And there is a bright side to it, more of which anon<\/em><\/p>\n So having gone off to bed depressingly early last night, I was awake on several occasions right up to the alarm. I had the medication and then some porridge, followed by another sleep.<\/p>\n For a change I awoke in time to pack everything up and hit the road, heading for the Walmart across the State Line in North Dakota.<\/p>\n First though I found a pawn shop so I stuck my head in to see what they might have, but one look at the customers and the staff behind the counter made me change my mind.<\/p>\n At Walmart in Grand Forks they had a laptop that might have done the trick but the staff there was so unhelpful that when they eventually told me what I wanted to know and they they didn’t have one in stock anyway, in the traditions of the best News of the Screws reporter, I made my excuses and left.<\/p>\n Down the flat featureless highway to Fargo, the biggest city in North Dakota. The land here is flat as a pancake for miles around with no feature to break up the relief. Luckily it’s not as monotonous as it sounds with a few trees here and there and different crops, and piles of railway lines exploiting the various produce of the region.<\/p>\n My eye did once rest on a hill, but closer inspection revealed it to be Fargo’s waste disposal facility<\/p>\n At Fargo I put some fuel in and asked the girl at the counter if she could direct me to Walmart. There are a couple here and I’m grateful that she sent me to the one that she did for I struck gold.<\/p>\n After looking for a while at the various items on display my eye fell (don’t ask me why) on q Lenovo Ideapad 330, 1TB hard drive, 4GB RAM and an Intel Core 13 processor, reduced from $349 to $279. Cheap as chips.<\/p>\n I drew the assistant’s attention to it and she said that it was out of stock. And so I asked if she would do a deal on the display model.<\/p>\n It turns out that the box was damaged, all of the accessories except the power cable were missing, and no-one in the shop could work out how to delete the Walmart splash-screen advertising screen-saver.<\/p>\n So after very much debate and discussion, I walked out of Walmart with it under my arm for a mere … wait for it … $125:00. I really can’t believe my luck. It makes losing 10 days work quite palatable.<\/p>\n Leaving Fargo, I went west, like my old computer. Another flat featureless road heading in a straight line, through one of the longest road repair section I have ever seen (we had to wait hours).<\/p>\n Eventually we started to hit the hills. I found Standing Rock, an old native American spiritual site which seems to be a menhir stuck into the ground, and then a scenic byway took me down the valley of the River James, the world’s longest non-navigable river, so they say.<\/p>\n It’s a huge historical site dating back to the early settlers of the 1880, old abandoned farms of the period and everything, and piles of old abandoned cars everywhere.<\/p>\n Eventually, finding an old nuclear rocket and a stern-wheel paddle steamer at the side of the road in Lamoure, I noticed a motel at the side of them. It’s rather early for me but here in the sticks a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush especially as there was a free room.<\/p>\n It’s seen better days, but then again so have I. And I’ve paid much more money to stay in far worse places than this.<\/p>\n In Walmart I found some vegan protein-broth so I heated some up to eat with bread. But although I’m feeling better, my stomach wasn’t quite up to this.<\/p>\n So another early night. I hope that I shall feel better in the morning.<\/p>\n
