Minnesota morphs into North Dakota

It’s funny how habits are so ingrained.

Even though I’m sitting on the right side of the car I still put my handbag to the right. So I have to step over it to get into my seat.

That would be in the left hand drive Buick.

The Buick that yells at us if we change lanes without indicating, or get too close to a car.

The Buick that takes over the steering if she thinks we are too close to the wrong lane or the edge of the road.

But she does have little warning lights on the side mirrors that also tell us if someone is on the side, very handy in the blind spot.

Anyway.

The last two days have been pretty busy.

We went to Walmart. Totally disappointing once again. Where are the Walmart people?

Hell I’m more Walmart than this crowd.

My phone didn’t even make a sneaky exit from my bag.

Goddammit

But just to make me feel better about Walmart, they still have plastic bags – can’t find one in NZ!

We went to Otter Tail Lake and met another of MoD’s old classmates.

Seriously those old classmates are everywhere.

He did enlighten us on those mysterious pontoons though.

Says they fit heaps of people, quite the party boat, are very stable and have telescopic legs that shoot out into the lake bed. Very handy when you want to put the local band in the middle of the lake. Like they do at Otter Tail Lake in summer. All the other pontoons gather round for big parties. I’m sure no one ever goes over the side.

Then we headed out to Phelps Mill.

Phelps Mill is an old flour mill on the Otter Tail River. The mill was built in 1888 and began grinding wheat into flour in 1889. Powered by one water turbine, the power it generated was equivalent to about thirteen horsepower. The mill was an important part of the community and the local economy but closed in 1939 when railroads provided more efficient shipping methods of transport thus making rural mills obsolete.

MoD and his bro used to jump off the (working) bridge. In between cars. They thought they were so cool and it was such a long way. Now he is all grown up he says it’s just a little jump.

Minnesota- the state of a thousand lakes.

We went to Battle Lake and visited some more wonderful folks.

Then headed to Stella’s for a light lunch. Which incidentally is definitely not a thing here.

To absorb all the bread I had my first wine in America.

Ok. On this trip.

A New Zealand Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. Surprisingly there were quite a few Aus and NZ wines on the wine list.

All the little towns here have water towers with the town name on them . Very handy so I know where we are.

We met a big Indian dude in Battle Lake. Thus named as it was the site of many battles between Indian tribes.

Then we headed to Pelican Rapids and saw a big Pelican.

As you do.

That was yesterday.

It’s been a busy two days so I’m consolidating and being efficient.

I haven’t been in admin for 45 years without learning a trick or two on how to be efficient you know.

This a.m. we woke up and headed down to the breakfast bar only to be confronted by more interesting food.

I got busted by our hostess Shirley taking photos….but being Australian I can get away with anything.

All I have to say is ‘I’m Australian’. Nothing else. They know we are an uncouth lot.

We went off to a new place to get the customary soy latte, finding a market that has restored my faith that you can actually get damn healthy food.

If you choose.

Mind you, once again I found some interesting stuff.

Being duly caffeinated, I then had the strength to shove everything that I had strewn across the room over the last few days into my July suitcase, and off we headed. Goodbye DL. We have enjoyed you.

Our destination was Fargo and time with MoDs stepmother and stepsister. Which we did after crossing over from Minnesota to North Dakota.

But no reunion until we had stopped at the famous Sheels Fargo.

A huge sporting goods store, it includes a Ferris wheel and a game arcade – naturally. Sheels started in Fargo in 1902 as a hardware store. German immigrant Frederick Sheels used $300 from his first harvest of potatoes as a down payment to open up. There are now 31 stores in 14 states.

It’s huge.

Then we went to Aldi. Of course. I do miss Aldi. I wanted to see if they use the same store format as Aus. They do.

After that we were hungry, after all we hadn’t eaten for at least two hours. So we ticked off one of MoDs wanna do’s and went to Vinyl Taco. Quite a cool little bar/restaurant.