COVERING A LOT OF GROUND

July 20 (Minot, ND)

Since we have some really long days of driving ahead of us, and since Roger and I get up much earlier than Travis and Alana, we decided that when we wake up Roger and I would start driving and Travis and Alana would fly when they woke up and were ready, and meet us at Saskatoon.  So we took off in the truck by  6 am, stopping for breakfast and gas, and arrived there at about the same time that Travis and Alana landed.  They had taken off about 10 am, and got to Saskatoon around 1:30.  They then took off in the truck, and after some flight planning and arranging customs back into the U.S., we took off flying.  We decided to meet in Minot, SD, which would mean about a 3 ½ hour flight for us, and 7-8 hours driving for them.  Flying now is rather boring after all the sights we’ve been seeing.  Nothing now but flat farm land, and lots and lots of water.  Looks rather swampy down there and we were told they’ve had lots of rain lately.  Every day we go south gets hotter too.  We’ve been extremely fortunate weather-wise on this trip.  The ONLY time we couldn’t go because of weather was back in Wisconsin the third day of the trip.  Alaska had lots of low clouds, but we could always go.  Of course we’re not home yet, but so far, so good.  We sure planned on some weather days, but they never materialized which is really hard to believe after all these weeks.

We landed in Minot, and discovered rather quickly that we couldn’t camp there at the airstrip and we’d have to figure something else out.  We went through customs, and they had a courtesy car we used and went into town for a bite to eat and figure out where we were going to sleep.  Back at the airport, the guy there at the FBO told us about a grass strip he said was about a 15 minute flight away, which turned out to be longer than that.  It was getting dusk when we left, and we barely landed before dark at the little strip there.  It was getting hard to pick it out, and of course had no lights.  But we got in, and the problem was when we tried to explain to Travis how to drive in to it.  It was a bit off the road and after dark it was pretty hard for him to find us.  But eventually he did.  We could see him on the road while talking to him, and Roger put on the aircraft strobe lights (we were in a big dark hole) and he headed toward them.  It had rained a little bit, but we both set up our tents under the wings of the plane and hit the sack.  It was close to midnight till they arrived.  We bit off a bit more than we should have time-wise today, but it all worked out and we put on a lot of miles this way (somewhere between 800 and 900 I believe and we were only driving 60 – 62 mph).  JOLENE