We got an early start (7 a.m.) and really enjoyed the cool temps as it got in the high 80s later in the day. Granite Falls was our half-way stop so we took a short rest at a small park along the Minnesota River. A sign proclaimed the fact that Henry Hill founded the town in the mid-1800s and he built the first of everything! This area's granite rocks are the oldest rocks in the world--3,8000,000,000 years old! Today we passed through many small towns-- towns that we've heard of but have never visited. It's very sad that most of these little towns are quite depressed and have no stores, etc. remaining. However the towns that are county seats look good. Some of the things we noted along the way were: two turkey vultures enjoying a cat dinner, two deer in the beans, road kill skunks, possum, and rooster, a red-tailed hawk who hop-scotched from electric pole to electric pole in front of us for about a mile, quite a few meadowlarks, many pelicans and cormorants around a lake. Gas is $2.99 and E85 ethanol is $2.59.
The crops are looking great except around Benson which is suffering from lack of rain. Corn and beans continue to dominate the farm crops but we did see some sugar beets, alfalfa and wheat. The Montevideo area appears to be the thistle capital of MN in contrast with yesterday's areas where they were being mowed. We have never seen(or heard of) so many different seed corn companies--names like Wensman, Asgrow, Pioneer, Cropplan, DeKalb, Northrup King, Golden Harvest, Crow, Midwest, Ziller and Munson. This is the first day that we were delayed by rain. A pretty good shower with thunder and lightning passed by around 3 p.m. giving Gordie and John a 15 minute rest in the van. We're writing this report at dinner and Gordie just took his pulse. It's 44! Eat your heart out, Tim!