#2: [25-May-24]

22-Dec-2000 -- The temperature in Rugby was well below zero when we awoke on Friday morning. Rugby is an appropriate place to begin a day of confluence hunting since it is the geographical center of North America. It was a clear day and we headed east on U.S. highway 2 for Grand Forks and our eventual target of Fargo. We were on a circle tour of North Dakota visiting friends and relatives for Christmas and I wanted to bag a confluence point or two on this trip.

We reached Grand Forks before noon and crossed over the Red River into Minnesota. There we turned north on 220 for a few miles. We turned east on County Rd 65 but this went past the point about a half a mile to the south of it. We doubled back and went north to the next turn. This was effectively a half mile long driveway to a farm.

Just before reaching the point it curved and ended in the farmers yard. We parked on the corner and due to the below zero temperatures Monique decided to wait in the car with the camera while I walked out to the point about 400 feet away. I tried to walk on top of the snow drifts but kept falling thru to about knee deep, much to the amusement of my fiancee I later found out.

When I got to within 100 feet of the point I came to a frozen river (the Grand Marais according to my gazetteer). Since I am not familiar with the area or when the ice gets safe in these parts and I weigh in excess of 300 lbs without my winter gear on I decided NOT to test the strength of the ice. In the photos I am standing 105 feet due west of the point so the point would be near the far bank of the River.

I hope this is still within the allowed accuracy as I counted this as a successful point reached. I trudged back to the car and took some more photos from there. Then it was back on the highway and hoping to have time for another point that day (see N47 W97).

In the middle of Grand Marais Creek.