Oh hello again all of our adoring fans, of which there are about 9 (and we’re glad to have each and every one!) It’s Brian again for this week’s update. I’ll be covering South Dakota through to the tail-end of our time in North Dakota, our trip up to Canada, and the trip back down into North Dakota. With a little surprise visit to Minnesota as well! Let’s dive in shall we?

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As Kate mentioned at the end of her last post we were heading into South Dakota. We weren’t intending to stop at the Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial located at the very site of the massacre – we were only intending to drive by on our way to the free campsite we had found. Figuring that it may be worth a visit we decided to stop and doing some reading. We had both been taught about the event in our U.S. History classes in school but time had worn our memories thin and it was a good opportunity to refresh them as there was a very large sign recounting the details of the day posted by the road in a small parking lot. If, like us, time has fogged up your memory, take a moment to read up. After we read the sign we heard people calling to us, beckoning us closer to a set of booths that were set up right by the sign. Native Americans who themselves were members of the tribes affected were situated at these stands, offering additional history but also – wares. Hand crafted jewelry and dream-catchers, knives, medicine pouches, things like this. We listened to them talk about the massacre and also about how everything we saw before us was hand-crafted. They also indicated that behind us across the road and up the hill was the cemetery and mass grave site from the massacre. After thanking them for the information and excusing ourselves as we were not going to be purchasing anything, we walked over and visited the cemetery.

I want to mention a few things here, first what struck me most heavily about the cemetery was how many additional graves around the mass grave were marked with indications that the people who were buried there had served in the U.S. military. The very same military that had fired rotary guns into a mass of people – men, women, and children, indiscriminately – the people of these tribes would later go on to serve, fight in wars, and die for. The other notion that struck me didn’t come until later that day when I felt a sense of confusion. I had been thinking about the booths and the vendors selling their hand-crafted items when it felt insincere to me that these clearly impoverished people, who of course were just doing what they could to make a little extra money, were in a way exploiting the tragedy of a horrible moment in history to sell knick-knacks. I don’t disparage them at all for wanting to bring in extra money and help improve their own way of life, but the location felt inappropriate. I’m still not sure how I feel about all of it.

On the road about an hour or so later, after driving through some pretty intense rain, and gazing out at the iconic Badlands I had a bit of a shock. I felt something crawling along my arm which was resting on my lap as I drove. Looking down, expecting a fly or mosquito, I let out a startled scream as there was a caterpillar inching its way along my leg. It wasn’t frightening, just startling. I pulled over so Kate could snag a picture and rescue the little feller, freeing it into the wilderness. We suspect it crawled out of the sweet corn stash, as every single ear of corn in the stash save for one had a caterpillar just inside the hairs eating away at the delicious innards.

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That evening we arrived at Sage Creek campground and the very first thing we noticed was just how many prairie dogs there were! There were at least 20 in the main field that was at the center of the circular ring of camping spots. The grass field adjacent to the road had another 25-30 as well, and those were just the ones we could see. There were mounds everywhere. One could only imagine the interconnecting tunnels that ran just feet beneath your feet.

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We settled in to make dinner; a mixture of cubed red potatoes, thinly sliced sweet Vidalia onions, and fresh off the cob sweet corn (thanks to our stash from Nebraska), all mixed together – add a can of tomato bisque and you’ve got yourself a tasty dinner! The mix of potato, onion, and corn was especially tasty and would be something we opted to make again!

We had discussed setting up the tent or just camping in the car again, but as we were bombarded with mosquitos again while cooking dinner – car won. It would mean less time outside setting up the tent and having to deal with insects trying to drain us of blood. Not but a couple of hours later one of the most intense rain storms I’ve ever been in began. We peeked out the car windows to see people abandoning their tents to run back to their vehicles. Our own car was swaying vigorously with each wind gust. We became very glad that we hadn’t set up a tent at all. The rain eventually calmed from torrential downpour to constant smattering and we finally caught some sleep. I was worried the prairie dogs might get flooded out, but this is probably common for them.

The next day we were off to visit the Black Hills, home of Mt. Rushmore! — We were not going to Mt. Rushmore. We instead wanted to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial. A bit farther up the highway is another face carved into the rock face – that of Crazy Horse. The memorial isn’t finished yet, it is to be a grand monument of the Indian leader riding horseback and pointing outward: pic of final design. We drove up and were met with a gate asking $24 to go see it. We were able to see the progress from the entry gate though and didn’t want to spend much time around the gift shop at the bottom so we took a couple far away photos and left. We tried to find a spot in the Black Hills for a picnic lunch but everywhere we went wanted to charge us money just to be there. So feeling a little fed up with being asked for money just to exist, we went to a public park back in the nearest town. We decided we’d had enough of South Dakota and our hearts and eyes were focused North.

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We drove through Sturgis, which is of course home to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Half a million people or more descend on this tiny farming town for a week of debauchery and madness. The rally had actually ended about a day or two before and it was kind of strange to drive through all the fair grounds and stuff which had been so recently abandoned. If I hadn’t known what the rally was and that it had just ended I would have been VERY confused as to why all this infrastructure was built up randomly in this podunk farm town.

Farther north in the state, we chanced upon a Graf Rd. To see your last name on a street sign is always amusing, but for me doubly so as rarely ever do I see it spelled with just one ‘F’. Usually the Graff variation is more common.

Kate was driving this day and she was a trooper for sure, she had already driven a few hours in the morning and to make it to our final destination in ND would be an additional 5 hours of driving. She made it 4 of them and was just too beat to go on, so I finished up the drive as we arrived at Sweet Briar Lake for the night. It was extremely dark and pretty cold so we hurried to get our car set up for sleepin’.

The next morning we awoke to see a stunningly beautiful campsite. Lush green grass and an adorable pond with tall reeds and not another camper in sight. One of the loveliest places we’ve overnighted yet, we chose to stick around a second night.

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We spent that day in Bismarck, ND doing some run of the mill stuff. We worked out in the morning at Planet Fitness and made sure to grab our free bagels. The rest of the day was spent in Starbucks. Kate made her blog post that day, and I did some remote work for my job back in Vegas. We picked up a bit of food and went back out to Sweet Briar Lake. The next morning before we packed up we decided we would eschew most of our corn. We didn’t really have a good place to store it and more bugs had been crawling out of it. Rather than deal with rogue caterpillars while driving or sleeping – we’d trim the cache down to just those without bugs, which ended up being a single ear.

This was the day we were headed to the International Peace Garden on the U.S./Canada border. What a truly beautiful place. We took so many pictures that I’ve had a bit of a struggle just trying to find a few to highlight our time there. We entered the garden and drove up to the Peace Chapel which is a small single room building with a very reverent atmosphere to it. The walls inside are lined with inspirational and uplifting quotes from famous authors, orators, historical figures and the like. We explored all of the main garden areas over the next couple of hours. The sunken garden was really nice, as was the conservatory. On our way out of the place we stopped to take a very silly photo next to a flower arrangement that was laid out like a giant smiley face. It would have been hard to make out exactly what the arrangement was supposed to be so I asked Kate to hop up on my shoulders and photograph it from a higher vantage point – this of course led to some very wobbly laughter.

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On our way back into the U.S. (as we were going to be camping at School Section Lake just about 10 minutes from the border) we were questioned pretty heavily by the U.S. Customs and Border officer at the gate. He wanted to know a lot about us, and a lot about our vehicle. Asking what we had in the back, what was stored up top, asking if he could open the back and look inside. Eventually he seemed to come to the conclusion that as scruffy as we appeared we were ultimately harmless.

Another dinner involving the potato, onion, and sweet corn mixture. This time it was added to a can of veggie / lentil soup. SOUPER TASTY!

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The next morning we awoke to the sound of a landscaper coming to mow the grass at this lakeside sleeping spot. We packed up pretty quickly and then made our way back to the border where we were DETAINED. BY. CANADIANS. Can’t be too careful!

Y’see when a border crossing guard asks you where you are from and you say “Vegas, originally…” it apparently makes it sound like you no longer have ties there. And when a border crossing guard asks you if you have jobs and you say “kinda, but not really – she quit and I can work remotely sometimes…” it makes it sound like you don’t have ties to the U.S. at all. And when a border crossing guard asks why you’re traveling to Canada and you say “We’re on a six-month road trip and are driving around…” it makes it seem like you are trying to run away to Canada. So, in general I’d advise anyone crossing the border into Canada to take strong firm stances in your responses. Be sure to reinforce the idea that you are not fleeing the country. Also, don’t bring pepper spray with you as that is banned in Canada and they will make you leave it behind.

We made it through eventually and were off to Regina, Saskatchewan (Dave’s old stomping grounds). We had to stop for gas and I experienced firsthand the problem of trying to calculate how much I needed to prepay for fuel when they charged their prices in Canadian pennies per litre and I am accustomed to USD / gallon… we figured it out…. eventually….

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We made it into town and first parked near Wascana Lake where we visited a cute little duck pond. We also walked around the lake, taking in the sights and admiring all the cute plants and animals that were all around us. Right around the time of Happy Hour we were both excited to have some authentic Poutine – we stopped into a bar called Leopold’s where we had a scotch egg, some mac ‘n cheese poutine, and a couple of beers. We hung out for a few hours and talked a little with some locals, a blind guy by the name of Ryan bought me a beer! That night we didn’t feel like driving back out of town too far so we went to a Walmart and set up shop in the parking lot. The poutine and beers did NOT sit well and we found ourselves at 3 in the morning searching frantically for restrooms – Walmart was closed. So we drove a couple of kilometers to one of the only gas stations that was open overnight (everything closes!) and spent half an hour or so there before heading back to the Walmart to finish our night of sleep. The next day we spent most of the day at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum exploring their wonderful exhibits and marveling at Scotty, the largest T-Rex specimen ever found!

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We had hoped to meet up with John, a friend of Dave’s who happens to live nearby but things just never panned out. Perhaps we’ll get to meet him some other time! — Not to be overly discouraged, we opted to take a drive even farther up north to Saskatoon! We didn’t go all the way there that night but camped overnight at a place called Dr. Bicum Rest Area. He was a doctor native to the area and was loved by all, so they dedicated a rest area to him in his honor. They did not however do a good job of marking where the entry is, as our GPS suggested we drive down train tracks to get to it. When we tried to reroute, the next best thing it could suggest was driving through an open field… Turns out there is a road that just leads right up to it.

Saskatoon is a pretty neat place. Our first destination was the Farmer’s Market. We picked up some apples, a nectarine, and some Saskatoon Berry & Rhubarb jam. We hung around the Broadway area, taking in the little shops, trying on hats, being tourists. We weren’t planning on staying very long so we hit all the spots we had on our list. Did a little bit of grocery shopping to pick up some snack foods we can’t get in the U.S. like Cheezies (imagine a crunchy Cheeto but WAY better) and Ketchup chips (imagine exactly what you think they are like). That afternoon we left Saskatoon and made our way back down toward Regina, this time camping at a place called Fillmore Community Campground. The next day was a long day of driving (all the way back into the U.S. and down to Grand Forks) so we got up and snagged another Canadian favorite for breakfast: Tim Horton’s. Kate insisted we take a picture of it despite my desire to just start eating….

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Saskatchewan has these lovely grain elevators marking lots of little farm towns along the drive back toward the U.S. so Kate and I stopped and snagged a pic or two. The border crossing on the way back was pretty easy, standard questions – but this time we had very firm answers 🙂

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We made it all the way down to Grand Forks which is roughly 6+ hours of driving. Yet as we got there pretty late it was already dark and the campsite we were trying to get to wasn’t accessible because the highway leading to it was closed from all directions. “How do the people who live in the town next to it leave?” I wondered. We then opted to drive even further south to Fargo, ND and right through it across the river into Moorhead, Minnesota.

Here is where things take a turn. Kate slept fairly well at the Burgen Lake Rest Area in Moorhead, MN — I however did not. I had to get up and use the restroom a couple times before I was able to fall asleep. I was also the first one awake as I DESPERATELY had to go to the restroom again first thing in the morning. Why am I mentioning how many times I had to go potty? Because, my friends, I spent the first 4-5 hours of the day today trying to pass a kidney stone. This is the second time in my life I have had this experience. The first was miserable and this was no better. Hours spent trapped in the middle stall of a Minnesota rest area, wincing to tears for hours on end. Exiting and re-entering the bathroom looking worse and worse each time, I’m pretty sure some people thought I was going through withdrawals from some heavy drug addiction. Eventually the pain abated, though I don’t distinctly recall passing any one particular stone. There were however a few instances of smaller flakes, so perhaps it broke up some and left me that way.

…TMI??

I write to you now from a motel room that Kate splurged on for the night to help me cope with the crummy morning I had to go through. She is too nice to me and I love her dearly!

Over the next week we’ll be in Minneapolis, at the Minnesota State Fair, and Visiting Kate’s friend Kina! So be sure to check in again next week for those updates.

— Brian