Sarah Jane Humke

8:00 am The sun is up in the sky over Central Minnesota.  We left this morning even earlier than planned as my parents woke up and subsequently awoke me as well.  Since we were all up at the absolutely ungodly hour of 2:55 we decided that it we had just as well get on the road rather than sitting around.  So, by about 3:30 this morning we were headed due north. 

In the pre-dawn hours we passed a huge windmill farm just South of Mason City.  I could only see the actual windmills on the ones closest to the road but I could see the blinking lights going off into the distance in both directions.   They have put a lot of them up just to the Northwest of Ackley.  I personally think that this is an awesome development for the state and the nation as a whole.   Honestly, I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t want the windmills in their backyards.  They are super cool to just watch and hell, they are a lot better than having a coal-fired plant go up!

Anyway, we are definitely in a more Northern region finally.  A lot of the fields here feel as though they are carved out forest and I am sure that there is a perpetual battle to keep them out of the forest’s greedy clutches.  Autumn has definitely started here already.  The solidago (goldenrod) is in full bloom and the sumac is already bright red in places.  We’ve passed half a dozen Outlet malls and more silos and grain elevators than I could count.  Fargo is 140 miles.

9:00 am  An apology to my husband.  If I have ever done the level of narration on the boring-ass scenery that we are passing in a car trip as my father has been doing, I am so sorry. Please feel free to kill me or, alternatively, listen to your Ipod as I have been doing so far.  Please God, do not let my Ipod die…

10:00 am  Anyone who thinks Iowa is flat obviously hasn’t traveled all that much.

 

 

10:30 Ipod freezes up.  Oh. Shit.

11:00 am  Got my feet tangled in my purse strap as I was getting out of the car at the rest stop and fell flat on my face.  Welcome to North Dakota!

11:45 Finally get Ipod unfrozen.

1:00 pm  Soundtrack for North Dakota:  Tom Petty (duh), Mary Chapin Carpenter  (anything that she’s sung) and the Allison Krause/Union Station album “Lonely Runs Both Ways”.   I didn’t listen to much in Minnesota as I was honestly scarcely awake since while in Iowa I was driving while everyone else was sleeping .

2:00 pm Young, cute and intensely polite Canadian border guard must think that the family is quite the group.  Mom declared her smokes and I declared a bottle of scotch. 

3:00 pm Soundtrack for Manitoba.  Diana Krall, all of her stuff.  I was driving and desperate to listen to something as I was falling asleep from the warm sun and boring drive (see pictures above) and needed something to keep my mother from pursing her lips at.  Bonus, she’s Canadian (Diana Krall, not my mother, she’s Iowan).

5:30 pm  Finally make it to hotel in Brandon, Manitoba Canada.  Thank God.  All I want is a shower or bath (ummmmm, bath) and a scotch on the rocks.  I could care less about eating tonight as I still feel stuffed from the past week of food.  

6:30 pm  Have had bath (ummmmmm, bath) talked to hubby and uploaded boring photos to computer.  While in bath realized that I now look like a 5 year-old as have bruises and scratches all over my knees and hands.  2 on my knees are from today and one is from Chicago O’Hare baggage claim.  Wish I could still pull-off the pigtails look.

Travel Knitting:  A couple of rows of lace (some of the road was kinda bumpy so it wasn’t all that easy), finished one dishcloth and got a significant start on another.