6-27-2020

Last night when we went to bed, looking out the windows there were lightning bugs. It was kind of ironic, because this past week while working in Madison listening to the local country radio station on my way in to work the subject of lightning bugs or fireflies came up. I didn’t know that if are in the West and New England you refer to them as fireflies, while people in the South and most of the Midwest tend to say lightning bugs. For me it was lightning bugs and that seems to fit since I grew up in the Midwest. Ernie remembers calling them fireflies which also fits since he grew up in New England.

Amazing we actually got on the road at the time we wanted this morning. There is less work when you boondock so that helped. We crossed over into Minnesota around 8:15 am and into North Dakota around 1:15pm.

I forgot to mention in my last post, the young man in the pictures is our grandson Casen. He is excited to see his cousins in Washington and Idaho. He will be celebrating his 12^th birthday on this trip and is also excited to celebrate it with family he doesn’t get to see often. He is a really good traveler and we’d like to think he doesn’t mind traveling with us.

Our 2nd stop is at Mel Reimen Recreation area, another COE (Core of Engineering) site in Valley City, ND. We had to drive a little out of the way to get to it We do not have hookups at this site but our new lithium batteries did well last night so we should be good. Just when we are getting comfortable getting around sites, this one was by far the hardest. The address on the website doesn't take you to the right place. We ended up having to disconnect the jeep so we could turn around. It was probably a good thing because the roads into the sites were windy and narrow. The site was unusually uneven which caused leveling to raise the back wheels off the ground, more than the last time. Ernie wasn't comfortable with that so we put all the slides back in, raised the jacks and moved the rig over. It helped a little but we definitely are not level. I know it's good to unplug once in a while but having no wifi is one thing, having no service is another. 

We took Casen over to the swimming area and he got an hour in the water. He was happy. 

We were also able to put another sticker on our map. 

Tomorrow is about 410 miles. We wanted to make our reservation for the next park when we got here but without service we will pray we are able to make it in the morning after we leave.