in St. Cloud, MN

We had breakfast this morning in the Radisson Hotel in downtown St. Cloud.  "Canadians" have been coming here since the 1850's as this was where the Red River Cart trail crossed the Mississippi River as they journeyed between what is now Winnipeg and St. Paul, MN.  St. Cloud was also about the northern limit of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi when that mode of transport was popular.  If our plans unfold, we will be recrossing the Mississippi down near its other end in about 6 weeks time.

One of our major destinations was Northern Brights, a unique gift/crafts/artisan store we discovered when we were here in July of 2009.

Northern Brights (centre) in downtown St. Cloud, MN

Lots of unique items  - Tina, a master knitter, models one of her shawls

Paige, the owner, remembered us as being from Canada and I being a professor.  She greeted us warmly and sent us on our way with sincere blessings.  She has unique artistic talent which is reflected
in her own art work, and the other artisans she incorporates into her shop's offerings
You can visit http://www.northernbrights.com for more.

We did quite a lot of other shopping today - we went to a mall and there were some pre-Thanksgiving sales on: I got 3 dress shirts for $87.00.  (Compared to 1 shirt in Lloydminster for $165.00); Martha Stewart bath towels at Macy's for $9.00 each.  Gasoline was $2.749 per gallon, which according to my calculations equates to 72.4 cents per liter.

We even  bought new clothes for our bears (and B. Glee)

Compare with how we looked in Blog 2
when we were still at home.

We have had a good break and will resume our journey tomorrow.  Three long days of driving will get us to Kingston.  It is -7C tonight in St. Cloud, but it is forecast to be +8C by tomorrow when we reach Urbana, IL  - almost 1,000 km away.

Thanks to Joe and others who are following our adventures.