Longest day driving of the trip.  About 450 miles.  No new sights today, just needed to get across the great plains of our country to some new sights in the East.  We passed the 2000 mile mark for this trip today around the North Dakota / Minnesota border.  We are in Ontario tonight making for the 6th state or province of the trip.  Only one new license plate, North Dakota, so we have 21 states left to spot.  I expect we will see them all by the time we are in Ohio, except maybe Hawaii.  The only sight of the day was a visit to the roadside marker in Rugby, South Dakota.  What is the marker for you ask?  For any of you who like to do craft projects, here is your assignment.  Take a piece of cardboard, carefully trace and cut out a precise outline of the North American Continent on that cardboard.  Find the point on that cutout where it is perfectly balanced in all directions.  That point is Rugby, North Dakota, the geographic center of the North American Continent.

Starting tomorrow we will be more in sight seeing mode and less in making miles mode.  We go back across the border to Minnesota to visit Voyageurs National Park.  From now on, every day we should either visit a Park or see a family member every day for a few weeks.

I am going to share what my honey and I are listening to on this long journey.  It will sound a little strange to most people, but let me share anyway.  One of my sons recommended to me to listen to a podcast series called Philosophize This.  The podcast has been running for 5 years and is a bimonthly series of episodes, each about 45 minutes long reviewing the history of philosophy.  He begins with pre-Socratic philosophers in Greece, 3 thousand years ago, and early philosophers in China and India during the same time, and then works his way forward in history.  I know it sounds boring, but we are finding it quite interesting.  We are up to episode 14 and I hope we can get to the current episode 80 by the end of the trip.  It evokes many thoughts about our own life experiences, about various people we have encountered in our lives, and about some of the current issues facing our country.  After every episode we put it on pause and have a discussion about what we each got out of the episode.   Too many specifics to share today but maybe some in a future blog.

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