Last week's highlights - Day 763 (Yr 3, Day 30)

Bismarck, ND

I guess since there hasn't been much to report, I will attempt to post the highlights of the past week.

So last week the highlight was meeting 2 new couples and 2 next door neighbors.

On Thursday, I met Jo and Steve who just started full-timing.  They are from Silicon Valley (CA) and are birding enthusiasts.  Jo pointed out a few birds to me, including a nest of babies, which I never would have seen on my own.  She takes spectacular photos!  I met Jo when she was standing outside my rig taking some photos (I was curious so went outside to find out what she was taking pictures of - birds, of course!)

I also met Barbara & Dan who are from New England, who are fellow "RVillagers" (as a reminder, it's a site - rvillage.com - that, among other things, allows people to find others on a map.  When you input your location, it lets others in the campground know you've arrived, so you can meet.  They just completed a caravan tour in Europe and have been RVing for over 10 years.

As for neighbors, we met Pat & Irvin who are actually just on the other side of Roger & Cathy.  They are from the Bismarck area and have traveled to 48 states over the last 10 years.  Lots of interesting stories.  They arrived about a month ago, and will be staying until the end of August.

I also met Dan, on the other side of me.  He's from MN and works in construction, doing hail damage repairs. He left his wife & kids back home while he works, and will be here until about the same time as us.

There's another RVillager that checked in today (Sarah & Ted) who I hope to meet before they leave in 3 days.

The only other highlight was visiting our first farmers market on Sunday.  They finally started here.  It was in the parking lot of KMart and there was only ONE vendor, who only had a handful of veggies.  They were very nice and fresh - not cheap (we bought one tomato, one giant zucchini and 2 small peppers - $6.50. I grilled the zucchini and peppers along with some salmon for dinner).  They told us there were 3 other vendors there but they left early.  There are 2 other markets that set up in various places during the week, that we hope to visit.  My hunch is, however, that these are local folks who have large gardens - not farms - where they grow a lot of veggies that they can sell during the summer for pocket money.  Although there are a lot of farms here, they are mostly commercial and grow wheat, sunflowers and soybeans, not like NC where there were a lot of veggies.