May 11 – To Minot, North Dakota

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If it’s Friday, it must be North Dakota, at least I think it is Friday. We seem to be changing state every day. As we are not sight seeing yet and just trying to get there, we aren’t spending any time in a location. I will need a day off from driving soon though.

First thing I went back to the clinic to pay the bill. It was $106. The lady said that was about the lowest they ever charge for a visit. She also said it would have probably been more if I had missed their closing and had to go to the ER at the hospital.

Another bright sunny spring day in BIG SKY country. The highway is pretty boring but is in very good shape. Nothing exciting today.

But the wind! We were blown around a bit in the campground last night and today it was a very strong, slightly off center headwind. It was strong enough to put white caps on even the small ponds beside the road. It also killed the gas mileage. The RV struggled to maintain a steady 85 kph and yesterday’s average gas mileage of 29 litres per hundred kilometers turned into 40 today.

There was a lot of water around. In some places the fields seemed to be flooded off to the horizon. It still had a ways to go to get to the highway but we did see some old farms that were under water.

With all this wind, which I figure is pretty constant here, I would have thought there would be a lot of windmills. We finally saw some off in the distance but I would have expected more.

One final picture. This bit of highway was very long and straight and slightly up hill. The way the sky reflected off the pavement it seemed to go on forever. You probably had to be there.

Tonight we are at another Walmart. I just hate paying for a site when we need so little. We still have enough capacity in the tanks for several more days and the panels are keeping the batteries charged. It sure is nice having double the battery capacity at night.

There is also a sports bar on the edge of the parking lot with an open WIFI network, to which we have connected.

I think tomorrow we will try and find a real campground to reset and to get ready for some more drycamping as we head back to Canada.