Minnesota to North Dakota

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Quietness. Upon the dawn, the chirping of birds. How pleasant it is here on Sauk Lake. The geese and ducks wander nearby as we prepare to start our day. A long, hot shower on a cool spring morning, a bowl of oatmeal with raisins, toast with crunchy peanut butter, it doesn‘t get any better than this. The nights have been in the forties, but our van has stayed in the fifties at night, very comfortable sleeping temperature.

Continuing on Route 94 we are traveling along prairies. Passing a pond on the side of the road, we spot what looks like white pelicans. Ken, are there pelicans this far north?

Before long we left Minnesota and entered the state of North Dakota for the first time for both of us. This is a big deal for me because I now only have 2 States that I have never been to, Louisiana and Mississippi. I am hoping to get to all of them someday. We stopped in Fargo and found everything we needed. First stop, a Best Western where we found free WI-FI and were able to send out two blogs. Thank you Best Western - you guys rock! Next Wal-Mart for groceries and odds and end, and then a liquor store for beer for Dave. They do not sell beer and wine in grocery stores in ND. Last on our list was lunch, salads at Wendy’s. We’ve been told to stock up on everything before entering Canada because it is so expensive to buy anything there.

As we were driving toward Jamestown, ND on 94 we hit a dust storm. It started to rain and loads of brown dust swirled in the air. The temperature dropped 8 degrees from 65 down to 57 degrees. This lasted only minutes and then the rain and dust were gone and the temperature rose back up. Weird.

In Jamestown we departed Interstate 94 and will not see an interstate for quite a while. Route 52 became our home and we will now be relying on secondary roads and small towns for our existence for the next 6 weeks. As we drove, we started our second audio book, “The Golden Dream”, about the California Gold Rush. Instead of deer, the roadside here had deceased raccoons.

AAA found us another great campsite at Rough Riders Campground in Minot (pronounced My-Knot). Clean, well maintained, with friendly people and free internet and WI-FI. I got to send another blog and check emails. Woo-Hoo! Chicken on the grill, stuffing and veggies made for a delicious supper. Our movie selection for the night was “Cat Woman”.

We are getting longer and longer days. The sun set tonight at 9:15 and it was light until after 10 pm. It is great that we are getting into the long days gradually, so we have a chance to get accustomed to it.

I just want Cheryl to know that we are walking every morning and Dave has been a good boy and we stop every 2 hours and walk and stretch our legs. For those of you who don’t know, Dave got a blood clot in his leg last year from too much sitting for long periods of time when we did our cross-country trip.

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