24 July 2011
It Was So Hot...
24/07/11 19:33
We just got back from our trip to Minnesota. Now, I know the people there were glad to see us. It had been a number of years after all. I know they wanted to do something special, that was cool. But really, broiling the whole Midwest in our honour was really not necessary.
It was all the more of a shock because the morning we left Missoula Montana we had frost warnings. The next day in Minnesota it was near 90 with high humidity. Really, it’s hard for the old sinuses to keep up. The week we were there we found out that Minnesota had the highest heat index (122 in Worthington) of anywhere in North America. To find similar conditions we’d have had to travel to the heart of the Amazon. It was amazing. It also confirmed my existing plan to NOT go exploring the Amazon.
How hot was it?
It was so hot, that concrete was sweating.
It was so hot, the day we left for home I discovered a frog trying to stow away in the car in order to get out of the heat and humidity.
It was so hot, that people from Florida were complaining.
But it was fun to see everyone. We sat around next to the lake and talked and drank beer, and drank pop, and drank water, and drank, well, pretty much anything we could lay our hands on. Until now, I’ve never before gotten fatigued from just sweating.
But all good things must come to an end. Finally, last Monday we had to pack and head back. We left about noon and made it to Bismarck North Dakota that evening. North Dakota is a strange place. First we were driving across a stretch that was pool table flat and passed a sign that said “Continental Divide”. We’re no really sure how that works. Then we passed an exit to “Oriska and Fingal”. To me these sound like either two of the dwarves from The Hobbit or Boris and Natasha’s kids, but in fact they were towns. Finally though we got to Bismarck and looked for a hotel. No small feat in that apparently Bismarck was sold out. I never thought of Bismarck North Dakota as a tourist destination but it was packed and we ended up having to continue on to Mandan to find a fairly decent place. This hotel was not bad actually, clean, with Cable, AC, and WiFi Internet. The odd part though, was that the WiFi went off when the manager closed the office and went to bed. Ahhh, small town North Dakota.
We hit the road the next morning at 5:00. When we hit the freeway we knew things had taken a really strange turn. It was between 80 and 85 degrees out and at the top of the freeway entrance ramp we ran into a wall of thick pea soup fog. We needed the AC and defrost on and the wipers running as the steam (there really is no other appropriate term for it) tried to condense on both sides of the glass. We fought through this until the Montana border. Mysteriously within a mile of the state line we drove out of the fog and were in sunny skies for the rest of the day.
Did I mention that North Dakota is really strange?
The rest of that day we traveled across Montana. Montana is a stark place, an empty place, mostly it is a WIDE place. Third widest state in the union, the fact we looked this up shows how bored we were. Taking turns in three hour watches behind the wheel we crossed the state as mile after mile of high desert and desolate fields, and lonely cows and isolated ranches rolled by. Finally that evening we crossed the mountains and descended into Washington. There we made an interesting discovery: Spokane Washington has no hotels. Oh there probably are some but between bad signage and the distractions of road construction we never saw one. We pressed on to Ritzville Washington, a town that to us appeared to consist of one gas station, a couple of silos, a hundred yards of paved street, and one of the nicest Best Western Hotels we’ve ever stayed in. The latter was both a surprise and much appreciated. We’d covered a thousand miles in one day and needed a good nights rest. Yes, a thousand miles. It was one of those things you always want to be able to say you did and now that it’s done we never have to do it again.
The next day we pressed on through the flat eastern Washington wheat region. We crossed the cascades and just beyond the pass we ran into rain. Wet fir trees passed by on ether with ferns and spongy moss covering the forest floor below. Across the valley an arm of the sea extended between dark green tree covered hills. A seagull flew by in the cool misty air.
Minnesota was nice and we miss you all but at that moment I knew we were home again.
Doug and Marsha
Pix: Random trip pictures.
First after a software upgrade the iPod can now take water-colours but not real photos.
Somewhere in Wyoming, I think
Nest Lake, Minnesota
Somewhere in the Cascades
Ritzville Washington
We did take some pictures with the "real" camera. Little Liza playing with the fish in the lake
Windmills in Eastern Washington
It was all the more of a shock because the morning we left Missoula Montana we had frost warnings. The next day in Minnesota it was near 90 with high humidity. Really, it’s hard for the old sinuses to keep up. The week we were there we found out that Minnesota had the highest heat index (122 in Worthington) of anywhere in North America. To find similar conditions we’d have had to travel to the heart of the Amazon. It was amazing. It also confirmed my existing plan to NOT go exploring the Amazon.
How hot was it?
It was so hot, that concrete was sweating.
It was so hot, the day we left for home I discovered a frog trying to stow away in the car in order to get out of the heat and humidity.
It was so hot, that people from Florida were complaining.
But it was fun to see everyone. We sat around next to the lake and talked and drank beer, and drank pop, and drank water, and drank, well, pretty much anything we could lay our hands on. Until now, I’ve never before gotten fatigued from just sweating.
But all good things must come to an end. Finally, last Monday we had to pack and head back. We left about noon and made it to Bismarck North Dakota that evening. North Dakota is a strange place. First we were driving across a stretch that was pool table flat and passed a sign that said “Continental Divide”. We’re no really sure how that works. Then we passed an exit to “Oriska and Fingal”. To me these sound like either two of the dwarves from The Hobbit or Boris and Natasha’s kids, but in fact they were towns. Finally though we got to Bismarck and looked for a hotel. No small feat in that apparently Bismarck was sold out. I never thought of Bismarck North Dakota as a tourist destination but it was packed and we ended up having to continue on to Mandan to find a fairly decent place. This hotel was not bad actually, clean, with Cable, AC, and WiFi Internet. The odd part though, was that the WiFi went off when the manager closed the office and went to bed. Ahhh, small town North Dakota.
We hit the road the next morning at 5:00. When we hit the freeway we knew things had taken a really strange turn. It was between 80 and 85 degrees out and at the top of the freeway entrance ramp we ran into a wall of thick pea soup fog. We needed the AC and defrost on and the wipers running as the steam (there really is no other appropriate term for it) tried to condense on both sides of the glass. We fought through this until the Montana border. Mysteriously within a mile of the state line we drove out of the fog and were in sunny skies for the rest of the day.
Did I mention that North Dakota is really strange?
The rest of that day we traveled across Montana. Montana is a stark place, an empty place, mostly it is a WIDE place. Third widest state in the union, the fact we looked this up shows how bored we were. Taking turns in three hour watches behind the wheel we crossed the state as mile after mile of high desert and desolate fields, and lonely cows and isolated ranches rolled by. Finally that evening we crossed the mountains and descended into Washington. There we made an interesting discovery: Spokane Washington has no hotels. Oh there probably are some but between bad signage and the distractions of road construction we never saw one. We pressed on to Ritzville Washington, a town that to us appeared to consist of one gas station, a couple of silos, a hundred yards of paved street, and one of the nicest Best Western Hotels we’ve ever stayed in. The latter was both a surprise and much appreciated. We’d covered a thousand miles in one day and needed a good nights rest. Yes, a thousand miles. It was one of those things you always want to be able to say you did and now that it’s done we never have to do it again.
The next day we pressed on through the flat eastern Washington wheat region. We crossed the cascades and just beyond the pass we ran into rain. Wet fir trees passed by on ether with ferns and spongy moss covering the forest floor below. Across the valley an arm of the sea extended between dark green tree covered hills. A seagull flew by in the cool misty air.
Minnesota was nice and we miss you all but at that moment I knew we were home again.
Doug and Marsha
Pix: Random trip pictures.
First after a software upgrade the iPod can now take water-colours but not real photos.
Somewhere in Wyoming, I think
Nest Lake, Minnesota
Somewhere in the Cascades
Ritzville Washington
We did take some pictures with the "real" camera. Little Liza playing with the fish in the lake
Windmills in Eastern Washington