We had a long travel day on Sunday, Sept. 15, covering almost 300 miles to get us to the twin cities of Minnesota (Minneapolis & St. Paul). Our campground is a really nice regional park in St. Paul – lots of trees, nice level & paved sites, and full hookups. Most of our drive was in Wisconsin…seemed like forever before we saw the “Welcome to Minnesota” sign. For both Mark and I, it’s our first visit to the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”.

Monday morning, we went to see Minnehaha Falls, the most photographed site in Minnesota. The falls are beautiful and even with the dry summer weather, there was lots of water flowing! We walked along the path, and then headed down to the lower gorge for another perspective.

Minnehaha Regional Park is within the Mississippi National River & Recreation Area, part of the National Park Service, and the area is part of the National Register of Historic Places.

The park also has a replica of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Massachusetts home, in honor of his poem, “The Song of Hiawatha”, which helped make Minnehaha Falls famous.

From there, we drove along Minnehaha Parkway which was absolutely wonderful, lined with beautiful homes. We stopped at two of the many lakes in Minnesota – Lake Nokomis and Lake Harriet. So blue and pretty!

We had a quiet afternoon at the campground and I made a trip to the local Planet Fitness.

On Tuesday, we headed into downtown Minneapolis – our first stop was at Mill Ruins Park which sits on the west bank of the Mississippi River. In the 19^th century, this area was the world’s leading producer of flour. Remains of old flour mills are visible and really interesting to see, especially against the backdrop of newly constructed apartment buildings.

Near the park is Guthrie Theater which is open to the public and is just an amazing building. The architecture is so unusual, including a cantilever walkway offering beautiful views of the river and beyond. We wandered through and enjoyed the views of Minneapolis.

We made a stop at Boom Island Park, on the east bank of the river, walked along the Mississippi, and enjoyed a picnic lunch there.

We took on the challenge of parking in the city after lunch – never easy with parking garages that have lower height restrictions and aren’t truck-friendly. We drove by several too-short garages before finding one that we could safely navigate. From there, we walked to a few photo-worthy spots…a huge mural of Prince (or the artist formerly known as Prince…), a live music venue decorated with stars listing artists who have performed there, and possibly the most famous Minneapolis site…a statue of Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat in the air, from the opening sequence of her 70s TV show (one of my favorite classic shows!).

On Wednesday, we drove to Como Park Zoo & Conservatory. It’s a small zoo but really nice – you can get pretty close to the animals and the habitats are nice. We saw lions, tigers, and bears…oh my! The conservatory was also nice and the water lilies were especially impressive – the largest flowers we’ve ever seen!

After lunch back at the campground, we ventured to The Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the US, and in the Western Hemisphere. We’re not generally mall shoppers, but this is just one of those places you have to see to believe. The footprint isn’t particularly large, but there are four stories, and in addition to hundreds of stores and restaurants, there’s an amusement park inside (themed with Nickelodeon characters), an aquarium, several rides, and massive LEGO and M & M stores.  It was impressive!

Thursday, our last day in Minnesota, was an errands and chores day…laundry, grocery store, and gym. I took zero photos which is practically unheard of!

Friday morning, we started the next leg of our journey, heading Northwest into North Dakota for about . As we drove through Minnesota, we got to see several more of the 10,000 lakes the state is known for. But we still have about 9,990 to go. Maybe next trip!

Just over the state line is Fargo, and we made a stop at the visitor center. Apparently there’s a famous murder scene in the movie “Fargo” that involves a wood chipper, so they of course have the wood chipper there as a photo opportunity, plus they have a ‘walk of fame’. There’s also a “Best for Last Club” sign because apparently many people visit ND as their 50^th state; they even give out certificates to those who finish the 50 states there. I guess there’s just no reason for people to visit North Dakota, and it’s not a state you ever need to ‘pass through’ on your way somewhere else! For Mark and I, we still have a few states to go, so no certificates for us!

We left Fargo and continued West on I-94, on track to arrive at our campground around 5pm. Then, at about 4:30, the truck started making a horrible noise. Uh oh. Mark pulled over and tried to see if he could figure out the issue. Best he could tell, it was something related to the exhaust system. Now what? Google maps to the rescue…the town of Valley City, ND was just a few miles away and Berger Auto Repair was open until 5pm. Flashers on, we drove the few miles at a very low speed and pulled into the repair shop. Well, I have to say, we could not have been more fortunate that the noise started when and where it did. Mel came out immediately and started poking around, and within a few minutes, knew exactly what the issue was. Somehow, a hole had developed in a cylinder that was part of the emissions system. I won’t try to explain it any better than that, but I do know that a hole isn’t good.  

He determined the part number, but no one anywhere nearby had the part in stock (not that there were a lot of places nearby to check, but even Fargo, the largest city in the state, didn’t have any)…Tuesday at the soonest. He said he could try to remove it, if the bolts cooperated, and might be able to weld it to close the hole. He seemed concerned about the bolts being too rusty for him to remove, but seemed more confident when we told him the truck only had 45,000 miles on it. So, we told him to go ahead and try and then proceeded to cross all of our fingers and toes that he would be successful. And he was…all the bolts came off, he got the cylinder out, but then realized that it was stainless steel or something similar and he wouldn’t be able to do the welding. But, he knew a local guy who is an expert welder and could definitely do it. Called him, he’s on his way back from Fargo, will be there in about 45 minutes. We were starving, and fortunately, we travel with a refrigerator full of food, so we had nice dinner parked behind an auto repair shop in Valley City, ND. Didn’t have that on my bingo card!

The welder arrived, seemed comfortable that he could help, and took off with the part to his house a couple blocks away. Mel, our new best friend, was just as nice and helpful as could be…even offered us his truck if we wanted to drive into town for food. Who does that?? There truly still are nice people in the world, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. And, in a world where it seems that no one can do their jobs correctly, we found people who are an exception!

About an hour later, welder man returned with the patched cylinder. Mel got to work re-installing it which went pretty smoothly overall. Talk about awkward, tight spaces – definitely wasn’t easy to access that area under the hood! He did say this was a temporary fix, and we need to get an actual replacement part installed as soon as possible…not something that should wait until we’re back home in a few weeks.

So, after about 4.5 hours and just $200 later, we were ready to roll again. We tried to get Mel to accept more money to thank him for staying so late to help us out, but he refused, says he does this all the time. Apparently lots of people breakdown along I-94 and need his help; we weren’t the first, and we won’t be the last! We pulled out of Valley City with a nice quiet truck! Phew!

Overall, this was an inconvenience and VERY stressful, but it worked out about as well as it could – as I said to Mark, we have food, water, a bathroom, and a bed with us wherever we go, and we found the absolute nicest people who were so incredibly helpful. We didn’t end up stranded or unsafe. And, it would have been SO MUCH worse with our motorhome – finding someone to fix an issue like that would have been nearly impossible. At least with a Ford pickup truck, there are repair shops everywhere that know how to fix them…and there are Ford dealers everywhere, even in small towns in North Dakota.

We arrived at the campground around 9:30pm…first time ever for us to arrive so late. Definitely interesting to arrive in the dark and have to set up holding a flashlight in one hand. Fortunately, it was just a one-night stopover for us and we had a pull-thru site so we didn’t have to unhook the truck.

Saturday morning, our first order of business was to come up with a plan for having the permanent repair done with a new cylinder. We located a Ford dealer in Dickinson, ND, about 30 minutes from our next campground; Mark called and they said they could have the part there Tuesday morning, and we have an appointment for the work to be done Tuesday at 12 noon…hopefully about an hour’s work. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly and doesn’t put too much of a hiccup in our plans!

Saturday’s drive was fairly short – about 230 miles – but it was a particularly windy day, so not a fun drive at all. I have to say, North Dakota is uniquely scenic & beautiful. It looks like a painting in so many places – rolling hills, lots of shades of green and brown, random buttes, plus big puffy clouds in the sky. We’re on a major Interstate, I-94, but most exits say “no services”…there are rest areas along the way (just restrooms and vending machines), but we needed gas and it wasn’t easy to find a station! North Dakota is desolate, that’s for sure…mostly just farm land everywhere.

My next blog post will cover our time here in the “Peace Garden State” – but here are a few North Dakota photos as a sneak preview!