Today was a transfer day from Minneapolis to Fargo, North Dakota. Before setting off we decided to steel ourselves by visiting Al’s Breakfast one more time. Having eaten our fill once again we set off on our trip through the Minnesotan countryside.
A few miles down the road we heard some strange noises coming from on top so we pulled over and found some of the fixtures had not been fully tightened down so we made a few quick adjustments and set off.
As we head north through Minnesota we start to see the type of scenery we expect to see for the next few hundred miles. Basically all we see are gentle rolling hills made up of fields and
prairie land, broken up with numerous lakes. To break up the monotony I planned to try and find some strange roadside attractions. My first mission (I hadn’t shared this with Karen and the children – wanted it to be a surprise) was to find a 150ft Otter which is supposedly in a park in a town called Fergus Falls. Unfortunately Fergus Falls was larger than expected and I couldn’t find the park and being male could not bring myself to ask for directions to a 150ft otter. The rest of the family were getting frustrated because they obviously didn’t know what we were looking for and I played on this by refusing to tell them even as Fergus Falls fell back into the distance. Fortunately there was a second target just up the road – this time a large prairie chicken, in the town of Rothsay, the prairie chicken capital of the world (I wonder who else competed for this honour). This 
discovery improved my mood after the disappointment of the otter. Now on a roll we head off to Pelican Falls to find …. you guessed it the world’s largest Pelican. The town is quite small but as you might expect pelicans are everywhere, not real ones of course but various shapes and sizes statues of the large jowl water fowl. The river is also named after the aforementioned bird and across it is the most lovely suspension foot bridge. Just down from the bridge is large weir at the bottom of which is our prey - a 15ft high pelican.Having had our fill of road side attractions we put our heads down and head off to our overnight destination; Fargo, North Dakota, just inside the state line. Our hotel is the Holiday Inn Express in Fargo. Myself and Karen spend nearly an hour transferring stuff from the inside of the van to our newly acquired roof box – after minimal swearing and a bit of huffing and puffing we get the clasp on the box closed.
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