where everyone got one free ice cream from a food truck. We both had M&M cookie ice cream sandwiches. Delicious! We sat outside and ate them. The day was so pleasantly sunny and warm but not too much. In fact, I had my sweater on for a good chunk of the day.

We walked down to a large area of outside basketball courts. Along the fence on three sides were hung 52 quilts. They pinned one corner up so you could see the back. There were a few that were very advanced. We looked over the silent auction table as well. The auction of quilts lasted a few hours and was a joy to watch. The auctioneer was professional. It turned out his wife and family were sitting right in front of us and Kevin would have little conversations with them.

We didn’t plan on bidding on any of the quilts. However, when we walked around looking at them, I thought about the 63 National Parks quilt that was very well made. We had talked after walking past how I should make one so that I can sew in the dates when we visit. Well, sitting there, I thought we should buy this one. Save me time plus donation to the camp. Kevin and I talked about it and we came up with the max bid of $200-$250. 27 of the quilts sold for under $300. Wouldn’t ya know, the auctioneer knew his stuff and…started the bid, not at $100 like with the others, but at $500! HA It sold for $1100. That is awesome. The best and biggest quilt sold for $4100. The total I added on the quilt auction came to $21,450. Wonderful!

At the end of the auction, I saw some of the counselors bring over bags of corn on the cob. Hum, they must be selling those. He auctioned off a bag of the pork. The auctioneer then put the 3 remaining bags of pork together and we bid. Got all three bags of pulled pork. Yeah! At home (footnote 1) I weighed them and each bag was over 6 pounds! Kevin talked with me and then offered a bag to the auctioneer’s wife. He knew the guy had volunteered his time and we just wanted to say thank you. Plus, we were happy to support the camp in a small way. What a blast and great day! Back home I portioned out the 12 pounds of cooked pork and guess what…the freezer is so full I had to put 2 bags in the fridge. Yep, good thing we gave that other bag away. 🤣

Sourdough Starter: Today I took out of the fridge the Master Recipe I had made a week ago. The dough lasts 2 weeks in the fridge. Recipe is from Everything Sourdough by Charlene Yoder. I made-up a recipe and made hand held pies, like Runzas, but much thinner. I added American cheese and some of the pulled pork we got at the camp yesterday. They look beautiful and were delicious. I made them so we can have them on Travel Days.

After work, Kevin found a 1.5 miles walking trail around Spring Lake. It turns out it is just down the road from the campground. Nice asphalt trail around a tiny lake. Perfect weather and we enjoyed it.

Sourdough Starter: I made Melt-In-Your-Mouth Sourdough rolls by Charlene Yoder for the first time yesterday and today. They were melt-in-your-mouth delicious! I put 5 in a bag and we dropped it off at the office. They were thrilled! The rolls were still warm. 🙂 

While Kevin was packing up things outside of HOWE (footnote 2) for Travel Day tomorrow, the campground guy rode his golf cart over and asked if we were leaving today. No, tomorrow, Kevin said. Guy said he had it we were leaving today and this was way past checkout time. Can we stay tonight? Oh yes, that is fine. Thankfully they had openings. After cleaning up, Kevin went to the office to pay. It turns out it was the campground guy’s mistake! Whew. He had us written down as leaving tomorrow but they didn’t charge us for that last night. He said we didn’t need to pay since it was his fault but Kevin, rightly so, insisted and payed for the night.

My kitchen was closed today, due to Travel Day prep, haha so Kevin “cooked.” We went back to Don Pedro’s Family Mexican Restaurant. Rated: Just As Delicious As First Time. Come Again!

*The blog posts are taken from my daily travel journal. Would you believe – it takes me a 1/2 day every week to whittle down a week’s worth of journal so it won’t be too long for the post each week. HAHA Thank you for reading!

1. “Home” is where we park it. Home is our 2022 Alliance Avenue, 36 ft, 5th wheel.

2. “HOWE” is what we named our Alliance Avenue 36-ft 5th wheel. See: Home On WhEels and we pronounce it Howie. We live and travel in it full-time around the country. HOWE has stayed at least one night in all 48 continuous U.S. states.