North Dakota to Minnesota

Sue & Jean pose with
Sacagawea in Bismarck -
she accompanied
Lewis & Clark on
their expedition as
guide and interpreter

Old Scandinavian church

Leaving Lemmon we headed into North Dakota.  Stopped in at Bismarck, the state capital, then made our way north to Minot where we visited a Scandinavian Heritage Park. 

This Dala horse is a bit bigger than the ones we saw in Lindsborg, KS

It was July 4 so we made our way to the state fairgrounds and found an empty car park to watch the fireworks.  The car park wasn’t empty for long and we were soon surrounded by other vehicles.  The firework display was scheduled to start at 9.30 but the speedway programme at the showgrounds over-ran so the fireworks didn’t start until after 11pm.  Some of the families with small children gave up but we persevered and were rewarded with a pretty impressive display of pyrotechnics.

4th of July Fireworks at Minot

Rugby - not only one of
the best games in the world,
it is also the Geographical
Centre of North America

After Minot we continued to head north, this time making it to the Canadian border.  Had a couple of stops along the way, the first being at Rugby which is the Geographical Centre of North America. 

Hmm, that face rings a bell

While at Rugby we visited a local funeral home to see the owners bell tower, and yep, we got to ring the bells.  Second stop was at Dunseith where we spotted this huge turtle made out of wheel rims.  Had to stop for a couple of photos.

One very large turtle - Dunseith is in the Turtle Mountain area

We didn’t cross into Canada at the border but turned left on the 49^th parallel into the International Peace Gardens. 

View from one end of the gardens to the other - USA on the left, Canada on the right

The gardens were developed in the 1930’s as a monument to the peace between Canada and the United States.  They have a campground on site so we elected to spend the night in this beautiful place and spent the afternoon wandering around.

Pick up half in US, half in Canada - Sue decided to be in USA for this pic

All peaceful between USA & Canada, all peaceful between the Mills sisters

Full of peaceful intent we then made our way south east crossing the state line into Minnesota at Fargo.  We spotted another old Scandinavian

AFOSC

church, this one at Moorhead.  This one is a replica built in 1998.  I think we’re done with old Scandinavian churches for a while now.

Next we headed for Itasca State Park and the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River.  This whole area in Minnesota is dotted with

Itasca Lake where the mighty
Mississippi springs from

lakes and greenery.  Simply beautiful.  We’re staying a few nights at Pequot Lakes so looking forward to getting out amongst the trees – not so much the mosquitos though, how they get into a closed RV is beyond me.  Guess you can’t have it all.

Mills sisters paddling in the headwaters of the Mighty Mississippi