8-12-08 Day 7

Tuesday, the 12th. John and I packed the bikes, had breakfast at Hardee's and started out. We stopped 2 miles later at the air museum at the north end of the Minot airport. The museum had lots of old airplanes and displays. They are working on putting together a WWII vintage P-40 Warhawk.

There was a 9 cylinder radial engine on the floor in the back room, right next to a JATO unit (jet assisted take off).

Outside of the museum were a few planes.

In another area of the museum they had a dozen or so beautiful 30's to 60's vintage small planes. All in flying condition.
After the museum, we continued north and east. We headed for the International Peace Garden just north of Dunseith, ND. It lays on the border of the U.S. and Canada and covers over 2300 acres. It was interesting, but I've lived in MN and WI all my life so I've seen lots of trees and lakes before. Also, my maps showed it as being in ND, but we had to go past a U.S. Customs building to get into the garden. Not a problem, but I wasn't expecting to have to stop back at the U.S. Customs building and have to prove my citizenship status to get back in to the USA. We never went past the Canadian Customs building that was maybe 100 feet down the road. Call me dumb, but a sign telling the U.S. citizens that are visiting the Peace Garden, that they're actually leaving the U.S., and should have a passport, even though they never passed the Canadian Customs building, would be nice.

The garden has a display of steel from the World Trade Centers in NY.

Also on the grounds was a North American Game Warden Museum. It was full of interesting animal mounts taken from poachers. Each display also had the story of how the animal was confiscated.
We made it as far as Grand Forks, ND.