MILWALKEE, WISCONSIN

Friday 17th January
As dawn broke in front of us the blue sky was streaked with purples, oranges and reds.  Yesterday morning we'd picked up a load of beef from High River (oh the smell, i had to bury my nose in my t-shirt, we won't be eating beef for a few days) This morning we travelled down through customs and meat inspection at Sweetgrass.  Across Montana on H2, stopping at Havre for our shopping,  the landscape was flat, not much snow about but plenty of ice. We stayed the night at Wolf Point.    
Saturday 18th
We were surrounded by snowy hills, the sun a ball of fire, you could feel the heat through the windscreen.  Jets left their telltale mark of white feather like trails in the pale blue sky. Into North Dakota on I94.  We stopped at the Flying J at Beach to fuel up and have a shower.  We passed "Home on The Range" it seemed ages ago that i had first entered that in the blog. The sun stayed with us low and bright, it was -4, we drank hot chocolate and stared at the views around us, North Dakota was one of our favourites.  By the time we arrived in Fargo winter was upon us once more, the sky was white, the landscape white and the roads were completely covered, it was only 4pm but that was it for today, it was early for us, after tea we would watch "The Walking Dead"
Sunday 19th
Into Minnesota, the sky was a mass of orange dimpled cloud stretched across as far as the eye could see.  A blanket of white surrounded us.  At first light we'd seen deer in the woods, it was lovely seeing them like this, christmas card stuff, we usually saw them at this time of the morning.  Thin cloud unfurled towards us and it looked like the sky was on fire.  The sun appeared bright orange and glowing, all the colours disappeared.   We were stopping soon for breakfast, a rest area near Alexandria, the snow was so deep here i had to walk maddy around the outside.  We had 500 miles to do today, no problem there, the forecast was light snow, no problem there either after what we had drive through last week.  The roads were quiet, soon, as we passed through small towns we would see the churches filling up with people, car parks crammed with 4x4's
pickups and the odd cadillac, even a group of small homesteads would have their own house of religion, their were some pretty strange ones.  We'd often seen Hutterites in walmart, the women with their long shapeless dresses and headscarfs, the men in their homemade suits and black hats.  In the restroom the women would just stand and stare at you, very unnerving (and they speak to each other in a different language) and the men would be waiting right outside the door for them.  By 10am we were in Minneopolis.  We had a bit of time today so dave was driving through the centre so we could see the city. The skyscrapers against the blue sunny sky was like a postcard.  What a shame we did'nt get to stop and explore these places, Las Vegas was the only city we knew that had a truck stop in its centre.  The Mississipi was frozen and covered in snow.  Into Wisconsin, still on I94.  I can't believe how quickly we move from state to state.  All the weigh stations had been closed since we set off from Sweetgrass, this was very strange usually some diehard was out to catch an overweight truck!  We came across a roundabout! our second, the only other one we knew of was in Billings.  We stopped for lunch at Osseo,  across from the truck park was an old grain store/barn, it had been converted to a shop selling antiques, wine and cheese.  While dave took maddy for a walk down the lane i went inside, old crates storing wine and a long counter with a selection of cheeses.  I picked a blueberry cheddar and an apple and cinnamon of which was recommended by the owner.  No antiques as such as it means secondhand over here, old bottles and jars, windowframes and old petrol cans, not upholstered chairs and delicate china.  We passed a few lakes with big groups of people icefishing, they even had their pickups on the ice! unbelievable! The sun was going down behind us all we could see were light purples.  We would be at our destination about 5pm to unload early tomorrow.  It had been a strange day, we'd driven through two states.
Monday 20th
It was Martin Luther King day, a holiday. We unloaded in a small place called Butler.  With the light snow falling this morning it reminded us of Bedford Falls from "Its A Wonderfull Life".  After having the trailer washed out we headed for Little Chute near Greenbay on H41.  A Nestle plant to pick up frozen pizzas, apparently they had meat on them so we might have to go to meat inspection after the border crossing. We'd noticed alot of places ie. shopping malls, housing estates, companies even some truckstops, had the american flag flying, it looked great, some were huge, what a shame we did'nt do this with the union jack. Arriving at Little Chute the temperature dropped to -9.  After dave had braved the cold and changed our empty trailer with the loaded one we were away, down to Appleton taking H10 to Stevens Point, then I39 to Wausau,
picking up H29 to Eau Claire to join the I94.
Tuesday 21st
-30 when we got up.  Dave took truck over near Flying J for me to dash in and use the restroom.  We'd had a shower last night thankgoodness! We knew it was cold as all the trucks engine steam was white. Hopefully the sun would come out and warm things up.  Into Minnosta making our way back to Fargo on I94.  We were headed for Winnipeg, hopefully the meat inspection would be a skip or we would have to drive to Saskatoon like last time, madness! The night heater in the truck was really good but we had to turn this off to start the engine, it took ages for the heat to start coming through.  Stopping for breakfast near Monticello a few hours later the temperature had dropped to -32, luckily there was no wind.  At Alexandria we did the last of our shopping for the holiday, soft drinks, cheeses, crisps and of course "twinkies" We more or less ran across walmarts carpark with our trolleys to the truck, daves hands had started to hurt, i had my gloves on!  It was 11am and the temp was -25.  We'd heard on the radio about a snow storm over New York and Philadelphia, it was called "Janice".  The Superbowl was on in New York this weekend between the Broncho's and the Pittsberg Steelers.  It was going to be so cold for everyone, the cheapest tickets were $3,000 up in the nosebleeds! and the most expensive were a million dollars!  After fueling up at Fargo we were back in North Dakota on I29, making our way to the border at Emerson.  The wind had picked up and was pushing the snow across the road.  Luckily the meat inspection was a skip, so we could go straight to Winnipeg and drop the trailer in the yard.  Dave only had 12 hours left so we would probably have a reset tomorrow in Winnipeg.