I’ve been pretty absent since the end of January. Guess I had things to do…

Like remove wallpaper from my kitchen walls and renew my kitchen chairs.

We took a trip north (WAY NORTH) the end of February. Our destination was Winnipeg, MB to visit the MacDon Industries‘ home office…with a stop in Grand Forks, ND first. There were friends to visit and places to see!

Reunited with the Red River Farm Network gang – Don Wick, Kent Braathen, Me, Dan Misener & Randy Koenen. 

Don and Randy doing what they do best!

We visited with several MacDon engineers, took a tour of the plant, ate some amazing (no…superb) food with equally awesome people, and attended my (our) very first hockey game.

Winnipeg Jets vs Minnesota Wild

Maybe I shoulda warned everyone BEFORE I took the picture. 🙂

On our way back to Grand Forks, we made a slight detour to Elmer’s Manufacturing in Altona, Manitoba. This wasn’t on our schedule when we headed north but it was a nice surprise!

The Manitoba horizon… 

A bit different from the MacDon plant tour. These machines are being manufactured in sheds that had previously been used in the farming operation.

The guys were pretty impressed with this machine. All I wanted to do was get back in the pickup where it was warm. They kept telling me it was a NICE day…HA! Yes! I am a wimp from Nebraska!

The next day was spent touring east of Grand Forks. The destination for this day was the headwaters of the Mississippi River. The mighty Mississippi begins its journey to the Gulf of Mexico as a mere 18 foot wide knee-deep river in Itasca State Park in Minnesota. There are 2,552 miles of winding waters between the headwaters and the Gulf. It would have been fun to throw a message in a bottle and see how long it would take to make its way to the Gulf.

Pretty impressed with this eagle’s nest! Especially because we saw the couple were home. 

We visited the beginning of this great river the first week of March and two weeks later, we were sitting on the beach of the Gulf. Had I thrown a bottle in the river in Minnesota, I may have been able to retrieve it.

This little guy was sitting on the very first bridge across the Mississippi – only yards from the headwaters.

“Selfie” taken by Dan Misener. Left to right…me, Kent Braathen, Kristy Misener and Jimbo.

Did I mention it was FREEZING???

From Itasca State Park, we made our way to Bemidji to say hello to Paul and Babe. Jim has always wanted to go there…so we made our way before heading back to Grand Forks for the night.

Before leaving Bemidji, we took a quick stroll through the Bemidji Woolen Mills. To my surprise, we got to actually watch the ladies in the back make some of the products that were for sale in the store.

The area in the back of the store where the products are sewn together. 

My souvenir of the day – mittens sewn while we watched.

We had one more stop to make before we headed south the next day…Widman’s Candy Shop for “Chippers” (chocolate covered potato chips).

It was a great “getaway”! It ended up being a day longer than anticipated because Jim was having a good time. And that’s good! Many thanks to everyone who made it happen – Dan and Kristy Misener, Kent and Sandy Braathen, Paul and Diana Steiner, Gene Fraser and all the wonderful folks at MacDon!! We had the best darn time! And…we wore the poor guy out!