Leaving Minnesota and Entering North Dakota: November 27 – December 2, 2009

November 27, 2009
Fosston: Where Prairies Meet the Pines

It was the Friday after Thanksgiving, known as “Black Friday.”  Apparently this had something to do with there being sales, in which shops made lots of money and stayed in the black. Eileen Hegg was off to sales in Grand Forks, North Dakota, with one of her daughters. The plan was that she would meet me on the road somewhere close to Erskine. I hoped that would all work out, as I’d left a message to Eileen, but not had a definite reply.

My knee was still stiff as I walked into Fosston. It was a bright day, but cold again. Just outside of Fosston there was a tank and a helicopter. I stopped to take photos, then headed on into Fosston, towards a tall water tower that was painted red and white.  The rounded top part of the tower reminded me of a hot air balloon.

Fosston was known as the place where “prairie met the pines.” The true plains lay just ahead.

As I stood by the Burlington Northern railway, my phone began to vibrate and play music. I took off my gloves and managed to get to it in time. On the other end of the line was a man called Reed, who was a reporter with the Thirteen Towns Newspaper. We arranged for Reed to come out to do a report on me and I asked him if he could call up a man called Lee, who worked for the McIntosh Times paper.

Reed drove out to meet me on the road and took photos as I walked. I gave him details about the journey and he wished me luck. Not much further on, Lee from the McIntosh Times pulled up on the road and told me to meet him at his farm house about a mile or so further on towards McIntosh.

By 11 am, I was sitting in Lee’s farm house, chatting to him and his wife Dee-Dee. We drank coffee and I ate a peanut butter sandwich that I had made from the breakfast food back at the Super 8 Motel. The interview with Lee was good. It was more of a very long chat, in which I talked about the people I had met in hospices since New York State. Dee-Dee said she would think about becoming a volunteer with the First Care Hospice in Fosston. I took Lee’s cell phone number, in case the planned meeting on the road, with Eileen, didn’t happen.

I talked to Lee and Dee-Dee for about an hour, and was feeling lazy, as I left to walk towards Erskine and the small town of Mentor. My left leg was better than the day before, but I still had 20 more miles to go.

By the time I’d reached Erskine my left knee had gone stiff again. At around 4:00 pm my phone rang and it was Eileen Hegg. She said she had just left Grand Forks and had to stop at Crookston to drop off a car seat for her daughter. By 4.30 pm I was about two miles from Mentor, by some huge grain silos, when Eileen Hegg and her husband, Tom, pulled up and picked me up.

Tom was a grain farmer who was in his early 60s. He had just had a hip operation to fit an artificial hip and was getting used to walking with it. Eileen had worked as a journalist on local newspapers and was now involved with arranging publicity for First Care Hospice. We ate lasagna for dinner and then talked about health care. Tom and Eileen had seven daughters and twenty-two grand children. In talking to Tom we both decided that as long as you had a roof over your head and food on the table, then things weren’t all that bad.

November 28, 2009
42 Miles to the End of Minnesota—My Hundredth Day of Walking

Eileen had arranged an interview with a local radio station for 9 am. I gave the interview over the phone from Eileen and Tom’s house and encouraged people to support the First Care Hospice in Fosston. By 9.30 am I was back on the road.

As I walked, I spotted a large hawk sitting in a tree by the roadside.  My left knee was also starting to feel better. Just a short distance on, there was a farm that bred buffalo. Twenty buffalo stood in a fenced off field, their breath steaming in the icy air. Their thick shaggy brown coats, humped shoulders and heavy heads made them look like creatures from the last ice age.

The way ahead was flat, but to my left three huge sandhills stood, like mountains, with gullies eroded by rain. The sand had been dug from the ground and used to make the hills, presumably for all terrain vehicles. It was interesting to see that someone had decided to add some hills to the plains.

On the road, telegraph poles disappeared into the horizon. Beside the road were old deserted farmhouses and fields, with dark black earth.

By the 42 mile marker I stopped. It was only 42 miles to reach the end of Minnesota. Ahead was the entrance to the Red River Valley. The Red River flowed north to empty into the Hudson Bay in Canada. There was a slight hill, which had once been a shoreline, and then the road was passing through the bed of Lake Agassiz. This vast glacial lake had been bigger than all the Great Lakes combined. Formed between 13000 and 10000 years ago, by runoff water from glaciers during the last ice age, Lake Agassiz had drained to the sea completely by around 7000 years ago. The legacy of the lake was the rich fertile soil of the plains, formed from the silt of the lake, which had come from the action of glaciers on mountains and was rich in vital minerals.

For me, I could feel that I was entering the center of North America.

As night began to fall, I could see the lights of Crookston up ahead. Crookston marked the last sizeable town in Minnesota. Eileen and Tom Hegg stopped to talk to me by the roadside and offered to drive me into Crookston. I said that I had to walk and wished them well.

Tom had suggested that I turn off Route 2 and take the Gentilly Road. I followed his suggestion, but soon wished I hadn’t. There was no side to the road, which meant that I was walking on sandy gravel. There was a lot of cursing from me. Eventually, though, I turned off onto Route 11 and there was a side to the road, albeit covered with clods of dirt from the local farm vehicles. By now it was about 6 pm and dark.

The lights of Crookston could still be seen up ahead, but seemed to take forever to reach. At about 8.30 pm, I finally walked into Crookston. I checked into a Super 8 Motel, dumped my pack, and then headed to a McDonalds for some food. By 9.30 pm I was back at the motel. I watched TV and was fast asleep by 1am.

November 29, 2009
The Trip to East Grand Forks

Five hours later, at 6 am, I woke and took a bath. After a quick breakfast in the motel lobby, I checked out and was back on the road by 8 am. The road curved its way out of Crookston and there was a sign saying Fisher 8 and East Grand Forks 21. East Grand Forks would be where I would stop for the day.

The day brightened from being grey and cloudy to a clear blue sky. The temperatures were in the thirties, but that felt warm after the couple of days around Bagley and Fosston. At a roadside park, with a Minnesotan Welcome Center, I stopped to drink water and eat some peanut M and M’s.

Close to the park was a small lake, with an old white farm house by it. The farmhouse was surrounded by a protective ring of trees, but beyond that was grass and fields for as far as the eye could see. In the sunshine the lake was a bright sky blue, nestled in tall yellow grass of the prairies. It was a perfect view of the west and felt like a million miles from the busy streets of New York. Out here it was another world entirely.

5 Miles to North Dakota!

The mile markers ticked their way down from 21 to 5. I was now just 5 miles from the border with North Dakota. As night came, I turned off Route 2, onto Business Route 2, and walked towards a huge column of steam rising from East Grand Forks sugar beet factory.

Standing under streetlights by the beet factory, I phoned Larissa Pesek from Altru Hospice in Grand Forks. She said it would take about twenty minutes for her to come and pick me up. It was now dark and the temperature dropped into the high twenties. I ate the last of the venison jerky that Bill Thiesen had given me back in Bemidji. It was fitting that it had lasted until the end of Minnesota.

Larissa soon arrived and drove me to the Parkwood Retirement Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. At the retirement center a security guard called Tony showed me to a room, then took me down to the dining area. I sat at a table with a resident of the retirement center called Curtis. Curtis was a retired owner of a Credit Union business. He had sold the business for a million dollars. We talked about hunting deer, which had been one of Curtis’ pleasures when he had been younger. As we sat there, several women at the table next to us were curious as to who I was and began to ask me questions as to what I was up to. I was due to give a talk at the retirement center in the morning and one of the women said she would make sure she was there.

With dinner over I bid farewell to the women and Curtis and took an elevator to my room. In the icy cold of North Dakota, I was in the warm, well fed and feeling pretty good, all things considered.

November 30, 2009
A Presentation at the Parkwood Retirement Center

I had breakfast in the Parkwood Retirement Center at 8 am. I was the only person in the dining area: it seemed that the residents preferred to have breakfast in their own rooms. Over breakfast, though, I talked to the kitchen staff and gave out cards with the National Hospice Foundation website address.

At 9.30 am, Larissa Pesek and Sarah Kotelnicki, who is in charge of publicity for Altru Hospice, arrived at the retirement center and set up equipment for me to give a Powerpoint presentation for the residents. At 10 am, a TV reporter arrived. He filmed an interview inside Parkwood Retirement Center and then had me walk with my pack outside. The interview went well. My talk began at 10.30 and the reporter filmed me during the first few minutes of the talk.

About 20 of the residents and 10 staff members were at the talk. One of the residents was a 101-year-old man. He was an ex-mountaineer and soldier. He told me how he used to carry a 100-pound pack and would sleep in horse blankets and wear an air force flying suit in the cold. The residents enjoyed seeing the pictures of the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and the Sierras from back in 1988. I sold several books after the talk and it was a good start to the day.

A Nice Lunch Conversation and Finalizing the Next Few Days

For lunch I went with Larissa and members of the Altru Hospice team to a local restaurant. Amongst the staff was a hospice nurse called Cheryl, a hospital administrator called Brad and a man called Jody, who had just had a hip operation and was on crutches. There was also a young volunteer coordinator called Travis. We had a good talk over lunch, about ideas for fundraising and, once again, the need to encourage people to turn to hospice care sooner. I talked about the school I had visited back in Rogers City, where the teachers were keen to involve students in helping support their local hospice. Brad raised the idea of whether offering hospice care automatically, as part of general health care practice, could ever be an option. The issue that hospice care can cost less than acute care in hospitals was also discussed. I told the hospice staff how amazed I was by the growth of hospice care in the last 20 years and talked about what I had seen in Buffalo. All in all it was a good lunch, and we left feeling upbeat and optimistic about the future for hospice.

Larissa took me back to the hospice office and introduced me to the hospice chaplain, Pat Mersch. Pat phoned the United Methodist minister, Raenelle, in the town of Larimore, and we arranged that Raenelle would leave a side door to the church open on the following night, so that I could spend the night inside the church. Larissa then called up The Sunlac Motel, in Lakota, and arranged for me to stay there on Wednesday night. From there I would link up with the Mercy Hospice in Devils Lake. On Thursday the Mercy Hospice were holding a candle lighting remembrance ceremony at Mercy Hospital. All being well I would make it to Devils Lake for the candle lighting.

The next few days of the journey were now set up.

December 2, 2009
Some Kind Wishes and the Last Few Miles to North Dakota

At breakfast in the Parkwood Retirement center I was on my own again, but the women from the kitchen had seen me on television and came through to chat to me. They all wished me well. At 8.30 am, Larissa, from Altru Hospice, picked me up and drove me back to the intersection with Route 2 and Business Route 2, back in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. I took Larissa’s photo as she stood next to her car, shook her hand and said goodbye.

It was cold and windy and only five miles from the border with North Dakota. On my face I wore two ski masks and goggles. Beneath my clothes were the merino wool thermal leggings and top and my hands were in two pairs of gloves.

On the outskirts of East Grand Forks there was a McDonalds. Before I came to the McDonalds, I took off my goggles and raised my top ski-mask, so that it was more like a hat. In the McDonalds I ordered food. Two women had seen me on television and stopped to talk. Their names were Susan and Lottie and they came from a place called Grygla, in Minnesota. They gave donations for hospice. They were in East Grand Forks to drop off some college work that Susan’s daughter had left at home. I chatted to them as I ate and then headed back out into the cold.

At mile marker 2 there was a Minnesota State sign. There didn’t appear to be a mile marker 1, but ahead was the bridge leading to North Dakota. There was a sign saying “No Pedestrians” on the bridge, but it was a bit late to tell me that now. There was a narrow concrete strip on the left hand side of the bridge and I walked along that for several hundred yards to cross the bridge. Below me was the Red River of the North. Trucks and cars passed closed to my right, but in a few minutes I had left Minnesota and entered North Dakota. As I got off the bridge and back onto a sidewalk, I breathed a sigh of relief.

From Grand Forks to Grand Forks Air Force Base was 13 miles and Larimore was about 18 miles further on. With thirty miles to go and the time at 11 am, it was going to be a tough day.

Some Changes in the Weather

As the motels on the western edge of Grand Forks slipped away behind me, the wind picked up and snow began to fall from the sky. For a while I walked along in my running shoes, but, as the snow began to build up on the ground, I stopped and put on my boots.  I lay my pack on a metal guard rail by the roadside and fastened the new boots.

With the wind howling and the snow flying horizontally from my right, I walked on. Goggles protected my eyes and two ski-masks, and the hood from my jacket, protected my head.

My phone started to vibrate in my coat pocket, but I decided to leave it there. I didn’t want to get my hands cold and waste time trying to talk on the phone during the snow and wind.

A layer of icy snow built up on my right arm and on my right leg. I was glad that the wind was coming from the north and not the west.

An Offer for a Ride and a Police Warning

By 5pm, after 6 hours walking from Grand Forks, I’d reached Grand Forks Air Force Base. I was just walking under the flyover of the road that led to the base, when a North Dakota Police patrol car pulled up in front of me. The officer inside the patrol car was a young man by the name of Sundby. To talk to him I had to pull my frozen ski-masks up from my face. As I stood there, in the cold, I just wanted him to finish his business and let me get back to walking, before I froze to death. Officer Sundby warned me that the road was dangerous and said that there were cars going off the road into ditches along Route 2. He asked me several questions; about who I was and what I was doing and entered my details onto a computer. I told him I was walking from New York to Minot for hospice. He asked me details about where I had stayed in Grand Forks, and where I would be staying in Larimore. After about ten minutes he finally printed out a warning to me, which read as follows:

‘Walking from New York to Minot for hospices. Road conditions are poor, vehicles going into ditch on Hwy 2. Colin was told he is walking at his own risk at this point. I offered a ride, but he did not want it and wanted to walk for his hospice thing. He was told.’

So, I’d been told. Taking the warning, I thanked the officer for stopping, and then, cold and hungry, I walked on.

As we had talked, Officer Sundby had asked if I wasn’t bothered about walking in the dark. For me, on that night, that wasn’t a problem. The wind dropped and the clouds overhead cleared, to show a full moon from behind. In the light of the moon, amidst a landscape of pure white snow, Route 2 took me on towards Larimore. I raised my goggles to the top of my ski-masks and looked around. There were no cars on the road and it was peaceful. My feet were sore and my new boots pressed against my ankles, but I felt good.

I reached the turnoff to Arvilla and then came the turnoff to Larimore. It was now about 10 pm. I hoped that the door to the United Methodist Church would be open. Walking over the snow covered road, I was about a mile from Larimore, when a pickup truck pulled over. There was a young couple inside the truck, but little room for me or my pack. I explained about the walk and said I’d walk on into town.

The Ride to Larimore

Down Cemetery Hill, with the wind blowing again and more snow falling, I carried on. I was not far from Larimore when a van pulled up. Inside was a man called Jay. He offered me a ride into Larimore and this time I accepted. Larimore was about three miles off of Route 2, and I figured that as I would have to walk those three miles back to the road, that it was time to stop for the night. It was now about 10.30 pm.

Jay took me to the United Methodist Church. I asked him if he could wait until I made sure I could get into the building. I checked the side door of the church, but it was locked. There was a second door, further down a path. I checked that and it, too, was locked. Luckily, though, I spotted a note that was pinned inside the glass of the door. It gave a number for Raenelle Capes, the minister. In the cold and with snow falling, I called the number. Raenelle lived in a house next to the church and came out to meet me. I thanked her and said I was glad she was still awake.

I walked back to the road and told Jay that I was fine. I thanked him for his help and gave him a card with the National Hospice Foundation website address. I then walked back and into the church, where Raenelle was waiting to show me where I could sleep.

I was shown into a room that had a couch. I took a floor mat from downstairs and laid it on the floor of the room. I then put my snow covered pack and coat on top of the mat, so that, as the snow melted, it didn’t leave a pool of water on the carpet. Raenelle offered me fruit to eat. I said I was fine, but what I really needed was a full meal, what I wanted was meat and fat. I could see that Raenelle was ready to head to bed for the night, though, so thanked her for letting me stay. Raenelle headed back to her house.

The room was warm, with the thermostat set to 70 degrees. As this was about 60 degrees warmer than outside, I was glad to be there. I opened my water bottle and saw it was full of ice. I sat on the couch and ate two packets of peanut M and M’s and a milkyway bar. That left me one packet of M and M’s for breakfast. I drank the water that hadn’t frozen in my water bottle, and left the ice to melt overnight.

I cleaned my teeth in a restroom across from where I would be sleeping and drank more water from the tap. I’d forgotten how easy it was not to drink when the weather turned cold. As I took off my boots, I looked at my feet. My left heel had been rubbed raw by the new boot and my right ankle was also sore. The boots fit my feet well, but the parts of the boot around my ankles were causing problems. That wasn’t good, after only about twenty miles walking in the boots.

I’d put my goretex jacket on top of my pack, but left on the rest of my clothes. Tired and exhausted, I laid down on the couch and by midnight was fast asleep.

Wednesday 2 December (day 104)
A Treacherous Start to the Day

I woke at around 6 am and ate the last bag of peanut M and M’s for breakfast.  By 7 am I was packed and ready to go. The lights on Raenelle’s house were still off, so I locked the church side door as I left. Snow was still falling and there was a strong north wind blowing.

I stopped at a Tesoro gas station in Larimore and bought chocolate milk, orange juice, three packets of peanut M and M’s, a York peppermint patty and a Milky Way bar. I talked to the woman who was at the checkout and she gave me a donation for hospice. With goggles and ski-masks on, it was time to leave Larimore.

The wind buffeted me about as I made my way back up Cemetery Hill and onto Route 2.

The sun rose, but was just a pale yellow disk, low on the horizon and obscured by clouds and falling snow. Snow ploughs were busily trying to clear the road. When I heard the rumble of the snow plough I had to check to make sure I was on the opposite side of the road from the plough. As the ploughs passed they would fling chunks of icy snow to the side of the road.

The stitching on my right liner glove was unraveling and the glove was falling apart. I’d only bought the gloves in Duluth and hardly worn them. That wasn’t good. I’d rolled the top of my socks down over the sore patches on my ankles and loosened off the laces of my boots, so that my ankles weren’t pressed by the boots. For the moment that seemed to be working.

The edge of the road was covered in chunks of ice, where the snow ploughs had cleared the road. The walking was uneven and slow going. Trucks would pass me and blast me with icy air. As they approached I would move further to the side of the road, into the fallen snow and brace myself for the blast of air and snow.

Ice collected on the front of my goggles and every so often I would wipe my gloved hand across them to clear my vision. With head gear and goggles on I felt cut off from the outside world: my only view was an orange haze and approaching shadows that were either trucks, cars or snow ploughs. For hour upon hour I had to decide: truck, car, snow plough… and if snow plough where do I need to be to avoid being hit.

Tick followed tock. After nine hours of walking I was approaching the turnoff for Petersburg. I looked ahead and couldn’t believe what I saw. A hill had been put in the road!  I was sure it hadn’t been there twenty years ago; but ahead there was a bridge crossing over rail tracks. It wasn’t much of a hill, but I was tired and knew I still had a long way to go to reach Lakota. Cursing road planners, and the idea of putting hills into roads across The Plains, I plodded up to the top of the bridge.

I took my pack off and balanced it on top of the guard rail by the road side. Taking my gloves off, and working quickly, I ate two packets of peanut M and M’s and drank water from my bottle. Once again the water was mostly ice. I stood with my back to the wind. In just a few minutes my hands were numb from the cold and it was time to get moving.

Only 17 More Miles to Go…

As the pale disc of the sun fell below the horizon, the wind grew stronger and snow pelted me from the right. I’d walked 21 miles from Larimore, but still had 17 more to go. My feet were now beginning to hurt. My left foot was sore on the ankle and heel. My right foot was sore on one toe and on the far side of the ankle. The walking became painful and slow.

Beyond Petersburg I walked in the dark. The moon gave some light, but the snow and heavy clouds made it much less than the night before. On the walk to Larimore there had been a peaceful feel to the night, now, the night felt downright hostile and dangerous.

Ahead were the lights of a town called Michigan. About two miles outside of the town a car passed me, then reversed back towards me. Inside the car was the local deputy sheriff. He asked me if I needed a ride. Lifting my ski-mask and goggles, I explained that I had to walk and that I would be staying at the motel in Lakota. As I told him that I realized I had forgotten what the name of the motel was. I was cold, tired, hungry and thirsty and my mind was starting to wander. Lakota was still thirteen miles away.

The deputy wished me luck and was soon just a set of red tail lights disappearing into the snowy grey haze of the night. As soon as he had gone I wished I had said yes to his offer of a ride. The walk into the small town of Michigan took me to 9 pm.

As I entered the town I checked to see if there was a motel there. I couldn’t see any sign of a motel and headed out of town. The course of the road and the wind shifted, so that I staggered on against the wind and snow. The snow was flying horizontally. Luckily the wind shifted again and was coming from my right again.

With the ski-masks, goggles and the dark of night surrounding me, I began to feel claustrophobic… cut off from the world. I moved the goggles up on top of my head. My eyes were the only link I had to the outside. In the swirling half light my mind was starting to play tricks. My feet hurt with each step, but I tried to ignore them.

I staggered on. Nine o’clock became 10, then 11, then 12. I counted down the mile markers: 303, 302, 301, 300, 299, 298, 297. I thought Lakota would be at mile marker 296. Cruelly, mile marker 296 came and there was no Lakota. Ahead, a tantalizing mirage, were the lights of Lakota, but they didn’t seem to come closer.

My right eye was aching from the wind and the cold. Almost beyond caring, I wondered if it was being damaged. I didn’t want to put the goggles back down and cut myself off. I closed my eyes and saw bright stars of light.

18 Hours from Larimore to Lakota

At last the sign for Lakota appeared. The town  was still half a mile further on. Shuffling over the snow and ice, I turned off Route 2 and onto a service road. There was the sign for the Sunlac Inn. A smile crossed my face beneath the ski-masks. Moving one step at a time, I drew closer to the inn and finally pushed my way through a door and into the warm. It was now 1 am in the morning. It had taken me 18 hours to walk the 38 miles from Larimore to Lakota.

A young man in a black tee-shirt, black denims and boots, stood behind the motel reception desk. I tried to take my ski-masks from my face, but they were frozen to my beard. I told the young man that I had a problem with my frozen ski-masks and had to talk through them to tell him I had a reservation. My hands and arms were numb from the cold, but the blood gradually began to return to them. I managed to break the ice around my beard and pulled the ski-masks off. I fumbled with the pen that the receptionist gave me, but eventually managed to write down my name and address on a card. I was given the key to room 117. I thanked the check-in clerk and hobbled down the corridor to the room.

I took out my running shoes, but they, too, were frozen solid from where they had been damp the day before. Bending the running shoes around, I undid the laces and opened them up wide to squeeze my sore feet into them. My left heel hurt, so did the toes on my right foot. The running shoes were icy cold, but even so felt much better than the boots.

The Sunlac Inn ran a 24 hour restaurant and that was next on my agenda. Shuffling back to the check-in desk, I ordered a cheeseburger, fries and orange juice, coffee and milk. I drank the orange juice first, then the milk, and held my hands around the warm cup of coffee. The warmth felt magical. When the cheeseburger came, I struggled to eat it. I was exhausted and felt sick. I forced the cheeseburger down and managed a few fries.

By 2 am I’d paid for the food and headed back to my room. I turned the heater up to full heat and laid my cold, damp running shoes on top of the heater to dry out. It was only then that I took off my socks. My left heel had been rubbed raw, as had my left ankle. On my right foot there was a sore red patch on the ankle. I crawled into bed with all my clothes on and instantly fell asleep.

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