First of all, I want to start by saying a huge thank you to Garrett, who graciously saved us from the 40km/hr+ wind today! We left Minot getting stuck in the State Fair parade, which left us taking about 500 wrong turns before getting on the correct highway. Once on the highway, we weren’t really on it; we kept on getting pushed off into the gravel by the crazy wind! We pulled over to a rest area about 30km in and I tried to open the door to the washrooms, but it was so incredibly windy I could barely get the door open and left the lady in an onlooking car laughing.

Later in the ride the highway curved and we turned, pretty much directly, into the lunatic wind. We decided that this wasn’t in any way safe, we were going to fall, or worse, if we kept going. We decided to try our luck at hitch hiking, once again. Lucky for us, the second or third car stopped and Garrett offered to drop us in Grand Forks. It’s crazy how there can be so much kindness found in complete strangers! We had a great ride filled with interesting conversation and a stop at Starbucks. We learned lots of things about North Dakota and Minnesota, like the fact that North Dakota is boring and flat and even more boring but Minnesota is much more exciting.

Probably the most exciting part of today was the fact that Garrett was transporting a giant shopping cart! We had no idea what it was at first, but when we were told it was totally obvious. There are many pictures below, because yes, it’s as cool as it sounds.

We’re currently about 10km from the border of Minnesota. We will have a rest day here in Grand Forks tomorrow as the wind isn’t supposed to have died down yet. After that we will head onward to the East. The big excitement of the tomorrow will involve doing a load of laundry.

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