Alexandria, MN to Edgely ND

Written by Sheila and Linda

Day two began with a great pancake breakfast at Den and Barb’s. And speaking of pancakes, the morning also began with a flat tire on Merv’s car. Merv and Larry put the spare on, no problem.

Well its now the morning of the third day 3. And I thought time was going to be plentiful on this trip. Its been tough finding the time to write.

So on the way to have the tire repaired yesterday, another tire went flat on our car. M&L put one of Larry’s spare tires on and we were once again on our way. Merv put new tubes in the tires before we left. It turns out the rubber on the tubes was of bad quality and had degraded. Fortunately the service station in Parkers Prairie had two tubes. There is a tractor that has similar size tires. The station only had two tubes of that size. We are on the look out for another two as we go along.

We headed out cross country from Parkers Prairie  with Larry and Linda in the lead and crossed the Red River at Breckenridge. I was totally absorbed in following our route on the map and watching the countryside turn from lake country oak savanna to flat prairie with its occasional wetlands.

Linda was frustrated because choice of roads seemed to be either highways with semis or minimum maintenance dirt “field roads.” She noticed a sign for a Wild Rice Preservation Area. And numerous potholes seemed to be surrounded by wild rice.

Well into the afternoon Larry and Linda’s car overheated. As the guys were replacing the coolant, I enjoyed observing the marshland on either side of the road while Linda stood guard behind the cars holding up a FTD Lakeland Coop neon green shirt as a warning flag.

After we got back underway, the packing at the connection of the exhaust pipe and the manifold  of Merv’s car gave way and we rode along listening to a very loud ticking sound.

Linda’s wildlife observations: 2 sandhill cranes, lots of swamp birds including, great blue herons, snowy egrets and a deer.

We were amused by the area’s short railroad telegraph poles still with their glass insulators not much taller than the corn.

It does seem unlikely, but actually Merv had a good day. I think he said “cripe” a couple of times but I guess these sorts of  issues are to be expected with these old cars. I had a good day too. Am really enjoying life at 40mph.We stopped traveling after 7pm last night.  After having a bite to eat we crashed.

I’ll upload pictures tonight I hope. Last night the wifi here was so slow as to be unusable . No cell coverage either.  I am amongst morning people who are ready and raring  to start day 3.