Western Wedding Adventures

After leaving the Scandinavian Heritage Park on Friday, we traveled to Fargo where we spent the night. On Saturday, we wanted to get to the outskirts of Chicago, so we could travel through Chicago early Sunday morning to avoid traffic. That meant traveling almost 600 miles. It was a long day, but worth it to avoid traffic delays. On Sunday, we decided to make another push and get all the way home. So we traveled 500 miles on Sunday. It was two long, difficult days, but we made it safely and are glad to be back home. Now the fun begins: unloading, doing loads of laundry, grocery shopping, etc. We had a wonderful trip filled with beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery, a fabulous wedding, and enjoyable adventures. Thank you for following along. I hope you enjoyed the blog and I didn't bore you too much! It's fun to travel, but always great to be back home!

On Friday, we continued driving east. It seemed like we were in Montana forever. Montana is a very long state. We finally crossed into North Dakota. One of the first towns we came to in North Dakota was Williston. We were both very familiar with Williston from our oilfield days. Williston is a big oilfield town, and when working for Gulf Oil, we heard a lot about it as we had a field office there. There were signs of oilfield production everywhere, with rigs, pumps, service companies, etc. Pumping Jack Oil rigs We also passed through Rugby, North Dakota, which claims to be the geographic center of North America. At this point, the main goal is to get home, but we had yet one last stop to make. In Minot, North Dakota, we stopped to visit The Scandinavian Heritage Park. This park celebrates the heritage of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden with buildings, statues, and monuments.  Overlooking the Park There is a full scale replica of a Norwegian Church, a Finnish sauna, a ...

On Thursday, we left Kalispell and started heading east toward home. On our way out, we saw the mountains in the morning light, and they formed a beautiful silhouette against the morning sky. We started off by repeating our drive along the edge of Glacier National Park. Although we had seen the park the day before, the mountains were so beautiful that we couldn't help but take more pictures. It is just simply a beautiful place. You just feel like you want to take a picture to capture a little bit of it and take it home with you. As we were leaving the town of Kalispell, we noticed a plethora of signs about Jesus. There were signs in front yards, on sides of buildings, in front of churches, in fields, and there was a huge horseshoe shaped collection of billboards, all with religious messages. We traveled west to east across Montana on Highway 2. This highway is in the very far north of Montana. This sign served as a reminder of how far north we were. Turn left for Canada We passed t...

On Wednesday morning, we traveled to Glacier National Park, which is about 45 minutes from our campground. The drive that goes through the park is called the "Going to the Sun" highway. The mountains in Glacier National Park are the northern part of the Rockies. We saw some of the most spectacular mountain scenery we've ever seen. In fact, Joe and I discussed whether it was the best mountain scenery in the U.S. He took the affirmative. I think it is one of the best, but we've seen many beautiful mountains so I hesitate to say the very best. Passes are required to enter the park (due to the large crowds), and we were fortunate enough to be able to obtain a pass Tuesday evening, when they made a few more available. We entered through the west gate, and shortly after entering the main gate, there is a station where they check your pass and also decide if they will allow your vehicle to go through. There is a vehicle length limit of 21 feet; our truck is almost 23 feet. W...