June 14th - Lewis and Clark State Park, ND

We decided to take it easy today and just relax at this particular park. It was on a huge river that like everywhere else in the area, was bursting at the banks. They must’ve had a lot of rain here, because there is water in all the paddocks. After breakfast (eggs, turkey bacon and English muffins – the bacon is leaner than pork bacon and pretty tasty! In typical American fashion it cooks crispy, rather than the still soft style from home that I prefer), we went for a walk down to the lake. We saw a huge bloated dead fish and some very crumbly banks. The water was freezing, so we didn’t go swimming. We did see some kids throwing a stick for a dog who happily plunged into the freezing depths. Not a very exciting lake, but at least it wasn’t raining. We did manage to drench our shoes walking across a grassy section along the river and Will jumped when a mouse crossed our path. I think he thought it was a snake, but it was a bit cold for them! 

Practicing distance and near shots!

We spent the afternoon chilling out and using the free wi-fi we found at the ‘nice’ end of the park where the full hook-ups and showers were. Score! More reading and I finished my book. We also looked into what is going on with our visa. We are on the Visa Waiver Program, which is valid for 90 days. We thought we could just go to Mexico or Canada and then when we came back into the USA the 90 days would start again. The visa is valid for two years so we thought that made sense, however it doesn’t work like that. Instead we have to leave North America completely in order to start the 90 days again – which we hadn’t planned to do! The stupid Flight Centre girl who we booked our flights through should surely have known this. Especially since we booked return flights back to Australia in November (which we want to extend to April next year) – more than 90 days after we left!! In fact, she didn’t even mention that we needed a visa at all for the USA – if my father hadn’t asked what the deal was with visas, we probably wouldn’t have even got the VWP. I am so mad at that stupid girl, so if you go to Flight Centre Collins St, Hobart DO NOT see Finola Mills. There I did it, I published her name on the internet, citing her as being totally useless. I know it’s not up to people at Flight Centre to do the visa stuff, but you’d think they’d know something about them or at least mention if we need them, they being the ‘travel experts.’ Hmph.

Cooking dinner!

The internet wasn’t very useful for finding out about getting another visa as the VWP cannot be extended. We couldn’t even find out what city in the USA we could go to. So we’re thinking about going to Canada early instead and trying in Toronto or Ottawa. Hopefully we can find out some more information before our visa runs out on July 15^th!! Argh, how frustrating and annoying.