How We Roll These Days

One night campground layovers are a thing of the past. Who needs that kind of tight, challenging schedule and the stress that comes with it? We’ve evolved to staying for a minimum of three nights, driving no more than about 230 miles (300 max) between overnight stops, taking non-interstate routes whenever possible, and camping in small towns. The positive impact on our psyche as been pronounced. We (well, me for sure) used to measure success by how little time it took us to break camp, pack up, and get on the road. We would high-five over being ready in an hour and departing by 9 AM.

We now start preparing for a departure the night before. The next morning, we enjoy our coffee, stimulate our minds with several online NYT games (Spelling Bee is our current favorite), and continue our preparation until about 9 AM. We then hop into Sid, eat a leisurely meal at the best local breakfast joint, and savor our second cup of coffee at the best local coffee shop. If we’re lucky, and we often are, breakfast and coffee can be had at the same establishment. Over coffee, we play an obligatory, perhaps habitual, game of Farkle on either of our phones. Finally, we gas up Sid before returning to the campground and completing preparations. Most campgrounds require checkout by either 11 AM or noon. Let’s just say we consistently hit the road before 11 AM, and we’re too relaxed to even consider a celebratory high-five as being necessary. So when we left St. Paul, our next major stop was Winnipeg, MB (Manitoba). Employing our new layover philosophy, we stopped in Barnesville, MN and Grand Forks AFB (Air Force Base), ND along the way.

Barnesville was a small town (population 2,563). We camped in Wagner Park just across MN 34 at the north end of town. Annually, the city hosts the Clay County Fair and the Barnesville Potato Days. We were too late for the fair and too early for Potato Days. The latter celebration draws about 14,000 people who enjoy picking and peeling potato contests and eat various food booth potato dishes and preparations. Potato farming was big in the area. Otherwise, the town quietly minded its own business.

We located a small cafe on Front St. for breakfast each morning but found the coffee weak and flavorless. Upon entering the first day, we felt the eyes of local patrons checking us out. Look maw, strangers! We get that sometimes.

I took several morning hikes through town and got a chuckle from this window decoration on one of the old buildings. Not many people likely remember Detective Sam Spade as the protagonist in the 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon, and later starring Humphrey Bogart as Spade in the Warner Bros. 1941 movie version.

My hikes took me through Blue Eagle Park across from where we stayed. Once again I was very impressed with the effort small U.S. towns put into providing their citizens with outdoor recreation areas. To get in my miles, I wound around on streets at the city circumference. A young boy on a bike passed me once and stared with intrigue at my backpack and poles. He was so interested, he turned around and circled back to get a closer look. I acknowledged him with a nod, and he returned the gesture. Later, I passed a middle-aged man who was in front of his house working on his truck. We greeted each other, and he warned me about the heat and asked whether I had enough water. I replied that I did but thanked him for his concern. I relate these two stories because they demonstrated to me the friendliness and general caring of small town mid-westerners.

We needed better coffee, so I googled Starbucks and located the nearest franchise near Fargo, ND about 24 miles further north. We went for the coffee, but also had to spend some time touring the city.

The Fargo was built as a cinema and vaudeville theater in 1926 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s one of Fargo’s hottest downtown places for concerts and other live events. The Veterans Memorial Bridge crosses the Red River as it flows north into Canada. The memorial, featuring ten columns and six service flags, was dedicated to our nation’s veterans on 14 June 2003. Plaques of the four military services and six major veteran organizations are embedded in the columns. The Northern Pacific Railroad Depot was built in 1898 and has been a Fargo landmark ever since. Today, it is home to the offices of the Fargo Park District.


Before crossing into Canada, we stopped and stayed 4 days in the military Famcamp at Grand Forks AFB (Air Force Base). The campsite sat on what used to be military family housing, long since demolished. It wasn’t a great campsite but was roomy and inexpensive. The base was constructed in 1955 and has experienced numerous mission changes. In its heyday during the cold war, it was jumping with a B-52 bomber wing, a Minuteman ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) wing, and a KC-125 air refueling wing. Today it’s home only to a reconnnaisance wing of unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawks. We thought the base was extremely modern looking, well maintained, but nearly a ghost town relative to military personnel. Except for a fast food franchise tied to the Base Exchange, there was no place serving breakfast or even brewing coffee. Egads!

Along the main road to the front gate, there was an incredible static display of aircraft, many of which were part of the various base missions. Here are a few aircraft.

The base was 18 miles from the city of Grand Forks (population 55,839), but we only had to go to the I-29 intersection to find a great truck-stop breakfast at the Roadhouse Cafe. The meal was substantial, the price was reasonable, and everybody was a stranger. However, we had to go into to town to find a suitable coffee house beyond our normal Starbucks. Eureka, we found Urban Stampede on the corner of 4th St and Kittson Ave. It was eclectic but hit all of our happy buttons: delicious coffee, tasty pastries, local artwork, and cozy atmosphere.

With little to nothing available at the base, we returned to the city several times and enjoyed an eclectic meal one afternoon at Eli’s Ivy. We shared a camel burger! After lunch, we strolled through their outside garden area and discovered an appropriately named alley. We didn’t know who Kim Holmes was, but we think we like her style.

We looked forward to visiting two more Canadian Provinces, so it was time to continue driving north through the fertile Red River Valley. And, we were now so glad to be following our new layover philosophy. Without it, look what we’d have missed in Barnesville, Fargo, and Grand Forks. Only took us two years to figure this out.

Male member of the BunMack team. Happy to be Ms Fix It's lovely assistant on past and future projects. Maybe I'll learn some skills along the way. 69 years old when this adventure began, with expectations to help family and friends with their projects, see great sights along the way, and enjoy our life together.

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