Trip to See the Birds Day One

Brighter than the Sun just came on the radio. God is pretty crazy awesome. Breakfast is reasonably priced and should be amazingly good. We stopped at Perkins at about 10 today for coffee and cinnamon rolls, although I'm getting a hot chocolate instead.  We just left Marshall and should be on I90 as soon as noon. From there we'll go on into South Dakota. I'm not sure yet if we'll be stopping there on the way over or on the way back, but I might get to see the Badlands and the black hills again, which would be great. It struck me today that Grandpa might be where I get my quiet tendencies from. While he talks a lot more than I do at this point, I'm inclined to believe it's because he's got more to talk about than me, being more than four times my age.  He was a large-animal veterinarian and has many stories of giving birth to calves and of building roads in Alaska. On the other side of things is Grandma. She's not along on this trip, but I've always felt, since going camping with Grandpa and her earlier on in my life, that I probably got my make-do attitude from her. Now that I think about it, it doesn't really seem that apparent in her as I thought, but I guess it doesn't always show on top. I should have mentioned acouple things earlier. First, it's ridiculously cloudy and even foggy today. Second, I brought along Eat Pray Love, and it's an interesting book to read at a time like this. As for the fog, it was so foggy earlier that we could see for perhaps a thousand yards ahead and then it was just gray. We passed a number of large grain elevators barely a stone's throw from the road without seeing them until the last second. Just south of Jasper, near the SD/MN border, a couple of female deer waltzed across the road in front of us and Grandpa had to slow down in order not to hit them.  We're coming into one of my favorite parts of America, where you can see half a mile while sitting in a low-riding station wagon. Not sure what I like about it, but it seems like i just like to observe, and wide open spaces without visual obstructions of any kind really help that.  I just realized that my last crush didn't culminate in some sort of truth-telling or confrontation. At some point in me liking some girl I decide either to give up and move on or to tell all. Usually the case is the latter, and while I sort of took the easy way out (acquiring for myself a new direction for my affection), it somehow surprises me that I didn't ever actually tell said crush how things were. Inexplicable joy is the best kind.  Grandpa decided to sleep a bit as he fears he'll fall asleep while driving. Mere yards away is a 55 MPH speed limit sign. This worries me a bit, but I reminded him to turn on the hazard lights. Well, it seems grandpa wasn't having so much trouble staying awake as he was merely driving. I drove for probably an hour at about 55 MPH on a two-lane highway. Hands are still shaking a bit, but I think it helped. !Noah!