Canada 2016 - Drayton to Grand Forks

Wednesday - July 20
There is an extreme heat alert for today and headwinds are predicted to be 9-10 mph so we got up really early. We were almost the first ones at Hastings Landing for breakfast at 6:15. The storm was the main topic of conversation at the locals table at breakfast. Lots of wheat crop damage from the hail, tree damage from the wind. There was baseball-sized hail to the southwest of here in Grafton and 80-90 mph winds. Drayton was on the outside edge of the main storm track and just got LOTS of rain. 

A very nice rest area about 9 miles south of Drayton.

All the picnic tables have a cover.

There is water everywhere.

We suspect that this little guy just might have drowned last night.

We didn't know we were in Poland....though it looks a lot like Poland around here except the roads are better.

Now we are in Norway????

Discussing the storm and surveying the damage.

Train tracks are the only reason the highway has a hill in this part of the world.

The skies got very overcast which helped with the heat and the wind is a little lighter than yesterday. We still took a break at almost every overpass.

The rumble strip pattern changed and stayed this way all the way to Grand Forks.  It was still a wide shoulder but we really couldn't use most of it. The wind was slightly from the west too, so it pushed us into the rumble strip is we got distracted.

The rumble strips didn't bother this guy. It is always so funny the random things we find on the shoulder of roads (it's a plastic spider)

We had lunch in Manvel. They lost power last night. There were reports of winds up to 120 mph and a fellow said one of his old oak trees just twisted right off a ground level. It was still only 77F when we left Manvel and the winds lightened up a bit for the last hour into Grand Forks.

The greeter at the Grand Forks Visitor Center.

The Grand Fork of Grand Forks!

Part of the University of North Dakota campus.

After checking in we rode out to the Amtrak station just to make sure we couldn't leave from here. On the way back we passed by Valley Dairy which sounded like a promising place for finding ice cream. And boy did we! This cone takes the size/cost prize for this trip (or maybe ever)!

After 2 days of headwinds we were pleased that pizza was only steps away from our room. This place is a pizza version of Subway since they make the pizza right in front of you. You can choose your toppings as the pizza passes down the line. It was very good.

This is the huge conference center across the street. One guy we met in the elevator had a name tag so we asked what the conference was about. His answer "Theoretical Chemistry". Said it involved a lot of math.
Looking a little like it might storm again so we probably won't see the full moon tonight either.