Driving across the west to North Dakota

Leaving Fort Collins, Colorado we drove north into Wyoming. Stopped near Guernsey where the Oregon Trail cut deep ruts into the sandstone and left less distinguishable trail through the prairie.

Fort Laramie, an old US calvary post, has been maintained and reconstructed in the prairie. It would have been a desolate post.

Crossed into South Dakota on a back road. Saw this sign. Decided to buy gas in Newell. Luckily they had some - most towns we saw were just a crossroads, about every 35 miles would be a slightly larger town with some services.

Stopped at an Indian Reservation for lunch in South Dakota and the drive, the geography and agriculture were more interesting than the above photo seems to indicate. The towns, however, did not get much closer together despite our not going all the way to Watertown.

 Driving into North Dakota and Napoleon from the south, we drove by Erick Oman's homestead site.  This was the view across the street.  A wheat field, a large one— as they tend to be.

And the former site of the Oman homestead, now a hay field for the cattle in the next quarter section.  That is the street - dirt road to the right in the photo.

Downtown Napoleon has not changed much since the '20s and '30s. This brick building has a new facade but is basically the same one you see in that old photo we have of Erick and others working on the original wooden structure.

One of the delights of our visit to Napoleon was visiting Carolyn Sperle, a 100+ year old who remembered 'Mr Oman' as a Raleigh Products salesman. We met her on a visit to Napoleon in 2006 through a connection from a friend of Matt's father Luther.

Mrs. Sperle is one of the more interesting people you can meet. The daughter of Russian German immigrants from Odessa she told us stories of old Napoleon and of being a volunteer in the local senior citizens home. Yes, she is a volunteer at the old folks home. And she will make you laugh too.

We also went by the town cemetery and visited the grave of Lawrence Pershing Oman who died July 31, 1920, a month short of two years old.

Leaving Napoleon behind, we kept our tradition of driving on back roads (like we had a choice) and got stuck behind a cattle drive. They finally left the road and I got this photo. One pick up truck, one young woman on horseback, two four wheelers and two dogs, about 60-70 cattle.

The roads are straight.

The sunflower crops are bright and fill a field.

In Grand Forks, we had a great visit with Matt's parents, Luther and Jan. Originally we had planned on going fishing at Devils Lake, but high winds changed those plans. So we went into northern Minnesota to Lake Itasca to see the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

Crossing those rocks, the water exiting the lake, the Mississippi starts its way to the Gulf.  It takes 90 days for this water to get to New Orleans.

The four of us. Patt and Jan with wet feet too.

and now off to Winnipeg the to the North Shore of Lake Superior.