7th-8th June: days 60 & 61
As of yesterday we have been on the road for 8 weeks, have covered about 3800 miles and are now travelling through our 7th state. Despite the close proximity living we are still talking to each other 99% of the time, and I have become inexplicably fond of doing my laundry in a laundromat. Our favourite times have been stopping in the very small towns, and meeting the locals. There is usually a reciprocal fascination and after the common opening gambit of “Do I detect an accent there?” (Most people pick us as Australian initially) and “You folks are a long way from home” the follow up conversation usually involves the question “Why have you come here?”. Sometimes we have no answer for that.
Today’s drive took us northwards through North Dakota. This is a farming state with rolling prairie land as far as the eye can see. More long straight roads with mostly poor quality tar seal. No danger of going too fast or dozing off. We had no planned destination for the night, just a few things we wanted to see.
We passed the geographical centre of the USA somewhere back in South Dakota, but Rugby, North Dakota is the geographical centre of North America. This is marked by an obelisk at a crossroads. We stopped there.
Mid afternoon saw us roll up to a very small town in the middle of nowhere called Munich. (Obviously North Dakota had a strong German representation by its original settlers.) It was beautifully kept with all the lawns and edges mown, all the houses newly painted and a sweet little municipal campground with an honesty box for payment. Perfect. This is affluent farming country and the town is surrounded by grain elevators, silos and yards full of expensive looking machinery and tractors.
Having set up camp we walked into ‘town’, a grocery store and bar, bought something for dinner from the former and then called into the latter for a ‘quick drink’ and to meet some natives. There is always a bite the bullet moment when entering a small town bar. Usually there is no way of peering in to check it out first and the locals are always sat up at the bar having a communal conversation with the bar person. So a grand entrance by a couple of preppy looking strangers usually turns heads and stops conversation. Nick sends me in slightly ahead as I am braver but, to be honest, we have not yet met with anything but sincere friendliness.
After 2 hours we were buddies with the owner (from Oregon), the barmaid (a South African) and a local farmer, and I managed to extract Nick who, in his lubricated state, was starting to think that it would be a great idea to buy the bar and move to Munich.
On the way out in the morning we visited another bizarre spot, a decommissioned nuclear missile site just outside Necoma. It was part of the Stanley R Mickelsen Safeguard Complex built to defend the Minuteman Missiles down the road. Its most recognisable feature is a large pyramidal structure. It cost $6bn to build in the 70s and was only in active operation for 3 months. It was put up for sale in 2012 and was bought by a Hutterite community (ironically a religious pacifist sect) for $530,000. They have done nothing with it, except fence it off and block anyone from visiting. Shame. We drove up as close as we could get and took some photos from the road.
After our sightseeing stop we continued eastwards and to our 8th state, Minnesota.