POLAR BEAR MIGRATION, RENDEZVOUS IN RUGBY

On Tuesday, September 22nd, the group started to rendezvous in Rugby, North Dakota. The official first day of the trip was Saturday . We were one of the first ones to arrive so as paper work and rig inspections got done there was time to tour the area. NO! the above Polar Bear is not alive, it is stuffed and we viewed it in a museum. Rugby is the geographical center of North America - who knew?? It is a small town and the people were very welcoming, even though they got strange looks on their faces when we explained that we were heading north to view Polar bear. I think most thought that if they couldn't shoot them, why would they want to see them. Also, due to the frequent sightings of the Northern Lights, there is a monument to that as well. As per our previous post this is the great plains area and a local museum has brought a lot of the early buildings to one place. I particularly like the early log cabin. In the next post we will have a sod house as well. However I don't think I would care to have lived in either one during those times. There just happened to be a winery nearby so even though we needed to reduce our quantity of alcohol to cross the border we did some tasting as well as bought a couple of bottles. As you can see it is a very small winery and they have mostly fruit wines but they did have several grape wines that were pretty good.

Our first afternoon social. We were fortunate for these first days as the temperatures were unseasonably warm, high 70's

You know we can't pass a winery.

Interesting use of a piano This is it.

Marker at geographical center of North America

THE PRAIRIE MUSEUM

Does anyone need a monkey wrench?

A typical early prairie one room school. When you click on the school interior picture there two figures they both are not dummies. The one under the flag is smarter than the other one. She is Linda Reimer a retired school teacher our friend from Buffalo, New York that we met on our Mexico trip.

Nice old church

The log house

Northern Lights Tower