Thursday night I returned to Minot. Since last Sunday I had been on the road visiting several friends. The main impetus for this journey was to visit my very good friend in Wisconsin, Denise, who has terminal stomach cancer. Now was a good time to visit her and lend moral and physical support as she is remodeling her house to make it handicap accessible.
- "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."
It is a long drive from Minot to Wisconsin. Fortunately my childhood friend - from first grade - lives in Kindred, ND, not quite half way to my destination. Francis and his family visited me in MT this past summer and I was glad to be able to repay them with a visit.
Sunday - as I don't have my car here - I borrowed my brother's pickup and drove to Kindred. Now my brother's pickup is a work truck and not a show truck. The suspension is stiff and I bounced over every crack, dip, and frost heave in the highway. There wasn't much room in the cab for my long legs so I was forced to sit straight with good posture as I bounced around. This is gonna be a long trip!
Another feature of the pickup is dual gas tanks. The unfortunate part was that the gas in one of the tanks was bad and unusable as the pickup sputtered when I switched over to using that tank. Great!
Only one tank meant stopping for gas was a common occurance. I saw more gas stations on this trip than in my many years of traveling this route between NoDak and Minnesota.The traffic - of course - was light in NoDak. The "highlight" was when I saw three highway patrol cars in a row with three cars on the interstate highway's shoulder. Strange... usually one hardly sees the highway patrol in N. Dakota. As I passed under a nearby highway overpass I noticed another patrol car on the overpass parked the wrong way in the northbound lane. This was so the officer could see the approaching westbound cars. So that's how the police caught three cars in a row! I'm not sure why the highway patrol resorted to such an effort as it appeared that much of the traffic was driving the 75 mph speed limit, or not much above it. It was different in Minnesota and Wisconsin where the speed limit is 70 mph and 65 mph respectively. Many of the other vehicles there zoomed right past me. It seemed as if the lower the speed limit, the faster the people drove.
For supper Francis and I went to Fargo to have supper at an Indian restaurant. The food was very good and it was a nice change from my hometown where there are no Indian restaurants. The spice was well done as it "grew" as one ate instead of overwhelming the taste buds from the first bite.
The next morning after a short hestitation as to which N. Dakota interstate exit to use to find the highway that is a shortcut across the Red River to the interstate in Minnesota, I found my way. Approaching the Twin Cities I was reminded how much I don't miss driving in Minnesota. Minnesota drivers do seem to be finally getting a clue that slower drivers should drive in the right lane. I guess the newer highway signs reminding them of that are the reason.
In Wisconsin I found their travel/tourist information was closed and I couldn't get a Wisconsin map. Was Wisconsin closed for the winter? That made getting to my destination harder as the highway exit I was told to use did not exist. But I found my way eventually.
I had a good couple of days visiting with Denise then it was time to return home. What would I do without the internet and access to weather forecasts for points on my route? Well, I guess it would be like the old days where I drove through winter snow storms. The forecast in N. Dakota was for snow, cold, and wind late Thursday night and through Friday. So much for my plan on breaking up my return trip and staying at Francis's house Thursday night.
I got an early start in the morning; and figuring that my return trip would not have any more missed exits and alternate routes, I would make good time and be able to beat the winter snow into Minot Thursday night.
I was a little sad that morning leaving Denise, and driving through the Cities and seeing old landmarks, suburbs, and past haunts, I fell into a melancholic reverie. I never lived in the Cities but lived close enough to it that the Cities were a destination. And now, today, it was not a destination. This suburb, or this highway, was visited with this or that friend, or friends, in this or that years. Or alone when I was young and had first moved to Minnesota. A visit then to the Cities was a weekend event and I tried to see and do all I could. No plan, and sometimes after midnight I would just find a quiet street and sleep in my car overnight. After an early breakfast I was ready for day number two and all I could cram into this day before it was time to return home late on a Sunday night.
Even growing older, and outgrowing the adventure of late nights and sleeping in my car, there are still plenty of reasons to visit the Cities. While I think I am generally a happy or satisfied person ("Am I a Republican?" See the Pew Research Center study for more info), I also have the Midwestern reserve that prevents me from proclaiming my happiness from the rooftops. I am happy in Montana and seldom think about Minnesota outside of thinking about the friends I left behind. Were my current musings a result of pent up or suppressed feelings or regrets?
Francis theorized "I suspect it feels somewhat like you have dropped out of life and it is moving past you, even though that is not true. There is something about being in the ratrace that makes you feel as if you are going somewhere." I am happy with where I am and what I am doing, but seeing "my past life" got me thinking on how my life would now be if I had stayed in Minnesota. Life wasn't bad there - it was good - but I also was a little restless and bored by parts of it. Other parts of my life - mainly the people I knew - were great. I visited Rochester a year ago and had many of these same feelings. That is partly why this trip was only to see Denise and I did not extend the trip by visiting old haunts in southern Minnesota.
Ah, memories. How is it that old memories are good memories?
While I believe I have happiness in everyday life - and therefore it's not my wildest dream - this photo from PostSecret appealed to me and felt appropriate to what I've just discussed.PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. They are collected into a book. An interesting site, even if some of "postcards" are from people who seem to be suffering from depression.
I made good time driving, and upon reaching North Dakota I decided to drive all the way to Minot. Lost in thought during the journey I never turned the radio on till I was an hour from home. Then ironically, in the middle of N. Dakota, I tuned in news and traffic reports from Des Moines, Iowa, then the Twin Cities.
- "One day at a time- this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering."
I beat the snow. None had fallen when I reached Minot. The next morning I awoke to 6 to 8 inches or more blanketing everything. Minot even was featured with a video segment Friday on the Weather Channel. Strange... usually N. Dakota weather is ignored by the national media.
Here is a photo of the new snow. Prior to the snow the ground was bare.
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