Day 4 -- Fargo, N.D., to Regina, Sask.

M. Bison
After a fresh pair of front tires, the Kia was finally the Kia! again. On with the show.

I stopped in Jamestown for gas and saw a huge red sign that said, "Live Buffalo". I had read of a place in Bismarck that made a mean bowl of buffalo chili. It was decided: my mission was to see live buffalo and eat a dead one in the same day.

The sign lead me to the National Buffalo Museum in the middle of Fronier Village, which looked less authentic than Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom. There was a $5 admission into the museum and observation deck, but I wasn't about to fork up the money for what would amount to a few moments of looking at an animal.

And I certainly didn't have to. Next to the museum was a small path -- it may have been restricted from the public, but there was no sign -- that led me under the observation deck. The view was a little less splendid than what the deck would have provided, but I saw a buffalo, and that was all I needed.

I'm a pirate, not a smuggler
At customs in Portal, N.D., I was asked if I had any weapons on me. Well, actually I was asked, "Do you have anything that could be considered a weapon? Knives? Blades? Firearms? Air rifles? Shotguns? Rifles? Handguns? Fifteen-inch dildos? Pistols? Clubs? Arrows? Spears? Projectiles? Explosives? Incendiary devices? ..." and so forth.

I had a butterfly knife, which is illegal in Canada. I didn't feel like mailing it, so I left it with the border patrol. The technical term for this is "abandoning it to the Crown." If I were to rank everything I've done by the way it looks on paper, abandoning my blade to the Crown would have to rank in the top five.

Since I was already stopped, the customs agents decided to check the rest of my car. I shouldn't have been nervous, but I realized that my car was recently repaired and therefore in the hands of someone else for about an hour that morning. I half-expected the border patrol to produce a 50-pound bag of chronic from the spare-tire compartment.

Luckily, the only questionable items were my three cigars, which I was able to keep.

I could get used to this ...
One question this sojourn of mine was meant to answer: If you take away all the time you've ever spent at a beach, or anywhere that required no more than a bathing suit and some sunscreen -- how long would that be, and what would you have done otherwise?

Apparently, you'd have been drinking every second of it. And that's OK, because our northern bretheren have it down to a science. Saskatchewan is a major producer of hops and barley, and it shows.

I spent Monday evening at Bushwakker Brewpub, sampling a few of the microbrewery's ales. I haven't tasted beer that good since a Tampa beer festival last March. The ales were robust while maintaining a smooth texture.

I didn't even look at a menu, I just proclaimed, "Brown ale and a burger," as I sat at the bar. When the bartender responded, "Beef or buffalo burger?" I knew this was the right place to be. With the goal of experiencing both living and dead buffalo in the same day realized, I enjoyed the meal as Round Midnight played some lively jazz in the background. Only one quip: the barstools were about 6 inches shorter than they should have been. I felt like a 7-year-old with his elbows on the dinner table while eating my meal.

Walking back from Bushwakker, the lights of Mosaic Stadium, home of the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders, were on. I wanted to investigate why, but soon realized that my road-cramped legs weren't willing to get me there.

The good side of bad weather
The sky was perpetually ugly today. Bleak grey clouds stole the horizon and most of the sunlight. Except for a patch of sunny skies near the border, the only light I saw was whatever seeped through a break in the clouds in the west.

But for me, this was training. Hell, I'm going somewhere that's night for 22 hours. If I can't handle a state that's 7 p.m. for eight hours, I'm screwed.