We made it!  We traveled for eight days following the Mississippi River.  We started at 117,892 and we hit the headwaters at 119,000.  It has been a beautiful (slightly rainy) trip.

Dadda and Brooke at the Visitor’s Center playing with the puppets. The Visitor’s Center was very hands-on and we liked it so much that we visited it yesterday and again today.  The second picture was taken today, Friday.  Cody has a youth size poncho, but it was big enough to fit the entire family.  Scott came up with the idea of a small garbage bag.

This is it!  The headwaters!!!

One of our favorite parts of traveling is meeting new and exciting people.  Scott loves bicycling and noticed that these two ladies looked like they were out for a ride on a fairly rainy day.  It turns out they were out for quite a ride!  They are riding from Fargo, North Dakota to Ohio, there home state.  Bea is a science teacher and Marlyn is a music teacher.  They have spent the last two summers biking other parts of the U.S. as well.  We thought the rain was putting a damper on our trip, but can you imagine biking five to eight hours a day and having the rain follow you most of the way?  Marlyn and Bea were kind enough to share their “Northern Tier Bicycle Adventure” experiences and their very unique recumbent bikes with us.  I think Scott has another bucket list idea.  It sounds like quite an amazing adventure.  Thanks for your time ladies!  It was great meeting you!  Have a safe journey!

This is Brooke excitedly pointing to a duck at the headwaters.  I’m not sure you can actually see the duck, but you also can’t see the cloud of mosquitoes following her.  We all looked like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon.  We each had our own cloud of mosquitoes.  They even followed us into the bathroom!

An unexpected landmark along the way

Brooke was very sad when we turned away from the Mississippi River and the railroad tracks and headed towards North Dakota.  It looks like we are going to attempt to do laundry tomorrow before heading into Canada.  We are heading West on Route 2 right now and will stay on it all the way until the edge of the North Dakota / Montana border and then we will head North on Route 85 into Canada.  We are unsure of our phone service and Wifi options in Canada, so it may be a little while until you hear from us, but we will do our best to stay connected.  Keep those comments coming we love to hear from you.