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- Color in the hills of North Dakota
9/18 Driving I-94 east, we stopped at a Flying J for fuel – $3.91 for diesel. After taking on what we needed, we rolled into the North Dakota Badlands and the town of Medora. We found a campsite at (naturally) Medora Campground. Full hook-up sites - $10. They are getting ready to close for the winter so water is being shut off for unoccupied sites. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is right next to us. Temperature was in the low 50’s when we woke up but warmed up nicely to low 80’s in the afternoon.
The Marquis de More started this town in April of 1883 and named it afte his wife, Medora. He also started a meat packing plant with the intention of shipping prepared beef to the east. He lasted 3 years before the business venture failed. He also met Teddy Roosevelt who had come out west about the same ti
Know them by their horns
me as a 25 year old greenhorn. Teddy spent 10 days huntng buffalo before he finally bagged one. We saw bison right away. The boys (bulls) have horns that point straight up and the girl’s (cows) horns point towards each other. We saw lots of other animals; turkeys, wild horses, deer, antelope and elk. The elk are on the Medora Chateau Grounds where the Medora Musical is held every year between May and Labor Day. Medora is a very busy place during the summer; a Cowboy Hall of Fame is here, there are several RV parks and campgrounds available. This year they celebrated 125 years of Medora and 50 years of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Two days here just enjoying the area.
9/20
Ride
Right down the road is Dickinson and a Wal*Mart. We parked, checked to make sure it was okay, un-hooked and went to find “The Enchanted HIghway – a Road of Anticipation”. Exit 72 off I-94 takes you 32 miles to the town of Regent and on the way you are treated to the most magical (and the world’s largest) metal sculptures. There are ‘Geese in Flight’ at the exit, pull off and drive up to the base for a closer look. Just a few miles down the road are ‘Deer Crossing’, ‘Pheasants on the Prairie’ and ’Fisherman’s Dream’ has a 60 foot rainbow snapping at a huge dragonfly while a fisherman tries to catch him. ‘Grasshoppers in the Field’, ’Teddy Rides Again’, ‘The Tin Family’ (Pa, Ma & Son) and ‘The Whirlygig House’ in Regent complete the sculptures although the welder/artist is still working on more. They do take some time and effort to complete. A round trip back to Dickinson took us through the town of New England. We over-nighted at the Wal*Mart after shopping.
9/21 Bismarck, the State Capital was next. We parked our rig in Mandan and on Monday drove across the Memorial Bridge into Bismarck to see the capital building. We went into the Heritage Center first; we came out into the rain predicted for 3 pm and decided to head home. Good timing as we had thunder & lightning, too. Tuesday saw us at Fort Abraham Lincoln; south of Mandan it was the home of Custer’s 7th Calvary and where he was stationed before leaving for the Little Big Horn. Pvt John Hamlin in 1870 infantry clothing led us to and through George A & Elizabeth Custer’s home on the post. It was actually a replica of their 2nd home on the post as their 1st home burnt down taking everything but Libby’s favorite wicker rocker and a turkey platter. Driving further into the State Historic Park, we came to “On-A-Slant” Mandan village. The Mandan’s built earth lodges that could house up to 18 family members, 2 favorite horses, dogs plus hold the wood needed to keep the fire going and all the food for the inhabitants. It rained again. Wednesday went Into Bismarck for a tour of the capital buildin; 1 of 4 capital buildings that do not have a dome. It claims to be the tallest built structure in North Dakota. The highest point in ND is the White Buttes at 3,550 feet above sea level. We went oer to the mall so I could get a pedicure and noticed that there were alot of real pretty speedboats at the Cpnvention Center. We checked it out – it was FREE and we like free. There is a Walleye Tournament going on so we went to a walleye weigh in. Each professional fisherman showed up with his assistant angler with no more than 5 fish. Yup, a walleye is a fish. And, if I had only known what some of these professional fishermen make in a year, Gaylon would have been out in the boat 24/7 fishing. The winner of the Thursday weigh in with 18 lbs 6 oz has made over $800K so far this year. Go Fish!
9/25 we moved north about 50 miles to Lake Sakakawea (I spell it differently, too).
Lake Sakakawea, ND
Washburn has a wonderful Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center with a full collection of Karl Bodmer prints of Indian culture. We are parked at a State campground with water & electric for $20 a night ($5 daily is for the jeep). It’s worth it; we are facing the lake and have seen deer and pheasants everyday. The trees are all getting really colorful. 9/26 we drove to Beulah to check out a coal mine. We managed to get a tour of the Basin coal-fired Rural Electric Cooperative. I couldn’t believe how clean it looked. The electric plant uses the coal waste from the Dakota Gasification Plant next door which burns coal to make natural gas (nlg) anong other things. The Gasification Plant is 1 of 2 in the world; the other plant is in South Africa. The North American Coal Co is on the other side of Basin Electric and they do strip mining. ”Gasp!” There are strict reclamation laws in place. The first thing that is done after getting permits to mine which take 3 years, is to carefully remove 1 foot of topsoil and 3 to 4 feet of sub-soil, setting it aside for restoring the land so that it looks exactly the same as it did before the coal was removed. Next a drag-line comes in and removes about 100 feet of over-burden to reach the coal. Once they blast the coal, skip loaders pick up 40 tons of coal and load into trucks that can carry 300 tons at a time. The trucks head back into offload the coal which takes 9 seconds. Yup, 9 seconds to belly dump 300 tons of coal. These trucks, skip loaders and drag-lines are running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And our guide informed us that there is enough coal in North Dakota to mine for the next 800 years.
Our new home? Not!
9/27 It was 46 out this morning at 8am. After a lazy morning, we went to Stanton and saw a Hidatsu earthlodge and then to Fort Clark where all that remains are the depressions of the many earthlodges that exhisted in 1851 after the cholera epidemic decimated the town. Lewis and Clark built Fort Mandan across the Missouri River from Ft Clark the winter of 1804. The fort we saw was a replica of the original which they said was 10 miles upriver and under Lake Sakakawea.
9/28 North Dakota grows wheat, barley for the breweries and sunflowers (for oil not seeds). Has anyone ever seen a bottle of sunflower oil for sale? They are about 4 feet high and have huge heads. Today we moved up to Minot (rhymes with why not) & parked in the local Wal*Mart. We asked permisssion and parked where they asked us to park. Then – laundry, $12.00 worth. Everything put away and we did our shopping inside Wal*Mart to show our appreciation. Then went to their mall to the movies where we saw “Nights in Rodanthe” with Richard Gere & Diane Lane. Back home; there are 11 RV’s in the parking lot.
9/29 Gas in the Jeep @ $3.59.9 a gallon. That’s really $3.60. Went to Scheel’s, a sporting goods store, for warm wool socks for our trip. Sharon ended up buying a good pair of warm boots (warm to -40 degrees) and 4 pairs of smart socks. Not cheap, but they are nice, warm and they don’t itch. Besides I’m worth it. Hooked the jeep up and rolled down the road to Rugby, the geographical center of North America. Fueled up the motorhome -diesel at $4.02 and then found the campground where we meet our caravan group. Set up and started meeting people. There will be 16 rigs going on the trip.
9/30 The tail-gunner, Dan inspected our rig, checking batteries, springs, tires, etc to make sure the rig is healthy enough for the trip. At 4, we gathered together and met those that came in today. We also vacuumed the house, mopped floors & cleaned the bathroom (45 minutes). Oh, also cleaned a few spots on the carpet. Gaylon aired our tires and did the tires for several of our neighbors. Washed the windshield and front of the motorhome. We do have household chores. This isn’t all fun and games. We BBQ’d some smoked pork chops for our main meal.
10/1 Got up early so we could get to the Post Office and then back by 10:30. All 31 of us went to stand in front of the marker for the Geological Center of North America where we got our picture taken. Some of us walked over and then walked down to Bob’s Restaurant where we had our first orientation meeting, lunch and then the rest of our orientation. Walked back to the campground and had a little time for ourselves before a hot dog dinner. We will head north in the morning, the wagonmaster (WM) will leave at 7am and the tailgunner (TG) at 8am. The rest of us need to be out somewhere in between those 2.
10/2 We are on the road at 7:20 with our odometer set at 0. Our first stop is the Peace Gardens on the border of North Dakota and Manitoba. The entrance to the Gardens is between the 2 Border Crossings. Both countries donated land and money to construct this beautiful place dedicated to peace between our two countries. The odometer set itself back to 0.
Boissevain
Next stop was Boissevain (Boy sa vain) where we took a horse drawn carriage ride to a small gift/coffee shop where we were treated to homemade cinnamon buns & coffee or tea. A very talented home-schooled 10 year old played the violin while we enjoyed our dessert before lunch. Then the carriage came to pick us up and take us to lunch (our schedule was off due to a longer time at the Peace Gardens), another carriage ride to see the town’s 22 murals of their history and then back to see the Wildlife Museum. The museum owner took us on a tour of the exhibits explaining about the animals we saw and how they were obtained. Everything from porcupines, badgers & other small mammals to much larger ones like the Alaskan brown bear and the polar bear and including several specie of birds. All were displayed in a very natural setting posed in a natural way. Back on the road, (odometer reset itself again), we headed into Brandon, Manitoba, our 1st stop on the way to Churchill to see the polar bears.
