Beartooth Highway - 2011 Trip - Day 9

Start Location: Mandan, ND
Ending Location: Baldwin, WI
Miles Today: 488
Trip Miles: 2055
States Visited: 7
Provinces Visited: 0
Low Temp: 59.5° F
High Temp: 76.7° F
Min Elevation: 715'
Max Elevation: 1978'

Route Map:

We left Mandan this morning after a great visit with Mike, Karin, Sundance, and Daffodil.  This was our first visit to Mandan and Mike and Karin have a beautiful house and were great hosts.  We visited the state capital, the North Dakota Heritage Center, the Abraham Lincoln State Park, and were treated to driving tours of many areas around Mandan.  It was wonderful to sit on their deck, sip a glass of wine, and just enjoy the view and visit with them.  We hope to return again soon.

We were on I-94 all day and actually went a little further than we had planned since the road was good, the traffic was light for the most part, and the temperature was very comfortable.  The only real traffic we ran into was in Minneapolis/St. Paul and that was because we were going through there at 5:00 PM and hit rush hour traffic.

Anyone who has been following us has probably noticed that many of the pictures are somewhat blurry.  We bought a Canon SD940IS before the trip last year because it was very thin and small, easy for Linda to carry, and started up quickly.  The camera took great pictures last year and we were very pleased with it so we were surprised when blurry pictures started showing up.  Linda had also been commenting on the fact that the camera was shutting off quicker than usual and seemed to be having a difficult time finding something to focus on.  We decided to check into the problem further when we got to the motel tonight.  As we were checking settings to see if something had  changed, we noticed that the camera kept shutting off after about a minute even when we were in the process of reviewing the menus.  When it did shut off, we noticed an E32 in the corner of the screen.  This is apparently an error code and when we called the Canon 800 support number, the only thing they could tell us was that this was a generic error message like "Check engine light" and would have to be sent to a service center for further diagnostics.  As we thought about it, we think the problem started on the Beartooth Highway when I dropped the camera when it wasn't locked onto a small tripod we brought with us.  I guess we'll continue to try to take pictures but it looks like only about half will be usable.

Tomorrow it's off to Napervile - about 360 miles.