Westward, Ho! Day 2

Between Annie’s eagerness to get to St. Olaf and our eagerness to get driving, we were up and out of Rochester by 8:00am. Annie was positively levitating--when she wasn’t on the verge of an anxiety attack. Love those mixed emotions. But levitating won out, and she ran SCREAMING out of the car to the dorm to greet friends and roomies. 

She’s in a quad this year, and the room is massive. Much fun will be had, as she loves her roomies, and has the Fearsome Foursome to watch her back. I am so glad for her.

Mom and I stayed for about 20 minutes. Then I started to get REALLY antsy. We were clearly extraneous, as much as Annie would have liked for me to stay all day long and schmooze with her friends. We took off after long hugs and assurances that I’d see her in three weeks.

Time to pull out my precision maps and itinerary!  We took a few moments to figure out what we were doing. We attempted to figure out how to work the brand spanking new GPS. We stopped for more coffee. Then, zoom! Off to North Dakota. 

Well, first we had to drive through most of Minnesota--lovely, beautiful, hilly Minnesota. I like it there. We took turns driving. I enjoyed playing with technology, as I figured out how to use both the GPS system and Mom’s new Android. It was much fun having internet access while driving through new territory. Lots of questions to Google!

Internet access meant we could use Yelp to find great (or at least palatable) restaurants along the way. We stopped for lunch at the kitchy yet good Viking Café in Fergus Fall, MN where we had yummy chicken dumpling soup. 

Before dinner, we made our first genealogy stop. My Great Great Grandparents (Lewis Lintemuth and Ida Laser) homesteaded outside of Grand Forks. And my G Grandmother, Anna, was born on that homestead. I found the original plat and, eventually, figured out the exact location of the two acres Lewis and Ida bought in 1886. 

Lewis and Ida only stayed there a few years. The winter of 1888, memorably recounted in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Long Winter”, discouraged them. They went back to Michigan, where both of their families lived. 

It was impossible to recall those blizzards on the warm and sunny afternoon, as we walked the property. It is still mostly farm country. I took photos of Mom, and thought about how much she loved her Grandma Anna.


Later, dinner was great at The Blue Moose Bar and Grill in Grand Forks, with walleye, gimlets and sweet potato French fries. Shortly thereafter, Mom literally dropped into bed upon arriving at the really lovely Spring Hills Marriot in Grand Forks (fresh and new, with the best breakfast buffet I’ve had on this side of the Atlantic.)