Thursday, November 29, 2007

Heading West

Up early Saturday November 3 I was anxious to start heading west. The day started out perfectly. I left in the early morning predawn just as the gray eastern sky was starting to lighten. US2 was, of course, empty! I had braced myself with motel room coffee so I hoped to be good until Grand Rapids, Minnesota where I hoped to find breakfast. The very first living thing I saw that day was a bald eagle. It was one of 6 I would see in Minnesota. It promised to be a very good day.

There are thousands of lakes in northeastern Minnesota. You see several around every curve. Ducks, cranes and maybe a loon seem to be on every lake. The deer had gone into hiding. I saw a few hunters but only a few, their presence was mainly known by pickup trucks along the road.

The quaint little diner had I had hoped to find eluded me in Grand Rapids and I had to settle for Burger King in Bemidji. But now had coffee so how bad could things be!!

Bemidji ends was the lakes district in Minnesota. I'm now on the great corn prairie of the country. I'm not sure the few people I see are even Lutherans! It's big sky and looks what I imagined the Dakotas to be!

By noon the wind is up, and I mean really up. I am into the teeth of 25 to 40 mile per hour winds. I notice about 2 pm that my fuel economy is down to 45 miles per gallon, 10 miles less than every before.

The countryside has a nice open feel but it's mind numbingly boring. It's changed only by the occasional grain elevator. But I'm still on my own private highway and can go as fast as I want.

About 2:30 I see what looks to be a huge storm front on the horizon but we push on. The weather is not that of summer storms and tornadoes. The temperature is in the low 50's and the wind makes it feel cold.

At 3 pm it's dark! Dark as night but why? I realize that I am in a dust storm and I only see the car lights coming at me when they are right up to me. The dust lasts about 15 minutes and then clears completely. The sun is out but the wind persists.

I'm through Minot, ND and starting to climb some hills into the wind. The little red car is laboring but the wind is fierce and now I'm climbing. I look down to notice the "check engine" light is on!

I'm pretty sure you can get get your GMC Triton V12 serviced about anywhere in ND but I'm not sure about a Honda Insight! I pulled off to a rest stop to check things out and the engine didn't stop like it's supposed to. It seemed to be running a little rough. In truth the check engine light came on within 300 miles of driving this car out of the showroom. That was a software problem and I'm hoping that this is too but in those cases the car ran as normal and it may be my imagination but something seems to be wrong.

Fifteen minutes later the decision is made to go back to Minot where I know there's a dealer. Back on the road I decide to again check the mileage....75 to the gallon! Looks like software to me but the prudent thing seems to be get it checked out so I spend the night in Minot with an option to check out on Monday after the dealer opens.

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