Just one post Friday. We are getting up early to drive to the Road to the Sun Road in Glacier. Here’s a video of what we hope to see (the weather ti supposed to be this good).

Me standing on the walkway at Giant Springs State Park. Note the trees in the background bending to the wind. The wind plagued us all day.

On Thursday, we drove from Minot, North Dakota, to Great Falls, Montana.

The drive started off nicely, with a flat, smooth, four-land highway. North Dakota really knows how to build a highway, or at least they know how to build Highway 2. The road was great all the way to Willston, North Dakota, which also is the border between North Dakota and Montana. Along the way, we enjoyed wind blown grass against countless deep blue ponds and lakes. So Idyllic.

Naively, I thought all of Highway 2 would like that. As usual, just when you are cruising down the highway of life, life throws you a curve … or in this case takes away two of your lanes and turns the remaining two lanes into whoop-d-doos. Adding to that, Mother Nature cranked up the wind until our average MPG dropped from 24mpg to 18mpg.

This made for a long drive between Williston and Great Falls. Still, we made it safely to Great Falls.

Our reason for spending the night in Great Falls was to see if Giant Springs Heritage State Park had made any updates to its smelter exhibit. The exhibit is a walking tour through the remains of the Montana Smelter, the first industry that came to Great Falls. It was a state-of-the-art silver-lead smelter designed, built, and controlled by Anton Eilers; which is the reason he is considered the city’s father of industry.

PHOTO CREDIT: Montana State Archives. The smelter, built in 1887, fills most of this photo. To the right is the manager’s residence and in the foreground you can see the spring for which Giant Spring is named.

Yes, the tour is still there, along with the remains of one of the blast furnaces.

After our quick tour, we walked down to see the park’s core attraction: the Roe River, the shortest river in the world. The water bubbles out of a spring, then flows 200 feet, before tumbling into the Missouri River.

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Not much to report from Wednesday’s drive.

Yesterday we drove from Fergus Falls, Minnesota, to Minot, North Dakota. We started the drive by briefly meeting with Minnesota Chris so we could see his unrestored 1959 CJ-3B in person. His floors are in amazing shape.

From there, we drove to Morehead, Minnesota, which is right on the border and across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota. The Dairy Queen in Morehead invented the Dilly Bar (which I’d never had … I can now cross that off my list) and also has the world’s largest Dilly Bar, proudly displayed outside DQ.

World’s largest dilly bar is over my shoulder. I’m enjoying my first-ever Dilly bar.

After a little ice cream, we went to go see a 76-foot Viking dragon ship, which is housed in the Hjemkomst Interpretive Center in Moorhead. When we arrived at the Center, we learned it would cots $10/each to see the ship (and the museum, but we had no time for the museum). While we debated whether to see the ship, we went into the gift shop and quickly found a couple items to purchase.

As we were checking out (and still deciding about whether to enter the Center), a Center worker (a woman probably in her 60s) announced to a Center manager (a woman in her late 40s?) that she was quitting that day with no notice. Instead of the manager taking the employee aside, the manager began chewing out the now-former employee right there (I can see why the woman might have wanted to quit).

As you can imagine, things got a little awkward, so we high-tailed it out of there. Here’s a pic from the web of the boat we didn’t get a chance to see.

PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/33651074250/

We left Morehead, crossed over the Red River, and drove to Fargo’s visitor center, where we donned some hats and re-enacted a scene from the movie Fargo.

To get you photo taken by the Visitor Center staff, just ask them. They’ll had you the hats and take the photo.

After Fargo, we drove north to Grand Forks, then headed west to Minot (pronounced ‘My Not’ … thanks Chris!). The drive was long and quite flat to Minot, but the road (highway 2) was in great shape. It was also a pretty drive, with plenty of small ponds and lakes along the way. There was also almost no traffic; that was great!

The biggest surprise of the day happened in Minot. There, I discovered that Minot’s Marketplace grocery store has the largest gluten-free section, by far, I’ve ever seen; how is this in Minot … it’s crazy! That’s a pretty big deal to me, as feeding Ann can be a challenge on the road.

Today we drove from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Along the way, there were several cool stopping places, so we took advantage of them.

The first, the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum, was in Waterloo, Iowa, (and yes, ABBA’s Waterloo song hits me every time I read a Waterloo sign). We arrived just after the museum opened, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The museum is free and is full of restored tractors, interactive displays, history, and nicely arranged exhibits. It’s worth a stop if you are in the area.

John Deere also offers free tours of the nearby Engine Works and Drive Train Operations (see the bottom of this page for more info). Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for that.

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I tried to tell her that it wasn’t a ‘pole’, but that didn’t stop her ….

Yesterday we slowed down a little so that we could check into our hotel early and get Ann some rest. To kill some time, we did a little sightseeing.

First, we stopped in Peoria. The city took us by surprise. Peoria sits on a river bank overlooking the Illinois River. Knowing nothing about the city, I had assumed it would be a small city with an industry feel. So, we were surprised to see a fairly modern looking city with a park along the river that lined much of downtown. Our reason for stopping there was to take a photo with a huge American Gothic statute, one that has spent the last decade traveling around to different museums.

That stop got us looking around the city a little bit. There’s a really cool looking Caterpillar Visitors center downtown (see this site for some pics), but it didn’t open until 10am. We couldn’t wait that long, so we took off, but we’d like to visit again to check out that, the “The Art of the Brick” display, and some of the other spots.

PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.rbauction.com.mx/blog/make-tracks-for-the-caterpillar-visitors-center-this-summer- … Caterpillar’s visitors center

Here’s Ann at a nearby monument in downtown Peoria.

Downtown Peoria. That’s Lincoln on the building looking at a War Memorial.

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We’ve stopped in Champaign for the night. Just as we entered the city, a storm arrived. By the time we found the statute of movie critic Roger Ebert, which sits outside the Virginia theater in Champaign, Illinois (now showing John Wayne in Red River), sheets of rain could be seen and gnarly clouds were everywhere. We saw lightening and heard the thunder that followed. Thankfully, there was no rain falling on us. All three of us thought it made for a great storm, worthy of three thumbs up!!