Dwayne's Story!!

Let me tell you a little bit about Devil’s lake.

If you find yourself flying at 4500 ft past Grand Forks North Dakota, and you see a line of thunderstorms on the XM weather, and you hit NRST, up will pop KDVL Int, with 2 runways, and friendly people.

We landed here, and then while I fuelled up, Jim went and introduced himself to Connie, who is a local pilot, and just so happened to be at the airport at 7:15 at night. She very kindly hooked us up with the keys to the courtesy van, located outside the gates. It had not been driven since Bush was first elected we think. It literally had cobwebs on the mirrors and wheels.

Of course it did not start, so Connie took off and eventually came around with Frank. Frank had a portable booster kit that worked great. We are off. Where to? Well there are several, by that I mean 3, motels in town, and we figured the one with the “Casino” was the best bet to have internet. Well turns out that in their King rooms (fancy schmanzy) they have “DSL”. Do you have a cord we ask, but of course, there is one per hotel. Okay, so we share the cord. It’s my turn as I write this.

Then we go to the Casino, Bar and Lounge. This is a scene directly, I mean actually stolen, from My Name Is Earl. The waitress is very nice, in a manly sort of way. We order 2 Corona. These bottles have a best before date of 2005. Okay, so this is not the local drink of choice. Onto the nachos, which come covered with 1’ of lettuce and tomatoes. Okay.

Jim says, do you have any hot salsa. He likes it a little spicy, she returns with a full bottle of Dave’s Insanity Sauce. You know the one, we have one bottle that has lasted since the last house. Now in her defense, she said add a couple of drops to the actual salsa. I get curious about the game on TV and look away for the 5 seconds that it takes Jim to liberally apply Dave to his actual nacho. Nacho, singular.

So while Jim uses up all of the sour cream trying to put out his tongue, lips, etc. I enjoy the atmosphere. Close your eyes for this. Well, perhaps read this first, then close your eyes. You are in the bar from My Name is Earl, facing from the bar towards the pool tables, now just add the following: to the right hand corner we have a blue permed 60 plus lady working the blackjack table, and in the other corner we have some sort of spinning wheel that people bet on. This is the casino. There are 4 customers. Enough said about that.

So then the tornado warnings come up, and we find out from local Jim, whose Dad was raised in these here parts, that the roof of this building was ripped off one time in a twister. Great. We are staying in the only mobile home like quasi casino pub in town.

So after some fun in the hail, and lightening etc. (Video pending) We try to start the car again to go check on the plane. Dead, naturally. So we ask Jim if he can give us a boost. Sure he says, “ I got me a jumper cable at home, and I am 1 block away”. We never saw Jim again. I hope he is okay.

So the next morning, today, I get up at 6:00 am, shower, pack what little I have unpacked, call AAA for a boost, and make sure Jim is ready to go.
F&*^%. It is 35 degrees F, windchill of 27F, and an 800 ft ceiling. We are not going anywhere.

Off to see the plane anyhow, she’s certainly cleaner, and most importantly, she is still in one piece. So off to breaky.

Well let me tell you, that was a blast into the past. We saw Connie again, naturally, and enjoyed the atmosphere with every local over the age of 60 filling the place talking about the weather. Jim and I walk in, and you literally could hear a pin drop. Like we were from Mars. Conversation picks up, because once Connie saw us, we were clearly were not here to sell them anything. After our serving of grease, well done, we stood in line behind a nice lady who used her personal cheque book to pay for her $23 breakfast bill (table of 8). Wrote it out right there she did. I thought of paying with loonies, but thought that might not go over well.

So I have plenty of time to kill. I was thinking about taking up Pike fishing, but it’s too cold. We might go over to the tractor dealer 3 doors down and sit in tractors for fun, not sure what else to do.