And we've got a winner!

Hello People!  To start, here is a family photo from this past weekend:

 We’re still on the move… we’re currently in the middle of working our way from Grand Rapids, MN to Kersey, CO.  We decided on a route that would take us by Mt Rushmore, so we headed west from MN into North Dakota and camped last night at a KOA in Bismarck.  It was a really good night – we got into town pretty early in the evening so we ran a couple errands, went to an Applebees and had a couple beers, then went back to the campsite to make dinner and get ready for bed. 

The first thing we did last night was to purchase a new mac-daddy 2-burner camp stove.  Sorry Mom – the other one leaked fuel and caught itself on fire, so we figured a replacement was in order.  The new stove did a great job and Ben cooked up some delicious chili with ground pork, and yes you guessed it, the rest of the leftover Porketta.  Mmmm.

So, not sure where you are while you’re reading this and what your weather is like, but it is definitely winter up here.  It got down to 5 degrees last night!  We camped in the car again (it just seems warmer than in the tent on the ground).  It’s so nice because the car starts warm and delightful, then just cools down throughout the night.  We woke up to frozen crystallized windows and cold air, but it was cozy in our sleeping bags.  Ben pan-fried thick slices of homemade banana bread and made mocha with pressed coffee and homemade hot cocoa mix – all compliments of my Auntie Carrie (thank you!)… a perfect start to the morning.

So, Ben and I have been holding off on the car bingo until now in an effort to savor the experience… ya know, we don’t want it to be over too quickly.  Well, we decided to go ahead and bust it out for this leg of the trip, and we’ve each won twice so far!  We also accidentally messed up the order of the presents (Ben thought #11 was #1), so here is what we’ve won so far:

#11 – Another set of car games, including checkers, snakes & ladders & chess

#2 – A magic set… can’t wait to fool all of you with our new tricks :)

#1 – A whoopee cushion.  Yes!  I’m totally slipping this under Ben’s sleeping bag tonite!

#3 – A pair of sweet candy cane socks (pretty sure Ben is going to try and claim them).

We’ll get back in the proper order after this… I think we’re also going to try some more difficult bingo requirements… like the “L” or something like that.

So how many people have driven through North and South Dakotas?  Wow, they are big states.  The views are enormous… you can see for miles and miles and the roads are super straight.  I’ve never seen so many round bales, cows & buffalo in my life, but despite the redundancy, it’s a very beautiful part of the country.  Here’s another map of our progress – From November 15 through November 22.

Next stop: Family

So, here's a sad Ben with his rental park bike:

It's funny... Ben has called just about every bike shop between Madison, WI and Grand Rapids, MN and nobody has the derailleur he wants in stock.  They are all super happy to special order it for us, but that's no real help to traveling folks.  They all say that they don't carry something that high of quality in stock regularly - only if they're doing a special build or something.  Hmph.  Maybe we'll order one?  Or just wait until we're in CO to get one?  Does this have something to do with the fact that we aren't by any real mountains?  It just seems like we could easily go to a shop in Brevard and find the SRAM X9.  Fooey.

Well, we are currently on our way to Grand Rapids, MN and we'll be staying the whole weekend there.  That is where the majority of my dad's family lives.  It really kind of hit me when my dad died that I don't know that side of my family very well... like, I'm not even sure I would recognize a lot of them.  So, one of things I really wanted to get out of this trip when we first started planning it was to try and connect with the Clusiaus.  It turns out that I am a lucky girl and my dad's brothers and their families will be keeping us for the weekend - we'll be seeing where my dad grew up, looking through all the old family albums, and most importantly, getting to know each other a little bit.  I'm really excited about it.

Also, I thought I'd post a map of our progress around the country.  Here it is so far... this is from Tuesday morning to Friday afternoon: