West Fargo, ND

Well, it’s a rainy day in North Dakota.  Left Watertown after breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express this morning and headed for Milbank, SD.  It was raining too hard to play golf at Pine Valley, so we contented ourselves with a visit to the Valley Queen cheese factory.  Since we were there last year, they had moved into a brand new facility which is now called the Heritage Hall and contains a lot of memorabilia and information about how cheese is produced in the local area.  I think someone must have gone to the Tillamook factory in Oregon and said “We can do that”. 

There was a group of school kids taking the tour (it’s still not on the scale of Tillamook, but adequate for its’ size).  Did get to sample some of the cheeses and bought some for our trip.  Valley Queen only sells its’ cheese under their name here in Milbank.  The great majority goes out to be sold under other names.  The hostess said they ship out cheese in 650 lb containers – about 700 of those a day to Kraft and other well-known cheese producers.  Picked up an interesting magazine on the Yellowstone Trail which I’ll save for another blog entry.

After leaving Milbank, we headed across the river to Minnesota and drove along the shores of Big Stone Lake north toward Fargo.  A lot of beautiful lake places along the shore on one side and farmland on the east side of the road.  In some of the ponds and lakes as we headed north, we saw a flocks of white pelicans – not sure whether they are permanent residents or just flying through.  Pretty sight, though.  I don’t know what the break point is between a pond and a lake, but I’m sure there is one.

At Breckenridge in Minnesota, we crossed over into Wahpeton, ND which is at the headwaters of the Red River which in turn flows north to Canada through Fargo.  Took the old US 81 (now County 81) up to Ken and Melanie’s.  Stopped there for a cup of coffee and some conversation with Melanie before heading up to West Fargo to Michelle’s.   Rain continued to follow us all the way and is still coming down.  Looks like it’s going to be a wet week – even for the wedding.

Colin and Michelle greeted us at our home away from home for the next few nights.  Ryan was out running, but returned later in the afternoon.  Caught up on Ryan’s recent trip to France (he just got home on Saturday).  Right now Vi and Michelle went over to catch up with “Da Girls” – wedding party group who are getting nails done.  Imagine they will come back with a lot of news about the wedding and events to come.

p.s.  In a previous post, I mentioned that the Pathfinder 101 Ranch in Wyoming was 140,000 acres.  Tim sent me a note saying that Chicago, IL was 149,000 acres - just a little larger.  To further exacerbate the comparison - Chicago has a population of 2.7 million and the whole state of Wyoming only has 600,000 people.