No tourist stuff today – just 9+ hours of driving. We were planning on taking two days to get to our friend Tom Crossmon’s, but we figured it would be nicer to spend all day tomorrow (Saturday) with Tom and his family at his newly constructed homestead.
The day started where we left off – in the Elkhorn campground – where Tom braved the showerhead-less shower and reported on the experience negatively. There was no temperature or flow control – just a button you pushed which spewed very hot water for a while until you pushed it again. After hearing Tom’s comments, Scott passed – clean enough from the previous day. Would probably have been nice with a showerhead.
The previous evening the air around the camper was pungent with manure from the nearby Ag Center. In the morning the air was full of wildfire smoke of indeterminant origin.
We drove through these smokey conditions for most of the 400+ mile trip to Tom’s place in Saginaw, MN. We weren’t sure Tom would be able to drive that long, but he toughed it out.
Crossing into the US is never as easy or pleasant as crossing into Canada, and today was no different. Tom thought the crossing opened at 8AM per Google Maps, but it turns out the schedule is 9-5. At any rate, we arrived at 9:11AM and when we got there the place looked deserted. Even the red/green lights to stop or proceed were turned off. But after a minute or two, while we pondered our next move, a CPB officer appeared through a window and waved us into the enclosed inspection area.
He seemed very nice and chatty – Scott thinks he was Canadian – and we discussed the smoke before getting into the long list of things we couldn’t bring into Canada. Turns out Clementines were the only things he confiscated, which Tom thought was a small price to pay. After peeking in the Jeep, he asked if the bikes were electric bikes and we answered affirmatively. He seemed mildly impressed. The whole experience was only about 10 minutes but seemed longer.
The rest of the day involved cannonballing to Tom Crossmon’s, stopping only to buy Diesel three times, and eat lunch of leftovers.
We did manage to stumble across one Roadside America “attraction” in Rugby North Dakota. Here they claim to be at the Geographic Center of North America. We didn’t have time to stop at the rock tower monument for a selfie, but Scott got a picture of this sign next to the site as we drove by.
After chatting with Tom for a while upon arriving, we ate dinner, blogged, and went to bed.