Heading South

This morning, we packed up, checked out and enjoyed one last apple baby pancake before setting off on the next stage of our road trip. It was time to leave Winnipeg behind and head south.

The roads were still pretty empty, even though it was around 9.30am on Monday morning. Perhaps it’s always like this?

We were soon out of the city and driving through the wide open landscape with few landmarks in sight.

Just the occasional grain silos which appeared on the horizon and then came closer into view over the following minutes. It was a beautiful clear day, warming up but still comfortable at this time of the morning.

Just over an hour after leaving - about the same time as it took for me to knit two heel flaps on the socks I have brought with me - the signs began to appear that we were approaching the border.

Now, we’d read horror stories of the queues here; hours long and huge numbers of lorries during the working week, so much so that we’d considered taking an alternative route. However, online traffic monitoring seemed reassuring and given that one place we’d flagged for a visit was immediately on the other side of this particular crossing, we’d decided to take the risk.

When we saw hardly any other vehicles there, we were very glad indeed that we did.

The two cars in front of us showed their papers and were waved through. We pulled up to the barrier, wound the window down and declared three passengers; two UK citizens and one US, handing over our passports. How did we know Mary? For how long? When was the last time we’d been in the USA? The questions were aimed squarely at my Hero and I and as the officer handed Mary her passport back, we were told that we’d need to come into the office to collect ours.

Oooer.

We needn’t have worried really. We simply had to complete the same immigration process in the office as we would have done at an airport - except that normally, the process is a bit simpler due to our Global Entry, which didn’t apply here. Anyway, in ten minutes we were through, waved on our way with leave to come and go as we please until September!

I was so preoccupied with the whole process and filling Mary in with all the gory details of the immigration procedure I completely overlooked the “Welcome to North Dakota” sign :-( Oh well, too late to worry about that now.

Right over the border then, into North Dakota (kerching!! special celebrations for our 50th State!) and time for a break at the Pembina State Museum, where Nicole was on duty and gave us the most heartfelt welcome.

It was a great little museum with a clear story to tell about the people of this area around the Red River. I particularly appreciated the beautiful handcrafted items; the beaded bags, shoes and panels.

I especially liked these Icelandic slippers too, which had been created from a single piece of hide and lined with a hand knitted insole. They looked so wearable!

Bidding Nicole a fond farewell and feeling glad we’d taken the time to stop and have a look around here, we jumped in the car to continue our journey south.

It wasn’t far to Grand Forks and having picked up a brochure in the museum, we’d identified somewhere we might find a bite to eat for lunch in East Grand Forks.

To get there, we needed to cross the bridge…and as a closer look at the photo above will show, we crossed another border in doing so! Welcome to Minnesota.

But come on! It’s Monday lunchtime! What do you mean “CLOSED”? The cafe we’d earmarked as our destination was open Wednesday - Sunday, so we’d wasted our time there. We walked a little further along the main street in the hope of finding an alternative, settling on The Spud Pub down the street. Not exactly the most elegant or refined place but at least it was open and Ashley, the host, was working hard to manage a good number of customers.

A basket of Wisconsin-style cheese curds hit the spot perfectly! Now that’s something we cannot get at home, for sure.

Plus, there was a bonus on crossing back over the bridge: another opportunity to catch a picture of the Welcome to North Dakota sign! Ta Dah!!

An hour and a half later, we were driving into Fargo, passing by the railway yards on the outskirts. I was happy to take a photograph of the trains for my Hero, given that they were standing beneath that spectacular cloud!

We’re here in Fargo for a couple of nights so will share more about the city tomorrow. For now, we’re happy to be in North Dakota!