September 2 - Drive to Minot, Wisconsin

We had a relaxed breakfast with Lois, packed the trailer, hitched up the truck, and were on the road by 9:20, a decent if not spectacularly early start. After 3 weeks of driving the truck without the trailer I found that I had to get used to the constraints of pulling the Tin Blimp all over again, but it came back rather quickly. We spent the day trundling north at 60 mph past Madison, Eau Claire, and Rice Lake to a campground south of Duluth for the night. The Wisconsin countryside alternated between prosperous looking farms with healthy crops, mainly corn, and the occasional pastureland, lake or wetlands area. I thought that some of the barns with the silos vaulting skyward next to them were particularly pretty.

We decided to call a halt around 5 p.m. as we were both getting pretty pooped. We found a public park on a small lake, and after quite a bit of backing and forthing I managed to back the trailer into one of the spaces. I wasn't sure if I had lost some of my "backup" skills or whether this was a particularly tricky entrance, but we finally did get it in and hooked up for the night. For $15 we only got electricity, of course, but that was enough and we settled in for the night with our customary light dinner followed by computer work and an early bedtime.