North Dakota and southern Manitoba

 We have had the most interesting and fun day today.  We spent the night in Williston, North Dakota which is in the middle of an oil boom, the growth of the city was amazing but the mud from all the rain was also amazing, on everything.

This morning we headed north toward McGregor, North Dakota, here Rons great grandparents Herman and Vinetta Collins homesteaded for a couple years after leaving Minnesota.  These little prairie towns are just so sad and everything is falling apart.

The grain elevators stand alone, looking like ghosts.

 Vinetta Collins, parents Sandford and Martha Orr had also come out from Iowa and Minnesota but they did not venture into Canada but remained behind in Powers Lake.  We were very lucky to find the cemetery that they rest.

 Powers Lake was a nice little town/

 When we left Powers Lake we zig zagged along back country roads heading toward the Canadian border and had to go thru a little town called Bowbells, welllll, it was under construction and with all the rain Main street was six inches deep in the gooiest mud.  Here were are with Tanyas brand new Jetta, ugh it was not pretty but we did not get stuck, however we did not stay around for lunch.

 Instead we went down the road 20 miles to another very small town called Morall and stopped in at their only restaurant.  Our waiter was a little crippled up old man in his late 80s, he was so cute. He brought our menus it was like taking a trip down memory lane, ice cream 75 cents, grilled cheese sandwich 2 dollars.  The special was listed just like this Polish sausage on bun with caramelized onions, served with baked beans, potato salad, soup and desert 5.75.  The soup was delicious, the polish sausage turned out to be a hot dog but we had such fun.

Leaving here we crossed the Canadian border where the custom agent asked us where we were going and when we said Tilston she gave us all the right directions.

Tilston is where Elaines grandparents and grandparents came to from Illinois in 1919, not much left but more run down elevators.

 The school was interesting, the little model school to the right of the cairn was a replica of the school that was used on this spot from 1910 to 1945, which would have meant Uncle Ed and perhaps Auntie Ede would have attended.  We looked for the cemetery to see if we could find Aunt Ruth but the two we found were to new with the earliest graves being 1930 and she passed 1925.

We had a good look around the area before heading out toward Winkler Manitoba for the night.