Wednesday, June 30

Well, I'm sorry already. A few days have passed and I didn't make an entry.



Before I update, I must add an oversight in my last blog about major things seen in Mpls/St. Paul. That is, we saw the magnificent St. Paul's Catholic Cathedral in St. Paul. What an impressive structure. If you are so inclined, google it. That will be better than my explanations could possibly be.



Onward to the past since the above: Internet service has been spotty at best. And my Sprint cell phone doesn't work up here at all. This is Verizon territory, although AT&T works here part of the time. We are now in Billings, MT, a beautiful town so far, and a great RV Resort along the Yellowstone River........with great Tengo internet service.



But back to Saturday. Had a great drive up northwest of Mpls, to Fargo, ND. What beautiful rollings hills in northern Minn. I had never been in that part of Minn. before, even though I grew up in the southern part of the state. ND started out flat....particularly in the eastern half of the state. We started out in Jamestown, with a Buffalo Museum, some great historical buildings which I wouldn't have expected up here. Then onward to Bismarck where we explored more ND antiquity.

Western ND was totally unexpected. I thought the Badlands were only in South Dakota. But they are up here also, and very interesting. The difference is that the SD ones are kind of a "one joke phenomenon". That is, you can see them in overlooks, etc., but don't really get down into them. In ND, you drive around through them on a 36 mile loop. We saw all sorts of different terrain, effects of years of nature's impact on the terrain. Even some wild life. We captured, on film only, a herd of buffalo crossing the road. There must have been 25-30 of them, including some young calves. They are fearless of autos. In fact, mostly they just stood in the middle of the road and looked at you. Like....what is that?

We stayed in a town called Medora, which is right in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. That evening we went to an outdoor amphitheater and saw a country/western style musical. It is actually produced out of Mpls., has actors from all of the country, event three from England. Very talented cast, with an orchestra of six off to the side. The main "workers" of the cast were a chorus of 10 singer/dancers. And they could all do both well. They were involved in almost every number and worked very hard. A gorgeous wild west set, that moved around a lot. Live horses on stage and lighted up out on the hills behind the stage. Very well done. The theater holds 2300 people and this one show runs there for three months. So I guess it is quite well known "around these parts".

We spent a couple of days there, and then drove on down here to Billings yesterday. Hopefully I'll get a good internet connection again before going into Canada on Saturday. So, ciao for now.