Perfect riding weather today. Left Moose Jaw early as the Saskatchewanites in their great wisdom (?) do not opt for daylight savings time, preferring a 5 am sunrise (the sun was peeking through a small crack in the curtain so we were up way too soon). Gotta get out in the fields early, I guess. Of course when we crossed the border we promptly lost an hour as the farmers of North Dakota are obviously much lazier. In case you are not aware, this is a 30 year anniversary trip for Doug as we are following the path he took by motorcycle to ONT in 1980. One of the things that always stood out in his mind was the strip mining operation around Estevan. Not much has changed. Even the reclaimed areas were a mess as far as we are concerned. Lots of “Keep out – Danger signs”.
The young border guard at North Portal, ND was very confused as to why we BC people were crossing his border. Even after explaining our route he was still confused – geography is not his strong suit. He thought we should have crossed at Seattle!
One of our first stops was at Norma, ND. When they found out she was coming through the state they named a town after her! Wouldn’t really call it a town as you can see from the picture, but must have been a grain pick up spot as there were lots of old buildings and grain elevators and then this one old sign on someone’s front lawn.
Wonderful bird life in this part of the world. I don’t think we have every seen so many yellow headed and red winged blackbirds before. You know how as kids we used to lay on our backs and watch the sky, clouds drifting by, birds overhead – well Norma spent a good part of the day, head tipped back watching the birds, clouds, etc and trying not to be lulled to sleep and hit by dropping bird dung! Did manage to see a beautiful hawk being chased by four blackbirds – he had probably been trying to steel from their nests.
Had a very pretty short evening ride out over Devil’s Lake. The road goes through the middle of the lake. Looks like a flooded out area but the trees are all dead so must have happened quite some time ago. Many people out fishing, in boats and on the shore, including numerous men from the nearby Grofton Army station. Ended up at the casino at Spirit Lake for a short time. Oh, by the way, the pictures in the blog can be enlarged by clicking on them.
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