Friday, October 05, 2007

WHY NOT MINOT?

UNCOMMON GROUNDS COFFEE SHOP, SPEARFISH, SD:
I have a few days to catch up on as we were in National Parks with no services of any kind. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why not Minot? We heard this saying a lot when we were stationed at Grand Forks Air Force Base. No one wanted to go to Minot. But we went there on Monday after we left Grand Forks, and we found a friendly, clean, and cheap campsite, $5.00. That is music to Ernie's ears. We stayed for two nights, and picked up a few groceries and visited the library on base, and went into town to visit the Scandanavian Heritage site. It was really neat!

This first photo is Hans Christian Anderson. That brings back a lot of childhood memories as we loved the movie and the music, especially the songs "I'm Hans Christian Anderson, Anderson, that's me," and the "Ugly Duckling." The second is of Leif Eiriksson who landed at Lans aux Meadows, Newfoundland, 500 years before Columbus "discovered" the New World. The third is of Sondri Nordheim, of Telemark, Norway, who is considered the father of modern skiing. Our son, Chris, up in Alaska, is a Telemark skier, so is a follower of Nordheim.

These two buildings are a Stave Church and a Stabur, made in the authentic Norwegian style. Aren't they beautiful?




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You saw the statue of Sondri Nordheim! He is THE BUDDA to all of my Tele friends. Who would have thought that the old Norwegian skier would end up in flat North Dakota! 160 acres and a mule changed HIS mind about going west.
ps. My first blog comment.
Love you Mom!
Your AK Son