Experience in the Plains

Wednesday was a very long day but it was successful in bringing me to one of Steve's favorite places in the world -North Dakota.

We boarded the flight to Denver with his parents at 3pm.  Smooth flight; however, when we arrived we learned the connecting flight to Minot was cancelled.  The airline quickly said it was "not their fault"; we suspect it was due to such a small number of passengers.  We ended up detouring to Willingston, two hours from Minot.  Steve's uncle picked us up and we finally tumbled into bed around 1am.

Thursday I was invited to have lunch at the country club with the girls.  These gals were a close knit group of friends of Steve's mom Kathy (who goes by Kiki in ND) and her sister Ann.  All ten of us had lunch, where I learned that most everyone in the small community were related to one another.  One married one's brother, another's son had married one's daughter, and so on.  It was a lunch full of stories, remembrances, and laughs.

After lunch we rode over to Velva to watch second cousins Maddie and Libby play volleyball at the school.  Meaning the school where all kids, kindergarten to senior, take classes.  Following that, Steve took me on a tour of Velva, where his mom grew up and where he spent many summers as a child.  Our evening ended up meeting his parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin for dinner before heading to Aunt Ann's to stay for the night.

Friday we slept in then later in the day we cruised to Strawberry Lake, a community of cabins surrounding a lake that is a summertime getaway for Steve's relatives.  We stopped at Uncle Mike's cabin to relax and enjoy the sights before making our way to the Burns ranch for dinner.

Steve's second cousin is getting married at the Burns ranch so we were invited to the rehearsal dinner.  A big tent was up and the decorating was being fine-tuned when we arrived.  Today at 6pm the wedding will be held and we are looking forward to the big party to follow.

This morning Steve met up with another cousin and friends to go duck hunting.  They ended up getting 10 ducks and 10 geese and a barrel of laughs.

A few things I've learned so far on my trip - ND is very windy, there's always a patch of hay to be found, and everyone is friendly.