Destination Circle: Day 4

May 17, 2016

There was a grand detailed map of the Devil's Lake area in the motel, and I saw a little detour south of town that I could take through some of the watery places. It was a quiet and sunny spring morning on the prairies; I saw all kinds of waterfowl and a few fishing boats.

Devil's Lake area with nesting cormorants

Mosquitos on my windshield at Devil's Lake, ND

This part of the country is noted for northern pike, walleye, perch and bass, and more than once there were gigantic fish "sculptures" along the highway, usually walleye with huge gaping mouths. The mosquitos were abundant so I drove with the windows closed. When I stopped they immediately collected en masse on the windows.

On to Williston, where I didn't want to stay due to the testosterone-laden, red-neck, rather ramshackly, dusty milieu but it turned out OK as I found a motel five miles north of town which had an actual, fairly well-stocked library and a lovely room on the third floor facing west - my first choice if I can look over fields and watch a country sunset. Which I did. The desk guy told me about a dinner buffet and that "the food for tonight looks very good," but it was pretty awful. No big deal....

A very, very large woman and her husband were the only other obvious travelers while I eating. They were going east on the same route I am taking west and were going to "do a lot of things in northern Minnesota and just poke around," then drive across the UP and on down along the west coast of Michigan, going to Chicago and eventually getting to a family reunion in Nebraska. I think they lived in Oregon as they had "duck" stuff for family members there. How do people get so incredibly overweight? and does it always define them immediately to a stranger? and how compromised their lives must be....

A few working men came in, ate quickly and left, dressed in well-worn working jeans and shirts and boots. CNN was on at one end of the room with real-time results of the Hillary / Bernie close race; the TV at the other end was showing a baseball game. The dining room was large and sunny with a dozen round tables each seating six, sort of like a school cafeteria. When we finished eating, we scraped our dishes into a trash container and put them in a tub of soapy water. My room had a note: "Please remove your muddy boots in our mud room." 

Small prairie pothole in North Dakota, one of thousands

I perused the library (certainly not a necessity as I have TWO boxes of books in my car) and found a book about back-to-the-land Alaskans. I asked the desk guy (who thanked me for "using our library") what the deal was, and he said I could "take the books to your room" but not home. I did anyway and will mail it back to them eventually. I already have two Herrick Library books that need to be returned via mail.