-----Sleeping in in St. Cloud was a great help, and we got up at 8:00 and left by 10:00. We took I-94 westbound and traveled to the Fargo metropolitan area. Our return to Fargo was marked with a return to a Jimmy John's at which we'd eaten on our second trip in 2013. It was not raining this time, which made for an easier journey, and we were able to go the speed limit, which was a whopping 75 MPH.

-----We continued on I-94 due west until we reached the city of Jamestown, where we split north on US-52. There was a slow rise throughout this journey; regardless of whether we traveled north, west, or northwest, we were always going up—although sometimes imperceptibly so. Sometimes it was by just a degree or two, but it was always uphill.

-----This went on for hundreds of miles as we traversed US-52's two-lane blacktop, working our way past derelict towns with unusual names that seemed deserted for everything but the fact that there were some people still living there. The terrain was also surprisingly hilly; one tends to think of the plains as being ... well, plains, but these are not. Low-lying areas are oftentimes filled with standing water.

-----After passing such quasi-quaint villages, we made it to the southern outskirts of Minot, and I cannot say with a straight face that it's particularly pleasant-looking on a Sunday evening. We took one look at the deserted buildings and graffitied dumpsters and went through a mess of abandoned downtown road construction areas on the way to the northern end of town. Sunday evening meant that most stores were closed and the whole place had the aura of a ghost town; I'm sure we'd have a different opinion of the place had we come in the middle of the week.

-----Fortunately, a Jimmy John's was within our sights. We parked next to a large truck with its windows down and its engine on ... but with no driver. Once we exited the Jimmy John's armed with some sandwiches, we noticed the Jimmy John's delivery sign affixed to the truck's roof. Apparently, turning the engine over before delivering a "Freaky Fast" sandwich would simply take too long.

-----Tomorrow: we cross the border and travel to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.