Day 1 - American Royal (Wednesday)

We left Regina right on time, 5:30 AM. I woke up at 4:00 AM to shower and finish loading the truck, and went to bed at 3:15 am the night before. I mean, who wants to sleep the night before leaving for a 3-day BBQ marathon anyway??? So i promptly fell asleep and woke up in Estevan, 2 hours down the road where we pulled into the Husky for a quick hot breakfast.

30 minutes later we pulled up to the Portal border crossing into the good 'ol USA. They poked around in the BBQ and the back of the truck, asked about 50 questions and let us go. The spooky part was when they asked "Are you the guy that called 2 days ago asking all the questions about bringing meat across the border"?? Um.. yes sir. "OK then, have a great day." With that, we were on our way.

Keying addresses into the GPS...


We mounted a new storage box on the back of the pit, LOTS of new storage space, and we filled every inch. A little bit ghetto, but the food is killer!


Chinese buffet in some small town in Southeast North Dakota. Not bad! About 50 different things, only $7.50.



Gord "Studying" the game plan for our first ever KCBS BBQ competition. I have meticulously scheduled every component of this cook... something I kind of do anyway but we really need to be on the ball for this one.


We pulled into Sioux Falls at about 9 PM, lost an hour when we crossed the border and a couple hours later than planned. Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful day. The scenery through North Dakota and South Dakota was exactly the same as Saskatchewan - dead flat, no trees. The WIND was crazy though, gusting heavy all day and blowing in the NW direction... So we were driving into this wind all day. It was not a cheap day for gas. Supper was at Texas Roadhouse, a steakhouse chain. We each had a nice steak, and they were all very good. Perfectly cooked, nicely seasoned, a great meal for a chain.