Westbound!!!

I thought I would post a few pictures of day one of my trip out west.  I was able to leave at seven this morning, and arrive here at the La Quinta in Bismark ND by 6 p.m.    Not much for pictures, but the weather did make the trip interesting.

 All loaded up and ready to roll....I must admit, it was much harder to leave everything I knew behind.  I was not expecting the emotional rollercoaster!  Its all good.

Central Command.

The Sirius Satellite radio is crucial to my traveling sanity.  There is nothing I hate more than searching for new stations as you lose them...this solves that problem, plus no commercials!

I made it From Ripon to Minnesota in 3.5 hours, and was past the Twin Cities in 4.  I made good time!

This was my view through all of Minnesota, and most of North Dakota.  It looks kind of bad, but the pavement was dry underneath...still had the cruise pinned at 80.(speed limit of 75 in ND, nice!)

Crossed into ND around 3 p.m.

 Whoops!

 That was just a few of the pictures I took today...I got pictures of about 5 of the maybe 10 cars I saw in the ditches and median.  Taking the weather into consideration, I think I made excellent time! 

When I arrived here in Bismark, I checked in and decided to go have some dinner.  I was sitting at the bar at Applebee's striking up a conversation with another couple, telling them about where I was headed, and that it was for work.  All of a sudden I get a tap on my shoulder and a gentleman asks me if my name is Kevin???? I said uhhhhhhhhm yeah....how did you know that??  He said my wife overheard you talking about moving to Williston for a few months for work, and said I think that is your new guy from Wisconsin.  The guy turned out to be my new boss!!! The odds of us bumping into each other like that have to be outrageous.  I mean, an applebee's three hours away at the same time like that, both sitting at the bar.  Crazy!  Super nice guy, I look forward to working with him!

Tomorrow I have only a short drive to get to Williston.

Until then, have a great weekend...GO PACKERS!!!