We drove...

July 17, 2013 Wednesday

We drove...

Today we drove...for 11 hours from Ashland Wisconsin to Bismark, North Dakota.  We’ve been so to many places and so many hotels, Lucas this morning after breakfast tried to get into room 200 which was the room number of the previous night.  Poor kid, he wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks he is either at home or in a room in Windsor Ontario.

Seriously, we drove for 11 hours today, Phil and I both have head colds and it is migrating to my throat.  If I could beam myself back to home I would in a nano-second.

We’ve had highs of 36 degrees Celsius  today with a humidity at 78% with the coolest temperature so far at 32 degrees - this mixed with my nose and ears being plugged, I feel like the oxygen mask should fall from the roof at any second to assist my breathing...oh wait, that’s in a plane....

I can’t imagine having to drive on top of how I feel, but Phil has been doing it for 2 days.  Apparently having something to do while you are sick is better than just sitting...I guess that depends on your own point of view - I however prefer to just sit...and blow my nose...and complain, which is the opposite of what Phil is doing.  He is such a trooper!

We reminisce today on the stuff we have seen and done and the first thing that comes to my mind is of the conversation with the Blacksmith at Upper Canada Village.  Some how ( don’t ask my how) we got on the conversation of horse shoes - there was a real horse hoof (cut off at the ankle) sitting on the “display table”.  I asked if that was a real horse hoof, and so the Blacksmith told me to pick it up and look underneath it.  I did and  having never seen the bottom of a horse’s hoof, surmised by his instruction and expression, that indeed it was a real horse hoof that still had it’s “shoe” on.

Without us asking much further, he started to explain to us the intricacies of how to put a horse shoe on a horse.  Well...he started into the description, which to me sounded like porn!  Obviously the first blacksmith  needed a woman, wanted a woman and somewhere during the process of shoeing a horse a-kind  a woman to the horse hoof. I was going to ask him about the door knocker, but decided against it after the horse shoeing instruction.

  To stop from myself from laughing out loud at the absurdity of what the horse shoe details are called - and how to set them on a horse, and how, if they fail to re-shoe the horse, -I took a gulp of water to suppress my giggles.  I begin to choke and sputter, eyes water and I cannot breath. I ask myself while choking, why wasn’t it called a bib, a flange, a hook, a stay, a grip, a or lip, a point, a joint, a stabilizer, an anchor, a clamp, a trap a lock,  a handle, a plug, an insert,....I could go on and on.  Anyway, in the 1800’s some men only had 1 thing on their mind, much like today...and that’s all I have to say about that!

One of the funniest signs we saw today but went by to fast so we could’t get a photo - it was an airport sign, and underneath it was a sign of a cross country skier.  We cannot remember any stories of the “good ol days” where our parents had to cross country ski to the airport...I am sure there are some out there.....??

We also saw a road sign that said “Oink Joint 1 Mile”..we are not sure if that it was a town or a farm, but either way...

So as you can see we find ways to amuse ourselves on these long drives.  We listened to “A Tale of 2 Cities” on tape, Fox news with Rush Limbaugh (he is thought provoking, and asks some very relevant and poignant questions as to the state of the US and it’s problems which Canada shares somewhat by association) and music.  

We stop by Brainerd Minnesota for lunch  and also because it was featured in the movie Fargo, find Blue the Ox, for entertainment, and carry on our way...until tomorrow....