Coming to you from our 32nd state of the USA and for the first time from a WebTV system, it’s yet another installment from the people who you all love and miss so much…*grin*

We managed to have a very good 4th of July in Bismarck, North Dakota and it was really interesting to see the difference between the patriotic nature of US residents and their northern neighbours in Canada.

The main difference was that folks did not drape themselves in the flag, like they did in Canada. Speaking to a couple of people, it seems that it is a sign of disrespect here in the USA to wear the flag like a cape, even if it does look extra patriotic.

Secondly, the fireworks were a lot better in the USA. For all those people who ooh’ed and aah’ed over the ones in Edmonton, and hopefully some of them are reading this, I am sorry to say that the USA beats you hands-down when it comes to loud colourful explosive devices.

The city of Bismarck and the neighbouring city of Manda (they are separated only by a river) reverberated for almost 3 days solid as everyone set off fireworks all over the place. It is legal to set them off in your yard in the middle of the city at any time of day or night for the period that the state permits fireworks sales, it seems.

Therefore, right up until the 5th July, there were artillery shells raging all over the place. We stayed in the Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park (7 miles south of Mandan) and right across the river from us were some houses that were competing with one another to have the biggest fireworks displays. Between 7pm - 11:30pm on the 3rd July, there were fireworks visible in the sky at all times as they all set off large colourful ones, whistling ones, sparkly ones, and any other sort they could lay their hands on. It was fantastic.

Of course, faced with these new rules, we had to splurge and bought some Roman Candles ourselves. Hey, we’re not allowed to set them off back home - we’d better do it when we get the chance!

I am sure you are all thankful you never saw me when the powers that be allowed me to be in the same vicinity as loud, exploding, spark-shooting, projectile launching pyrotechnics. It was a dream come true for me! And pure terror for Di! However, we survived unscathed, and Di even set one off in the end.

We also took in the town parade and caught Tootsie Pops thrown to us by the floats in the parade, and watched as weird cars, firetrucks, racing lawnmowers, clowns, cheerleaders, a variety of North Dakota beauty pageant winners, and horses pranced past in their best red, wite and blue bunting.

At the end of the day, we went to the Capitol building and enjoyed a concert by a symphonic orchestra (ooh - how cultural! how refined! how free!) with fireworks at the end. These were *real* fireworks with massive explosions that literally were rocking the ground and trees around. It was great!

The next day, we made our way eastward over North Dakota to Jamestown and checked out the World’s Largest Buffalo there. We had found the World’s Largest Friesian Cow a few days before in New Salem, North Dakota - probably the one and only time Di will try to milk a cow with teats the size of footballs!

We meandered further into Fargo, North Dakota - fulfilling a goal of ours, which was to be there and say “Ya! Ya! F’ing Ya!” - and if you do not understand this, be sure to check out the movie “Fargo”. Then again, if you are already happy enough with how often you have heard the “F word”, do not rent the movie. It’s pretty full-on when it comes bad language.

Finally, we made it to the little town of Hawley, Minnesota where we ate dinner, and went to keep driving, only to find the starter motor in the van had suddenly died and we were not going anywhere.

Went to Burns Ford company in the morning and got it fixed immediately ($191 USD) despite the lengthy queue of locals ahead of us. Hurrah!

Arrived in Osakis yesterday and met Clarence and Edna again, for the first time since 1991 when they came out to Australia on a dairy-farmer tour (the same as what my folks just did this year to bring them to the USA). They stayed with us back then and invited us to come and visit them when we made it to the USA one day. A decade later, the goal was achieved and we’ve been here having a lot of fun.

A most amusing aspect of our visit is they have a small doll (”Pomp”) who is the son of Sacagewea (the female Indian guide who was instrumental to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803). They auctioned for the rights to own the doll for a couple of months at their last family reunion, and they have been photographing it all over the place - from the border of Canada, to posing with the giant Viking statue in Alexandria, Minnesota, to being in the pulpit with their pastor at their church.

It’s pretty funny stuff to watch the faces of people quite happy to go along with the stunt and take their pictures with the doll and it has provided a great deal of amusement for us all.

So, getting back to the initial thread of which country is the more patriotic - I would have to say that Canadians are more proud of their country than the Americans. Not that the latter are backward in coming forward about their great nation, but we feel the greater patriotic spirit came from the Canadians - a very different observation than we expected to find…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001