July 19, 2008 (Notes from Day 6)

By inadvertently checking them into a hotel that has mini-golf, a swimming pool and karaoke bar! Despite a long day through the endless miles of cornfields, the crew immediately revived when they discovered the mini-golf and there are peels of laughter coming through my window as they engage in some friendly competition. It’s 1030 - I’m bagged but they are still going strong: oh to be young and full of energy!. If nothing else, they will be subdued as we cross the border tomorrow.

We traveled through South Dakota, Minnesota (sometimes crossing and re-crossing the Red River) and are now in North Dakota. The checkpoint was setup in a Toyota dealership (Toyota is a sponsor of the rayce and this is the second stop at one of their dealers) and the used car operation looked so much like the set of the movie ‘Fargo’ that I expected William Macey to come out of the building! While we waited for our car to arrive, we setup the camp stove and cooked fajitas and it seemed to be a huge hit and a nice break from Subway and Taco Bell…..Most of the cars arrived within one hour of each other (including the mighty Michigan); Durham arrived on a trailer, but left under their own steam. About five of the team did not make the checkpoint before it closed, so they are now behind the eight ball in terms of getting to Winnipeg. With Calgary and Durham setup within 200m of each other at 6:00pm by the side of I-29 to charge their arrays, we took everyone Tacos for dinner and it was much appreciated by all.

Each team has an observer with them and the observers rotate through the teams, changing at the stage and check points. While the observer is with us, he/she is considered part of our group and we house and feed them. For some of the observers, this has meant camping out whether they like it or not. As quite a few of the observers are in their fifties (and therefore perhaps not as resilient as the energy filled 20 year old engineers) there are some very tired looking volunteers as part of our caravan. They are really the unsung heroes of the rayce.

I’m excited for Red River College who are coming home tomorrow to a heroes welcome. From what we have heard, Winnipeg is cheering them on and Sneha Kulkarni (part of our CTV News team) has been feeding clips to Winnipeg and the excitement is growing. Our next stop is Red River College and it will be fun tomorrow to see how many turn out.

We will cross the border tomorrow and I have a carnet bond for all of the gear – my first experience with one of these and it will be interesting to see what happens. If we sail through customs, our travel clock keeps ticking: if they decide to inspect all of our vehicles, the clock stops, but we have to cover the car with a tarp to avoid charging of the array. Stay tuned…….will we make it in one pass or not!!?? The Customs officers are in for a fun day with 17 solar cars coming through.

- Lynne Cowe Falls, faculty advisor