September 6 Bismarck, ND

It's been cold and rainy all day, lots of rain. We spent the day working. What else is Labor Day about? We got orders in for more books, lots of paperwork, laundry and even a little shopping done. Busy day.

September 5 Bixmarck, ND

We delivered food in Richardson, ND for we got back to Bismarck. Then we sold to several others here. We just didn't have enough food Thursday.

We're at a Best Western Motel, same one we were in last week. They gave us an upgrade this time. You should see the suite. We've been in nice rooms before but I think this is the winner.

It has a kitchen, front room with an electric fireplace, a dining room with a table bigger than ours at home, through the french doors is a bedroom that is as big as the rest of the suite. The bed is so tall that I'll need a ladder to get into. And it has a jacuzzi in the bedroom. I think that the suite is about 1000 sq ft. The good news is that we have two nights here before we journey on.

Roosevelt National Park

We've driven by Roosevelt Nat'l Park all five trips, but this is the first time we've had the time and a rental car to go in the park. Until we've made these trips, I'd never heard of it before. So today we went! The best way to describe it is that it's kind of like the Badlands in South Dakota. It's mile after mile of rugged, but interesting landscape. We saw a buffalo, thousands of prairie dogs and three horses sleeping on the road.

We drove on to Dickinson for the night. There's several motels in town, but only a couple rooms available for tonight. We were lucky to get a room.

Now for the best news of the day!!! Mt Ellis Academy came in 10th out of the 20 winners on the Kohl's school contest. They are the proud winners of a half million dollars! They plan to replace their 50 year old sewer system. Good for them!! Thank you if you voted on Facebook to help them win. What a blessing this will be for the school.

September 3 Rapid City, SD

Rush, rush, rush!!! We had to get a rental car and drive about 350 miles, getting here in time to load the car before they closed at 4:00. We did make it! We should have had a cargo van but none were available, so we have a Jeep Cherokee. Believe me, it's full! We have 35 cases of canned food and maybe 20 cases of frozen. Can't get any more in the car and still drive!

We did a quick stop at Mt Rushmore tonight to see how the 'boys' are doing. They are still up there watching all the people coming and going.

September 2 Bismark, ND

Two sales in one day isn't too bad if you start in the town of your first sale. We had to get gas first, drive through wind & rain and drive a couple hours to get to Dickinson by 11:00. Jim thought the time zone was on the west side of Dickenson (instead of the east side) so we were there an hour early.

Our customers kept coming after 1:00, so we were late leaving. That's okay, we like customers. So we had two nice sales, but we hurried all day.

We're about out of food. Jim has had some shipped to cold storage places at several places on our route this trip. Tomorrow we're going to have to go to Rapid City which would have been our second stop, to pick up as much as we can. Our first stop should have been in Fargo, ND but we'll need that when we get there. We're having to be very creative to keep stocked. Nice problems, right?

September 1 Glendive, MT

After two weeks, we finished Montana tonight with an increase of more than 25%. I hope all our sales are that good.

We had to hurry to get to Miles City by noon. Then we hurried again to get to Glendive for our evening sale.

After we cashed up and was ready to close the door, three more families came to go shopping. By the time I cashed up again and Jim restocked the shelves, it made a late night.

The last couple that came in invited us to stay with them anytime we come through here. Isn't that the neatest thing? We don't even know them. Everyone is so friendly and nice.

August 31 Billings, MT

On our trip over here today, we saw three airplanes on a train going west. It's just the main body, no wings and the outside isn't finished. We saw three others a couple days ago.

We finally ran out of the rainy weather. We didn't even need a jacket this afternoon.

A lady came in our sale tonight that was a camper when I worked at Junior Camp in Kansas. I saw her at Alumni Weekend in April too, Pam Bing.