Leslie Across the USA

Hope Springs Eternal in North Dakota!

After a whole entire year, I finally got to see my very wonderful friend Hope! She has been living in Grand Forks, North Daktoa, for a year and a half with her boyfriend -- oops, I mean FIANCE -- Nate, who is stationed at the Air Force Base there. Even though I could say that Grand Forks is not the most exciting place on earth, I had a great time there, and the time flew by! I arrived Friday evening, and Hope made me dinner. It was just like good old times in DC! On Saturday, we drove up to the Canadian border to the International Peace Garden. On the way, we stopped in Rugby, ND, which is the Geographical Center of North America. The International Peace Garden was created to commemmorate the world's largest undefended border and it celebrates the centuries of peace between Canada and the United States. The garden is really nice, with lots of flowers and fountains. Its focal point is a set of towers. The towers are similar, and they face each other. Since the garden lies across the border between Canada and the USA, one tower is in each country. So, Hope and I walked to Canada several times throughout our visit. We visited the Peace Chapel, which looks really 70s in its architecture (because that's when it was built), but it's nice. I loved all the quotes about peace carved into the limestone throughout the chapel. It all felt very timely, and I couldn't help but wish that all the world's leaders, decision makers, and power holders could have a quick little meeting in this chapel to remind themselves that we're all just people, and not much else really matters other than that. As we left the park, we passed a wedding that was about to start, and another wedding party that was waiting in the wings. It is a truly gorgeous place to be married, but I thought it was kind of funny, too. I mean, who stands in Canada, the bride or the groom? I wondered, too, if there were all kinds of legal issues associated with it. I mean, what if you're a gay couple? I guess you couldn't marry at the fountain in the middle of the park. You'd have to both stand in Canada. I don't think gay marriage is legal in North Dakota. Anyway, we decided to drive up into Manitoba a bit, so that we could say we'd gone there. The immigration officer at the border was kind of strange. She was trying to be all tough, but she had such a weird accent, that it was kind of hard to keep from laughing. She said, "What's in the baygs?" Meaning, "What's in the bags?" I told her clothes. She asked where we were going, and I couldn't pronounce the name of the town correctly (Boissevain). I said it like it was French, and she said, "Boyzeevayne." And she asked me twice if I had alcohol or firearms. Wow, I must have looked like Yosemite Sam or something, but she let me through after I assured her I was clean. So, we drove up to Boyzeevayne, which is famous for its murals, but it basically looked just like North Dakota, so we turned around and headed home. It was going to be nearly a 4 hour drive back, so we needed to get going. On the way back, we stopped at the huge turtle sculpture made entirely of tire rims (of course we thought of Jud!). Mom, I guess that's what we should have done with all of Dad's bits and pieces that he had saved! A big sculpture of something having to do with Milford! The tire rim sculpture was a turtle because we were in the Turtle Mountains, which are the smallest mountains ever. They're more like little humps. Anyway, we'd heard all about this sculpture, so we had to see it. Back in Grand Forks, we were tired, but we went out to dinner at the Blue Moose, which was in Minnesota, just across the river from Grand Forks. We decided to walk there after being in the car all day, so in one day, I walked to Canada and Minnesota. Cool.
On Sunday, we were kind of lazy, and I did laundry and got to hang it outside. It was a gorgeous day, but pretty hot, so the laundry dried well and smelled so fresh! I love clotheslines! We went shopping a bit, too. We both got new shoes, and I got some souvenirs in Minnesota. At night, we tried to buy buffalo meat to grill for dinner, but the farm was closed. So, we had good old cow beef instead, and it was delicious! We bought it at Target - their Target is a SUPER TARGET, and it has a fab grocery store attached. Very nice. If we had one in DC, I'd probably never leave it. Hee hee.
After dinner, we took Hope's beautiful and sweet dog Ness out for a walk. Of course, the gorgeous sunny day was being pushed out by some rather threatening clouds, but the storms clouds are weird there. Because you can see so far, you can see storms that are really far away, but they might never come near you. This one did, however, and big fat drops of rain started to fall as we set out with Ness, but we didn't mind. When we turned around as the rain fell harder, though, we could tell the storm wasn't going to pass us by. Sure enough, the tornado siren began to wail. Of course, no one acted like anything was a big deal - girls were riding their bikes, people were hanging out on lawns and on porches. We put a little spring in our step to get home faster, but the siren ended before we even got home. We chatted with Hope's neighbor David for a bit, and he said that we were about to get some hail and lots of rain, but no tornado. He suggested I move the Mini, so I put her under a tree, in case of hail. As soon as we got inside, the rain and a little hail came, but it didn't last long. When the rain stopped, there was a gorgeous sunset happening, and Hope and I jumped in the Mini to chase the sunset to get a photo. See the one attached - it's the best one! It was fun, and the rain really cooled things off. It was a great way to end my trip to Grand Forks.
Today I headed off to South Dakota in search of hills. I know they're here somewhere...

posted by Leslie @ 1:43 AM