12-10-2005. Kl. 8¹⁵ am, Eva and I drove over to pick up Gerald. We had coffee and donuts for the drive. Gerald had his own large (  Liter) mug of coffee and he was to be a driver. A few years earlier , Gerald had worked as a carpenter in De Smet South Dakota, so he knew the road well.

First we drove along small but long dirt roads to the west. It was because Gerald wanted to show me the village, Kathryn, where the siblings had gone to school and to church.

Then we drove south. Gerald is the one in the family who is most interested in genealogy and it turned out that he had collected some papers and even written something in a notebook. On this stretch we get a good talk about it and I am allowed to look in the papers. Here I find, for the first time, papers that my great-grandfather, Lars Peder Nielsen, got his Dannebrog cross on his 90th day. This I have been looking for a lot at home in Denmark. I find that Gerald and I have many common interests and we get to know each other well on this trip.

Mary Ann Liljegren . I first heard of her two days before I left Denmark. Eva and Gerald have not been in contact with her for the past 10 years. Now they have contacted her for my sake and that we can have a place to stay near Volga.

Before night, we start driving north to North Dakota again. Along the way, Gerald shows us several sights, and he talks about a lot on a slightly alternative route. We visit  a Native American Reserve.

Dorothy and Curtis for the first time. It’s late before we leave Gerald and drive home to Eva. Here we share a beer and talk about our trip. I also have to get ready for a trip tomorrow to the capital Bismarck.

Related articles…
Rockey Mountians
Party in Valley City
The trip to the Capital
Saturday in Valley City
Visit to Kirsten in Boise
My time with Tim in Eugene
Last part of the journey

Top