North Dakota to the Rockies!

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We left Chicago yesterday; thankfully getting out despite all the flooding. Woke up this morning to sunny skies and flat land! I had looked at the Geocaching website to see if there was anything to be found along our route at any of the longer stops that the train makes. When it makes "service" stops, it stops for about 1/2 hour so a quick grab of a cache is possible if it's close enough. Sure enough, someone had placed one right across the street from the Amtrak station in Minot, ND. The train pulled in, the doors opened and we were off like a shot, GPS unit in hand. Quickly found the geocache, signed the log and hopped back on the train. For those of you not familiar with geocaching, us geocachers like to aquire "states". So, now we will have North Dakota filled in on our USA country map.

The scenery along the route varied a little from flat to rolling rangeland. It certainly looks like it would be very cold and windy here in the wintertime! No thanks!

Along the way in Montana, we went by a wind farm. Pretty neat.

Further along we passed a monument that had been put up to memorialize Meriwether Lewis's search for a pass through the Rockies.

Later in the day we approached the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, the train was running a little over an hour late so we didn't get to see too much before the sun went down.

Tomorrow we arrive in Seattle, Washington! The weather is supposed to be sunny and warm for the next couple of days. We were expecting clouds and rain (it IS Seattle!) and this will be a welcome surprise.

***These pictures are clickable to see a larger version.

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