Day 3 and 4: More Travel

Day 3: Wisconsin to North Dakota

  Had an early start to the day.  Bill said the hotel had the best pancake mix of any hotel he has stayed at.  I tried to get a Geocache at a few rest stops, but didn't want to go down a path in the woods through a locked fence or stomp through thigh-high plants.

  For lunch we decided on the Space Aliens Bar and Grill.  The sign out front assured us that Earthlings were welcome.  I got a loaded baked potato, it was a lot like the ones that I get at McAlister's.  They said it was taco themed, but I'm pretty sure it had nacho toppings.

  Down the street from lunch was the Fargo chipper.  The one pictured is the stunt double.  I was also able to get a Geocache, but I am a bit sad I didn't buy one of the Geocaching pins they had for sale.

  We kept seeing a lot of lighting in the distance and got lucky when we decided to get gas.  They told Heather that they were going to be shutting off the pumps if the storm got closer.

  Bill thought it was funny when I got excited to see a tumbleweed tumble across the Enchanted Highway.  I don't know what I would do with it, but I wanted to take one or two home with us.

  We got to the hotel and the lady at the desk was very frazzled.  We told her that we had reservations and had an easy check in.  Turns out we were wrong.  Something was going on where people could book online and it not register and the hotel was overbooked.  She said we could go to the one next door and that the room was on them.  She was transferring our reservation and asked what room we wanted.  We just went with a one bed.

  We dragged our bags over to the Candlewood Suites and said that we were the people the lady had called about.  She was a bit confused because they weren't going to be putting the room on a credit card, like they normally would, they would be charging it to the other hotel.  We hung out in the lobby for a while, but she couldn't figure it out.  She called her manager to come over and handed us the keys.  She said she would call the room if there were any problems.  We didn't get a call, so it seems they got it.

  The storm was blowing so hard that when it started to rain it as more like tiny water balloons were getting thrown around than water falling out of the sky.  There was a light show going on most of the night where you could see a lot of lightning behind the cloud cover and only a few bolts come down.

Day 4: North Dakota to Montana

  Our first hotel had breakfast, our second didn't, so we went to Taco John's for breakfast.  I liked it and would eat there again, but I'll have to remember that the medium sized items look more like a large to me.

  Heather wanted to get some stamps for her National Parks passport.  We stopped by the Painted Canyon first.  It was really pretty, and it has a bunch of trails to hike, though we didn't stick around long enough to use any of them.

  We passed some interesting signs throughout the day.  One of them said we were in extreme fire danger for the area.  Another was the 70mph day speed, and 65mph night speed.

  At one point we saw a cow who got on the wrong side of the fence and was running along it, trying to figure out how to get back in.  It was not having a good day and I hope it got back to it's friends.  Further down I saw a black cow licking a white cow's face.  I also saw another cow use a power-line pole to scratch it's shoulder, then sniff the pole.

  Summit Corral for lunch since they had a pretty decent rating and were the only place to go for quite a few miles.  I got the BLT with gems as a side.  Gems turned out to be tater tots.

  At one of the rest stops we learned that there is a Medora musical and that they perform it every night.  The lady who told us about it was really excited to go and see it.

  Another amusing sign we saw.  At the gas station there was a casino called Lucky Lil's.  I was distracted first by the lights of the casino and then by the fact that I found some beverages by Calypso.  I thought they had gone out of business.

  There was a long stretch of construction and they had a temporary light at both sides.  They also had a truck with "Pilot car, follow me" on the back.  I thought it as pretty funny.

  We also saw two groups of 3 riding their bicycles down the road.  It looked like they had gear on the back too.  I tried to look up if there was an event going on, but I couldn't find anything.  I'm not sure if that was because of the spotty reception or because they were just doing it because they could.

  The group broke up for dinner.  Bill and I went to The Black Bear Diner.  I wasn't very hungry so I got the avocado toast and huckleberry lemonade.  I usually don't finish my beverages during dinner, but I finished that one.  The food was pretty good, but the decor was the best part.  There were bears everywhere in the form of wooden sculptures, paintings, photographs, and branding on the ketchup.  I would go there often if I lived near by.

  The room wasn't very exciting, but the bed feels comfortable and it was in the hotel it was supposed to be in.  Can't complain too much, other than the blackout curtains didn't close and there was a small strip mall on the other side of the street from our window.