road trip: minnesota bound

awhile back -- ok - really awhile back -- jon and i climbed (literally) into the semi and set off for minnesota to pick up a load of bee boxes from a supplier.  we left late for our 8.5 hour trip - to the tune of about four o'clock in the afternoon - but were in good spirits - road tripping in the semi can't be beat.

a little ways down the road we stopped for some fuel, both the truck and the human kind.  armed with a ridiculous amount of snacks we traveled the straight and level path across north dakota - thats right - the entire state - just about as flat as a pancake without a turn in sight.  they do have the best rest areas though.  

this trip was on the tail end of the june floods and gave us some interesting sights as the water level was quite high in many areas... p.s. the top left picture below is of a train going across tracks that are almost covered by water..

and road construction through a lot of minnesota - it is funny, as soon as you get close to minnesota it's like the insect population triples and lands on your windshield.  serious.  i also saw one of the biggest insects ever.  i still don't know what it is -- but it was attacking jon and i's heads (or trying to) so we smashed it.  it looked like a monster bee-fly...

we spent the night at a truck stop in fargo, north dakota - where we had a midnight mcdonalds snack and early morning breakfast (healthy healthy -- have you tried their hotcakes?  yummers -- for fast food quality of course).  after driving the rest of our way and loading up, it was afternoon.  now turn around and go back.  this time with a rest stop in fargo again for food and fun at scheels sporting goods  (that's where the ferris wheel was - i don't know if they have them in other stores - the fargo store is the very best).  we arrived in montana about 3am - a 22 hour day for us - and thankful for not getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere on a really super-soft stretch of a road construction dirt road while fully loaded at 2:30am on the way back.  

bed looked and felt lovely and lulu was quite happy to see us.  home-sweet-trailer.