Center of Things

Before I start our travels of the day, I have to share a rather funny story.  Ray is the best cook in our house, in fact he makes the most amazing pies!  When we have guests for dinner, he does the cooking as I cannot be trusted not to ruin the dinner.  Which I have done on more than one occasion!  I am okay with this, as you probably know.  I HATE cooking!  So last night we were going to have a nice steak with a baked potato.  Ray said the potato would take an hour to cook on the bar-b-que.  So he prepared it and put it on to bake, planning on turning it every 15 minutes.  Well he got a bit tied up with these US phones we have so I did the turning for him (mmm now that I am writing this, maybe that is why the story ends the way it does??).  We are taking turns flipping the spud.  It was pretty hard and rather big, so Ray says lets go for a walk as it looks like the potato will be awhile.  We went for a short walk, and when we came back we poked the potato.  It was still hard as a rock so he turned up the heat!  About 5 or 10 minutes later we thought we smell something burning.  So Ray takes the  take the foil off the potato to find it charcoal black!  Yes it was burned beyond eating!!!  So while Ray put the steak on to cook, I threw another potato in the microwave (yeah we are camping in style!) and cooked it.  Next thing I know Ray is on the phone again.  I go and lift the lid on the bar-b-y to check on the status of the steak.  We like our steak medium rare not dead and cooked to death.  The steak appeared to be overcook because it had black on one side!!!  He never ruins anything!!!  Must of been tired!  We did eat the overcook steak and my perfect potato.  Here is a picture of Ray's burned potato,,,,, yeah I just can't let this go by!

Okay enough of teasing Ray,,, moving foraward.

Well this morning, our 5th day started with two rather grumpy people. Remember I mentioned the train in last nights post?  Well when we booked in, the clerk said I hope that you do not mind trains.  Having camped many times at Derby's Reach and hearing the trains across the river we thought it would not be too bad.  Well last night about every 30 or 40 minutes a train roared through directly behind our campsite!  It was awful!  Needless to say neither of us got too much sleep.

We were up and on the road by 0750.  While the campsite itself was nice, we just can't get passed the train so would not recommend staying there.  So we head off towards North Dakota.  The rest of our travels through Montana revealed long lonely roads between some very small towns.  Not much happening in the northern part of Montana!  Lots and lots of wheat fields and rolling hills especially as you get closer to the North Dakota border.

North Dakota appears to be a much more prosperous State.  We saw many oil rigs, in fact more than we saw in the part of Alberta that we were in.  I am curious what northern Alberta looks like, by the oil fields!  There was also wheat fields galore, and also corn and sunflower fields.  The sunflower fields where huge!  What we did see that we found quite odd was miles and miles of camps with RV's and an ATCO village.  Rows and rows of ATCO trailers made into accommodations.  We think that both the RV parks and the ATCO village are likely set up for the workers in the oil rigs. One of the huge 5th wheels we saw said "8 person bunks" for rent.  It was enormous!

As some of you know me quite well, you will know that I like to be in the "middle" of all the action.  We tonight we are camping in Rugby N. Dakota. The thing that makes Rugby famous is that it is the "Geographical Center of North America".  Which means it is in the center of it all!  It is 1450 miles from here to the Arctic Circle and 2050 miles to Acapulco Mexico.  Lebec Maine is 1500 miles and Neah Bay Washington is 1100 miles.  Seems a bit out of whack with Acapulco being 2050 miles,,, but that is what the sign said.  What is cool about the monument is that they have the US flag, Canadian flag and the Mexico flag flying together.  Very cool!

And of course, a closer shot of the actual wording on the monument, and guess who?

Stay tuned for more of Ray and Lori's Bogus Adventure!!!

Lori and Raytard!