November 14-16, 2007 - After visiting Andrea in Nebraska, I drove northeast to a farm area near Moorehead, Minnesota to see my buddy Mark and his family. I snapped various photos of his farm, in which sugar beets is his primary crop. Mark had all sorts of large trucks and tractors on his land!
	Yeah baby ... Farming rocks the house!
	Mark has various metal bins for storage of something that he told me about but I forgot. :p) I climbed to the top of the tallest bin and captured the grand view in the second photo. The beauty of the land in western Minnesota is much more subtle than Colorado's mountains. The wide open spaces, largeness of the sky and simplicity of the terrain has an appeal all to itself.
	Mark's piece of crap 1976 Ford dump truck died on him right on this dirt road. When the truck stopped, I pulled the dump truck via a rope in a pick-up truck for about five miles to a truck repair business. The fastest I could go was about 10 miles per hour during much of the ride! That was my first farming advenure in a long time! :p)
	The farm has all sorts of old beater trucks laying around including these three. Here are my other truck and car pages: 1955 Chevy Truck 1978 Chevy Truck 1978 Datsun Truck Assorted Truck Pictures Honda CRX Muffler
	Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Farming can be a dangerous business! :(
	Your typical farm dirt road, taken near Glyndon, Minnesota.
	Look at this! I drove one of Mark's huge trailer trucks! :)
	Mark also took me for a ride in his newest John Deere tractor. That vehicle had a lot of acceleration and very good turning ability. It was my first ride in a tractor ever!

Minnesota Video Clip Here's a video clip that Mark made as I was driving the trailer truck. (1:06 .mpg file)

Farming Sugar Beets Mark is a proud sugar beet farmer who raises this annual crop on hundreds of acres of flat Minnesota farmland. He ventured onto one of his fields and grabbed a stray sugar beet that was not picked up during harvesting. A sugar beet kind of looks like a radish with the inside appearing similar to a raw potato. The inside has a whitish pulp texture. I stuck my tongue to it and it was really sweet ... like sugar. Sugar beets like these, along with sugar cane (grown in tropical areas), are the two plants that provide sugar for humanity. Mark harvests millions of these little sugar beets and this is how he makes his living. Go Mark go!

	Extra Minnesota Photos A Minnesota sunset.
	A visit to Detroit Lakes.
	On the last night, Mark and the family had an evening bonfire. There's a picture of my feet near the bonfire. It reminded me of my days with the tipi! ;)
	Last but not least, special thanks to Kate for adventuring with me in Fargo, North Dakota. Visiting the Roger Maris Museum was among the highlights from the evening.