Sugarland

3 or 4 of these came in today, along with 5-6 motor homes, 3 of them hawling a trailor.  That does say Sugarland.  The name of this concert was "The Incredible Machine."

The place was packed.

I really liked their set.  That black circle was really a screen.  Different images appeared and sometimes is was of the show.

Here they are.

It was an absolutely incredible show.

I would go see them again in a heart beat.

The lady sitting is her mother.  Don't know who the one standing up was.

This was the entire band.  They looked like they were really enjoying themselves during the entire concert.

The, the fair ended like it started.

We made the news

Since we are from Minot, Maine, when we bought our tickets for the fair there was a big interest, no one realized there was a Minot in any state but North Dakota.  A news reporter decided she wanted to do a story, she was from KMOT TV.  They did a story about it last night.  As a matter of fact, as of this morning we are still on their home page and you can view the video.  Even Bruno is on it.  Just click on the link.

We saw this come in,

And this is one of their 2 motor homes.

He gave quite a good concert.

Yeah....I'm caught up.  But tomorrow we're going to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and guess what...no internet service.

Back to the fair

Today we went to see Extreme Canines.  They find their dogs by going to different shelters, find dogs who are high energy, like people and are about to be euthenized.  She was a kindergarten teacher.  See the white dog jumping over the bar.

This one just jumped through the hoop, it was part of an obstacle course.

This one is sitting on the guy's feet, it looks like she's holding the dog, but she's not.

I love this sign, this is where we got our hats.

Downtown Minot

When I had gone on my "quilt shop" hunt, I saw this Scandinavian Heritage Center"

Many Scandinavians settled in this area.  The Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Norway, Denmark,  Sweden and Finland, are all depicted on this 75 foot map made of differet colored granite tiles.

This is a statue of Hans Christian Andersen.

This windmill was built in1928 by a Danish North Dakota resident to pump water and to grind wheat.  The family donated it to the park in the 1960's

This is a full size replica of the Gol Stave Church in Norway.

The inside seats 60 people.

According to the guidebook, water plays a large part in the lives of Scandinavians and the cascading waterfall and rippling stream that flows down to the ponds are reminders.  This is what we should have done to the hill behind our house, dug into it and made a BIG waterfall.  (Too much ledge.)

The Stabbur is a storehouse used in Scandinavian countries.

This is the Sigdal House, the oldest house in North Dakota, it is 230 years old, shipped here from Sigdal, Norway.

The Dala Horse, 30 feet tall, is the most recognized Swedish symbol in the world.

Just to give you an idea of how big it is, here are 2 people and a golf cart next to it.

I absolutely love seeing and learning all this stuff.

Bull Riding

Had to take this picture of one of the rides on our way to the arena.

Neither one of us had ever seen any bull riding except on TV.  There were 38 bull riders tht night, here they are all lined up.

Here's one coming out of the gate.  The goal is to stay on 8 seconds or longer.

This guy was hysterical, he was one of the announcers, helped distract the bull when the rider got bucked off, and entertained us when there was any kind of a delay.

Here's another bull coming out of the gate.

Only about 4 guys out of the 38 went to 8 seconds.

This guy went 8.4 seconds.

Look at him go.

Finally he got bucked off.

They had 2 other clowns who distracted the bull away from the rider.  His barrell was there for the bull to hit if he got really angry.

Their job was to try to get the bull to the gate, most went willingly, but not all.

If that didn't work, there were 2 guys on horses lasooing them and pulling them through the out gate.

We both enjoyed it.

Stock Dog Seminar

Today we went to a Stock Dog Seminar, it was incredible.  They use Border Collies.  It was absolutely facinating.  The trainer used a whistle.  That dog put those sheep through a maze and into that pen in no time.

The anouncer challenged anyone to come up there and try it without the dog.  Two yound men went up and tried, those sheep were all over the place.

They also demonstrated the dog's ability to herd young cattle.

They also did it with 2 dogs, amazing how they help each other.  I did a little research on the Border Collie and it states that the herding instinct was not bread into them, rather the wolf's herding instincts were toned down.  The wolf will kill once they have herded animals, the dogs won't.  The trainer had to use 2 different whistles, a different pitch for each dog, that's how precise you have to be in training a border collie.

After we left the arena, we found a "cow wash".

More Concerts

First I need to make a correction.  When I talked about the locomotive we saw in Minnesota I said it held 25 gallons of water, that should have been 25,000 gallons.

Last night there was a KISS concert.  We didn't go to that one but we might just as well have, they were so loud.  We could even see part of their pyrotechnics.  They also had fireworks after the show.

Tonight we saw The Band Perry, they were pretty good.

Then caame Eric Church.  I had heard him before and found he was pretty good.  His live concert, on the other hand, we didn't find very good at all.  The bass was so loud, I could feel my water bottle fibrate.  We left half way through and like KISS, we could hear them lound & clear from our motor home.

I don't like having 2 concerts in one night, it seems like it takes them forever to swap the stage.  This was our view walking back to the campsite.

We were outside next to the motor home talking to our neighbor when I took this picture.