July 27 - Drive to Minot, North Dakota

As you can well imagine, we were still somewhat tired and groggy after such a poor night's sleep. I had seen a quonset hut with the name "Malta Tire" across the river from our campground, so I decided to see if they might have a new trailer tire for us. We walked over after breakfast and "John" immediately put down what he was doing and found us a new tire. Since he was holding down the front desk, he had to repeatedly break off and answer phone calls, but after 45 minutes or so we had a brand new tire on the rim for a total cost of $69.00. We actually started driving at 9:07 that morning and I was mighty relieved by once again having a spare, so I felt free to hold the speeds at 60 mph during the morning while the streets were still relatively cool.

Montana is a wide state, and by the time we drove down the valley for the Milk River, joined up with the Missouri River, and followed its valley east to North Dakota, the mileage numbers on US Route 2 were about 650 miles. Golly. This stretch in eastern Montana was quite flat so we could use the cruise control a lot, but it was also surprisingly interesting. Wherever farming was practical, it seemed, the land was planted in wheat or hay, and otherwise the land was dedicated to pasture, usually for horses. We had small towns every half-hour or so that slowed us down a bit, but that was really a welcome respite from the steady 60-mph pace. We also enjoyed passing through the Indian reservations and if we had more time I would have definitely liked to visit the tribal museums and arts and craft centers that we encountered along the way.

In the western part of North Dakota the land became more rolling and we often had to cancel the cruise control and use full throttle to climb the inclines. We kind of wound our way around some river or creek bottomlands and then seemed to climb a plateau where things leveled out as we drove on to Minot, a journey of several more hours through sparsely settled farmland. Now you might think that on these long drives we would get bored, but at least for us that is definitely not the case. Even in states like North Dakota where 40 miles can go by without so much as a gas station, the farmland crops stay about the same, and the radio stations are all set to "Country and Western", we still managed to entertain ourselves. We often did that by chatting with each other, otherwise known as the "Marital Discussion". A Marital Discussion, also known as an MD, cannot be started about just any random topic. Topics like "the Buick needs a new water pump" or "I'm thinking about rearranging the silverware drawer in the kitchen" may be Hot Topics for the staff or the distaff side of the household (so named because she disses the staff side), but they typically are not engaging enough for the other party to become a true Marital Discussion. If such a topic is broached, the response is typically an absent minded "Sure, dear" at best or simply a blank stare at worst. Not much grist for the old marital mill there.

No, the topics that can spark a true Marital Discussion are those in which both parties have a real stake. The one that came up on the drive across North Dakota was Monika buying a new two piece swimsuit. You might not think we both would have a real stake in that, but indeed we did. I don't have much of a stake in Monika's clothing in general, mind you, but with regard to her swimsuits I do feel a certain degree of spousal interest, so to speak. The Marital Discussion centered around whether we would both go shopping for Monika's new two piece swimsuit (my preference) or whether Monika would go shopping alone (her preference). Bob's position was that his experience and broad background in women's swimsuits (think Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue) would eminently qualify him to take part in the shopping expedition. Monika's position was that Bob's preferences could be easily summed up in the motto, "Less is More!" and he would be constantly pushing for the bikini style of swimsuit, which was not at all the style that Monika had in mind (or had the figure for). Now I admit that on the rafting trip at West Glacier I saw another raft with a young lady who had a black string bikini swimsuit that I did think was rather fetching, in the sense of finding it hard to take my eyes off her to look at the beautiful scenery. I just hoped the girl hadn't paid any more than the price of three handkerchiefs for that swimsuit, because there certainly wasn't any more material in it than that! But still I thought it was unfair to characterize my preferences so baldly and was trying to wrangle an invitation to Monika's planned shopping expedition with various and sundry arguments. That topic kept us occupied for many miles of North Dakota.

Although I think the poor night's sleep rather than that discussion was at fault, we were both getting surprisingly tired by 5 o'clock, so we called it a day. We put in at the Rough Rider RV park a few miles to the west of Minot, a nice place with friendly people. Had we had more energy, I'm sure we would have visited the North Dakota State Fair that was located on the other side of Minot at that time, but we were really pooped and just had enough oomph to work on the computers for a while before turning in. In bed we started reading "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, and that was a mistake because that book was so gripping that it was truly difficult, I mean really hard, to put it down and go to sleep when 10 o'clock rolled around. It was the kind of book that when you finally shut it and turn the lights out, you stay awake and start thinking about what will happen next, which is absolutely no way to get to sleep.