South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota

Early Thursday afternoon jmaynard and I started out for Fargo, ND because, well, we had time, he had never been to North Dakota, and the weather while cold wasn't expected to be stormy. On the way we stopped at Burghardt in Watertown, SD for a while.

It was quite cold and we saw sundogs when we left Watertown. A while after sunset, for a brief time, we also saw moondogs before the sky cleared and they disappeared.

After checking into the hotel in Fargo we set out to find something for supper and decided to try "Grandma's Saloon" which was not far away. Jay surprised me when he ordered iced tea when the outdoor temperature was around 0 F. That North Dakota is not Minnesota was evident by the cajun dish I ordered actually being rather spicy.

I had no problems with getting caspian on the hotel's wireless network. The work to get Wolvix installed and WiFi Radar working paid off, so I'm rather pleased by that.

Friday morning we checked the weather and it was warmer, by a few degrees, in Fargo than it was in Fairmont. We made our return trip by way of St. Cloud where we stopped at a World Market and picked up a few things. We got to New Ulm around supper time and stopped in at the Kaiserhoff restaurant. I've decided I've had my one German meal there for the year now. It was good, but likely not all that good for me. Since it's still Winter (and very much so) we tried the Schell's SnowStorm which this year is "a sweet London style stout." We're not sure just how London style it is. Would it be better served merely cool rather than outright cold? Nearby we saw what had been a Ben Franklin store that was now a 'Zen Franklib' and stopped int to find out what that was about. Rearranged letters, to not use the original name, was all. That it was, or had started out as, a Ben Franklin store was still evident. Alas, so was an overpowering smell. I'm not sure what it was, but it was oppressive and we had to get out before we had trouble breathing. It was that bad.

The trip was generally uneventful as such trips ought to be. The RX-350's navigation system is very easy to get used to, and as usual XM 164 is a Good Thing on long trips.

Friday was the last "warm" day for a while, with the forecast not predicting anything above 0 F again until Tuesday. I suspect we won't be going anywhere for a while.