Home again

Dear Family and Friends,

Usually when we leave Powers Lake for home we go through Stanley and back on Highway 2. This time we went east on Highway 50 which connects with 52 through Donnybrook, Carpio and on to Minot. I believe this route is much more scenic and with the weather we have been having, the clouds have been spectacular. We both love the big white fluffy clouds and the deep blue sky of the Northern Plains. Karen has quite a file of cloud photos assembled already.

We arrived in Minot and spent a good part of the day doing our monthly shopping. We don't get to Minot as often as we once did because of gas prices so when we are there we spend the day. When we left for home, a major rain storm began. We probably should have stayed and waited it out but not knowing how long it would last we headed to Butte since it was getting late. We drove in the rain the whole way and as soon as we pulled into Butte, it quit and the sun was shining. We did, however, pull up to our house as a beautiful rainbow was forming over our yard and a river of water was still running down our street.

We hope you enjoy our journeys with us. However, if you want to be excluded from all of our excursions, just let us know.

Love, Keith and Karen

To Powers Lake, Keith's hometown

Dear Family and Friends,

When we left Kenmare, we followed the Des Lacs river out of town and took in the beauty of the valley. Everything was so clean and crisp after the rains and spring time here is always so colourful. The Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge is probably the best of many birding areas in the whole country. The following week there were a group of young "birders" here from all over the country. These were teenagers and they had all gathered here to view birds that many of them had only heard or read about. One comment from a young boy was, "(This bird) is very shy. Usually you can only hear it out there but I ACTUALLY SAW it!" When a girl was asked what was different here from where she lived, she said, "There are no cars on the highways!"

The drive to Powers Lake was good and it is always nice to go back and visit my "hometown". Yes, Powers Lake will be celebrating their Centennial next year. I remember being there for the 50th ! ! ! UFFDA. And we alway enjoy going back to visit the only uncle I have left, Uncle Freddie and Aunt Carol. They moved off the farm about four years ago and really enjoy being in town now. They both have their health issues but they are always so quick to give thanks to God for all that they do have and for the life that God has blessed them with. Probably the one thing that keeps them going is their sense of humour. They are always laughing and joking despite some of the obstacles they face. A good lesson to learn. Every time we are there we learn something new. This time Uncle Freddie took time to give me a little history lesson of his side of the family. He has been gathering old photos of his family and writing up some history.

We brought sandwich stuff with us in the RV so between games of Rummikub we set everything on their table and sat around making sandwiches and talking and eating. Rummikub? Yes, they are experts (they taught us how to play several years ago) and they play almost every day. Carol always treats us too with her homemade desserts and coffee.

We camped at our favourite spot at the Lake campground. We had to dig pretty deep this time too to come up with the $3.00 camping fee here.

Next...........

Love, Keith and Karen

Who likes malts?

We continue with our travels of this past June. To recap: we had sent e-mails of these travels and now that we have started this blog, we are posting them again here so they will be archived. Following is the original e-mail and photos plus one or two more.


Dear Family and Friends,

When we were in downtown Kenmare, we noticed a sign on the drugstore that said, "Soda Fountain". Right away in our minds we envisioned the sight of an "old fashioned" soda fountain. But it's only 10 o'clock in the morning. Why would we want to go to a soda fountain at that time of the day? We looked at each other and said, "this just might turn into another one of those adventures for us". So in we went to investigate. Sure enough, it was a turn-of-the-century soda fountain in all its original glory. And I'm not talking about the turn of THIS LAST century either. It was in use up until the late 50s or early 60s when it was dismantled and stored in the basement of the drugstore. Then in the late 80s or early 90s it was brought back up during a remodel and is back in full use again. We just love to see something this spectacular being brought back to life again. And being used again. Especially for malts.

Now who likes malted milks? Who likes malted milks at 10am? Who likes REAL malted milks? I have been known to be a real malted milk connoisseur for most of my life. I know very few people who like malts like I do. There is one person I remember giving a taste of my malt to when he was two or three years old. This little boy grabbed onto my malt and I couldn't get the straw out of his mouth. This little boy turned into a malt aficionado too.......... But I digress. Since I could see that they use the REAL malt powder, not the liquid or an imitation, we ordered one to share. Yep, we'll be back ! ! !

Stay tuned, there's more,

Love, Keith and Karen

The Mill

Dear Family and Friends,

Karen and I continue our little outing in Kenmare, ND by taking a little drive around the area and stopping at the Old Danish Mill. It was a beautiful day after the rain storm so it was nice to get out and stretch our legs a bit. The sign on the mill pretty much explains its history.

Love, Keith and Karen

On to Kenmare

Dear Family and Friends,

The morning we left Mohall the rain started. It was a steady soaking rain too. The kind that the farmers really like. And it was well needed too as North Dakota, especially in the northwest part of the state, has been in somewhat of a drought condition for some time now. I'm sure it is well appreciated.

We set up camp in the Kenmare City Campground, right across the way from the Pioneer Village and Museum. Many of the campers in the park were oil field workers. This is the part of the state where there has been oil development for close to 50 years now and also where the new reserves have recently been discovered. So there is a lot of new drilling going on along with all the associated activities.

Kenmare is home to the world reknowned Goosefest that takes place in the fall of the year. It is also on the Des Lacs River and surrounded by the Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge. We wanted to tour this refuge as well but since it ended up raining all day long, we simply stayed in our trailer all day and took the oportunity to just relax. I'm sure we will be up that way again in the future so we can check it out then. Besides, we took advantage of our "inside" time to polish up on our game of Rummikub.

More later...........Love, Keith and Karen

More of Mohall

At Mouse River Park.

Keith's cousin Don and his wife Ruby

Old and new cabins

Again, I am trying to add our original e-mails and photos of our trip from June. Following is also the original e-mail.


Dear Family and Friends,

One purpose for our early camping trip this year was to investigate some new camping areas close to home and to visit a few of our relatives who we haven't seen for a while. Mohall is close to the Upper Souris (Souris is French for mouse) River National Wildlife Refuge. Therefore we thought that would be a good place to start our adventure, and visit my cousin at the same time.

So that evening after the Flower Shop tour, Don and Ruby took us to the Mouse River Park where there is a nice little cafe. We had a good meal and then toured around the park a little even though it was just starting to rain. It is quite a resort area that was built during the WPA era. The purpose was to build a dam for flood control on the Souris River which flows through Minot. (I hope I got all this right.) All this created lake Darling which is known far and wide for its good fishing. There are many miles of roadways there too that offer some spectacular sights of wildlife, birding etc. The resort still has a lot of old and somewhat run-down summer cabins (eg. old trailers etc.) but are slowly being replace by more modern buildings including some log cabins. There is also a very beautiful RV campground there with 60 full hookup sites. It is definetly a place we will go to sometime and spend a lot more time (read: fishing) there. I don't know for sure if we will be able to afford it or not as they charge a whopping $13 a day to camp there. (I know of a free spot with a hot tub closer to Minot but the fishing isn't very good there.)

As a sideline: several years ago there was a plan to enlarge the flood control on the Souris River. This plan would have flooded the resort area and much more. So (and I forget exactly who it was) someone came up with a plan -Citizens United to Save the Valley. The plan was to "sell the valley by the yard". In other words, you could buy a square yard of the valley and get an actual deed for your land. It was encouraged to buy several "plots" and send the deeds to all your relatives in Norway. That way, it would be next to impossible for the government to gather up and buy all the deeds to all those plots of land. And it worked too!!!

Until next time....Love, Keith and Karen

Our first camping trip in June

When we had our first camping ADVENTURE of the year in June, I sent e-mails out because I had just started this blog and hadn't taken the time to learn all about it. Now I will try to re-create our original e-mails and even add a few more photos. Hopefully we will get better at this as time goes on.




Dear Family and Friends,

The spring up here in North Dakota is getting off to a slow start and thus our camping adventures this year too. The weather doesn't seem to warm up very fast so we are a little behind on our adventures. We had planned on taking the RV to Nebraska for our church's annual Synod meeting this past May but the weather AND THE FUEL PRICES put a damper on that trip. So I traveled there by myself in the Jeep with the hopes that we would be on the road soon after. We did pull the trailer to Minot in the begining of May to have the roof vents repaired and we stayed in a local campground for one night so we could also get in a little shopping as well.

Now that the weather is warming up a bit, although we are starting to get our spring rains now, we decided to take a little trip last week. We have pretty much decided that we will be staying local this year instead of any long distance traveling. I have a cousin in Mohall, ND and we have never been up there to visit them. (By the way, they have never been down to see us either--hint!) We only live about 100 miles apart so does it make sense that we haven't seen each other for years? I don't think so either. It was fun to visit with Don and his wife Ruby and get caught up on some family history and re-aquaint ourselves. Don's mother and my mother were sisters. Thank you Don and Ruby for all your hospitality and showing us around the area.

Mohall is a town of about 800 and they recently built a new campground at the fairgrounds, so the newly planted trees have a ways to grow yet. Karen and I really enjoy staying at "city park" campgrounds in the small towns of North Dakota. Usually the fees for full hook-ups is around $10 per night and we get to see a lot of the local flavour.

Ruby works part time at a local greenhouse (this is NOT just a typical greenhouse!), so they took us there and gave us a wonderful tour. The owner offers soup and sandwiches during the noon hours and also has a nice gift shop. We arrived too late for "lunch" but we are tempted to make another trip there just for the food and lots of browsing sometime.

So stay tuned............

Love, Keith and Karen

I have been sending out e-mails of our first real camping trip of the year because I haven't been able to figure out how to do it on this blog. But I will continue to educate myself and let everyone know the progress.

We are doing WHAT ? ? ?

Starting a BLOG? Aren't we too old to start a blog? Do we know HOW to do a blog? Why are we asking all these questions? We'll do it anyway! So hang on. Get ready for the ride of your life. We have some travels planned for this year and if you check in on us once in a while, we will show you our ADVENTURES up here on the Northern Plains.