Notable North Dakota
You may have picked up from the end of the last entry that I had some preconceptions and trepidations about North Dakota. Perhaps Fargo was not the best port of entry to introduce one to the state. But I'm here to tell you that this state is undeservedly maligned or -- worse, I suppose -- ignored. Let me bust a couple myths. First, the state is not flat as a pancake. Granted, it ain't Kentucky, but it ain't Kansas neither. The topography has quite a bit of texture, and at times the formations can legitimately be called hills. (Labeling the Turtle Mountains as mountains, however, is pushing it.)
Second, it is not true that there is nothing to do in North Dakota. Well, if your idea of something to do is shopping at Macys, eating at a 4-star restaurant, and then attending the opera, you probably want to give North Dakota a pass. But if you like sightseeing, visiting historical sites, fishing, boating, camping, and getting away from it all, this is a great place. There are two huge lakes in ND -- Devils Lake in the northeast, and Lake Sakakawea in the west central -- as well as a number of smaller lakes. There is lots of Lewis & Clark and pioneer history. And the state has a very nice set of state parks with campsites, cabins, picnic areas, fishing piers, etc.
Third, North Dakota is not just one huge wheat field. There are also fields of corn, barley, soybeans and sunflowers. Sunflowers! Yellow and perky in vast, undulating fields reminiscent of southern France (no, really).
The problem is that there is no one in North Dakota to tell friends and family about how nice it is here.
I took Route 2 from Grand Forks. The item of immediate note was the butterflies. Ohio has suicidal birds, South Dakota has suicidal pheasants, North Dakota has suicidal butterflies. All across the state, and particularly in the eastern half, zillions of little white butterflies flitted across like handfuls of rose petals tossed into the wind. Every few yards, one of their white bodies made a spot in the road. I think they were seeking union with each other but, much as I would wish otherwise, many achieved union only with my windshield. I'd like to tell you what they were, but they stayed in constant zig-zaggy motion, preventing observation of identifying marks.
The second item of note was that the drought didn't appear to be bad here, because the crops looked pretty healthy, and the road passed a number of small lakes and sloughs (pronounced "slews" -- marshy areas full of tall, thick, very green grass). Agriculture appears to be the only thing humans do here. Most of the little towns did not have signs pointing to a business district and, when I nevertheless drove in to investigate, there indeed was no business to speak of. But the houses looked nice. Lakota was a number of blocks of well-kept houses, even though there were few places of employment apparent. As I've often wondered in rural areas -- what in the world do these people do for a living?
About an hour out from Grand Forks, I lost NPR on the radio and discovered the strongest stations were from Canada. Then I found the Spirit Lake Reservation station, which alternated rock and country with Indian chants and announcements about events at the Pow-Wow, including instructions on how to register for the rodeo.
I had a reuben at the cafe on the lively main street of the town of Devils Lake, then turned south to Fort Totten. I went that way because the road went on a causeway over Devils Lake, but since the road went to Fort Totten, I did too. The historical site is a group of two-story white-washed brick buildings around a parade ground. After the military had stamped the Indians into resignation, the soldiers left and the buildings became a school to stamp the Indian language and culture out of Indian children. Each building had two labels - what it had been for the fort and what it had been for the school. I poked around in the musty history for a bit, but became saddened at the thought of lonely enlisted men, probably thinking they had been consigned to the end of the earth, and of lonely Indian children, stripped away from their families and berated for who they were.
The next stop was much happier. Minnewaukan, at the western end of Devils Lake, was having a summer festival. Townspeople were sitting in front of the stores on Main Street, just like an Andy Griffith show. In the area behind the American Legion park, in the shadow of huge grain elevators, local community groups were raising money by selling lemonade, snowcones, back massages, and the privilege of petting a pony. Families sat on chairs or blankets and half-listened to the Indigo Sisters wannabes playing sweetly on the the sound stage. I splurged one whole dollar for the first orange Julius I have had in decades. It tasted just like the ones my grandmother would treat us to when I was wee.
Back up to Route 2, and then on to Rugby. After checking into the Econolodge, the first thing to do was to visit the stone monument that marks the geographical center of North America. According to the US Geological Survey, who established the point, the geographical center is the point at which the continent would balance, if it were all of a uniform thickness. OK, but how in the world do they determine that? Anyway, there I was, at the very heart of the Heartland. Next I visited the kiosk by the sculpture honoring the Northern Lights, which apparently can be seen in Rugby when conditions are right. Sad to say, they weren't that night, but the kiosk had a nice video and slide show on a computer screen, as well as pictures on the wall. I also went to the Pioneer Village, but it closed at 7:00 pm and I arrived at 6:55, so that will have to wait for my next visit to ND. Dinner was at the Corner Cupboard, because there were lots of local license plates in the lot. The bacon on the BLT was superb, the homemade soup delicious, and the salad bar full of carbs, including butterscotch and tapioca puddings. Yum! The coasts may have forgotten how to eat, but in the Midwest it is still easy to get iceberg lettuce with Thousand-Island dressing, chicken fried steak, and coconut cream pie.
The next morning I began by centering myself at the Center of it all, then headed straight north, because it turned out the International Peace Garden was only 46 miles in that direction. 20 or 30 miles up the road, at the top of a rise, pretty hills came into view on the horizon -- they turned out to be the Turtle Mountains. At Dunseith, there was a log cabin rest stop/gift shop/museum, right next to an enormous turtle made completely of car wheels. This one sculpture tied together the themes of the Turtle Mountains and the speedway that is nearby. After free coffee, a chat with the proprietress, and purchase of a book on Lewis and Clark at the log cabin, I stopped in at Patti's for a cheeseburger and shake. It appeared Patti's had once been a drive-in, but now there were picnic tables where the cars would have gone, and you had to get out of your car and go up to the window to place your order. The young woman at the window said she would call Number One when my order was ready. I asked if I was the first customer of the day, and she said yes. I felt like I'd won something. When my order was up, although she probably could have used her regular voice, the window person announced over the loudspeaker that Number 1 was ready. It was good. The burger bun had been grilled in butter, which adds so much to a burger (and one's thighs). The shake was slightly on the thin side, but that is far preferable to a shake that is so thick you can't suck it through the straw. If I want to eat my ice cream with a spoon, I'll order a sundae, thank you.
The International Peace Garden is a monument to the friendship between Canada and the US, and a celebration of the longest unpatrolled border in the world. The entrance is in between US and Canadian customs. The property is a large acreage, half in the US, half in Canada. At the far end, you can see the border stretching into the distance, cut through the Turtle Mountain forest with white pyramidal markers spaced along its length. There are roads that go around lakes, with picnic tables and hiking trails. In the center is a long mall, with a huge concrete tower at the far end, and lovely flower gardens at the near end. Behind the tower is a small Peace Chapel, with quotes about peace inscribed in the walls. At each corner of the chapel were stands with flip panels, like stores use to display posters. Here, the flip frames held the front pages of newspapers from around the US and the world, dated 9/11/01 or 9/12/01. Since that dark event has triggered armed hostilities, it seems weird to put up reminders of it in a peace chapel, but whatever. There is a memorial to the World Trade towers in the middle of the mall, with some of the WTC girders salvaged from the wreckage.
Upon leaving the gardens, it is necessary to go through customs. I had visions of the border agent thinking I looked suspicious, and deciding to search my car, which is stuffed with boxes and bags -- about half of my life. It wouldn't have been a surprise, as I have been tapped more than my share of times for the extra security check at airports. But this time the white-haired, middle-aged, little-lady disguise worked, and I was waved through after assuring him I had not crossed through Canadian customs, had not purchased anything, had not picked up any bird's nests, was born in the USA, etc.
I set my sights for Washburn, at the eastern end of Lake Sakakawea, my route first paralleling the Canadian border through the Turtle Mountains, then going south through Minot. On the way I saw my first killdeer -- a bird with two striking black chokers that seems to prefer running to flying. On seeing the sign pointing to Lake Sakakawea State Park, I decided -- some of you need to be sitting down for this -- to camp that night. I found a nice spot with a lake view and impressed myself by figuring out how to set up the shock-cord tent single-handedly. Then I sat down with my cashews, prunes, carrots and root beer and prepared to spend a pleasant evening in the warmth and late prairie light. The weather forecast was "slight chance of scattered thunderstorms", but I'd heard such forecasts all week and they all came to nought. But after a bit a stiff breeze started up, and the clouds to the west started to look more serious. I decided to put the fly on the tent just in case. Excellent choice, because the wind got stronger, the clouds darker, and then the slight chance of a thunderstorm became 100 percent. I sat in the car and watched the wind tear at the tent, which, I am proud to say, stood its ground. After about 45 minutes of hard rain, the storm finally let up. After 15-20 minutes without any drops, I was about to emerge from the car (I'd been on the cell phone -- no signal in Grand Forks but one in the wilds, go figure), but then the wind started up again, and a series of lightening bolts introduced more rain. Eventually it all passed to the east, and then there was a magnificent display of stars. I can't remember when I last saw the Milky Way; it felt like coming home to see it up there with Cassiopeia and the Big and Little Dippers and lots and lots of other stars that didn't have to compete with street lights. I took off the fly and laid under those beautiful stars, enhanced by a couple of shooting stars and occasional flashes of lightening from the eastern horizon.
At dawn, the wind started back up and the flapping tent sounds woke me and prevented any more sleep. It suddenly dawned on me that, in all the pictures I've ever seen of pioneers in covered wagons, it is a nice sunny day. Laura Ingalls Wilder includes no descriptions of how their family coped with major thunderstorms and high winds during their months on the the trail. I have a whole new level of respect for the pioneers. But there was a compensation for the early rising -- a 360 degree sunrise. There were clouds scattered in all directions, and the sun painted all of them.
I thought about calling the Farmer's Bureau and asking them how much they would pay me to camp out another night in a drought-stricken area, but instead mapped out a route to get me to Montana via the Lewis & Clark trail. In Pick City (pop. 200+), right outside the park, I filled up at a gas station that had old-fashioned pumps -- a separate pump station for each grade of gas, pump handles on the side with a lever to turn the pump on, analog dials toting up the gallons and dollars, no guards against filling and fleeing. The cash register attendant, looking into my fully packed car, said it looked like I was running away from home.
Not far south of the Lake Sakakawea State Park is the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Next to the Visitor Center is a replica of an earthlodge -- a big, domed building made of earth piled over an impressive log structure. The inside was cool on the hot day, but looked like it would be cozy in the winter, especially with the extended family, dogs and horses gathered in there. The Park Ranger who gave a talk in the lodge must have gone to the University of Chicago, because he explained the relationships among the Indian tribes and the impact of the horse in economic terms. He was a Lakota Indian, and mildly poked fun at his peers who would self-righteously claim the were living in accordance with the old ways. He said to truly do that, they would have to give up horses and depend on dogs. (Horses were introduced to the New World by the Spaniards, and were closely held by them, as they didn't want to give the Indians equal advantage in warfare. (The Park Ranger called them "Horses of Mass Destruction.") But the Indians gained horses in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and the horses were traded up from Santa Fe to the Plains Indians.)
A trail from the visitor center went down to the Missouri River, where you could see depressions in the earth as the remnants of an earthlodge village. It was one of several Mandan and Hidatsa villages that made this an important trading center, and is believed to be where Sakakawea (Sacagewea) was living when Lewis and Clark hired her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, as an interpreter. (Sakakawea was Shoshone, but had been captured by the Hidatsa. It was her interpretation skills Lewis and Clark really wanted, for when they got to Shoshone land.) The Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter of 1804 at Fort Mandan just downriver of the village, and that was my next stop. The original Fort Mandan burned between the time the expedition left and returned (someone forgot to turn off the iron), and the charred remnants were covered by a shift in the Missouri. But a pre-burn replica has been built and can be toured in conjunction with the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center just outside of Washburn. The fort looked adequate to withstand an Indian attack, but the Mandans and Hidatsa were friendly and helped keep the party alive with corn, beans and squash (as well as the bison, elk, and deer the soldiers shot). The real enemy was the cold -- Lewis recorded the thermometer at -70 F one morning!
Onward west, past many signs pointing to Lake Sakakawea boat ramps and past some huge power plants. A stop at the Lake Ilo National Wildlife Refuge was rewarded with a sighting of an Eastern Screech Owl that flew fairly close before it realized a human had shown up in the otherwise deserted park. I turned north at Killdeer and paralleled the Killdeer Mountains (see -- topography in ND!). In the softening evening light, right after entering Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, my sight was shocked when a fearsomely beautiful badlands suddenly appeared below the level of the road. The road descended into the badlands, which was the Little Missouri valley, then up again to plain old prairie stretching to the horizon again.
It was late, so I stopped at the Roosevelt Inn and Suites in Watford City (pop. 1357). If you ever make it to these parts, I recommend this motel. It is as nice as any Days Inn or Travelodge, but is family owned and is filled with fun Teddy Roosevelt memorabilia. Watford City is near the north end of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where TR had a ranch and woke up to the need for conservation. And bully for that, I say.
So I haven't made it to Montana yet. But Lewis and Clark spent fully 1/4 of the time of their great expedition here. There is something about North Dakota that holds explorers, I guess. Who knew?
Second, it is not true that there is nothing to do in North Dakota. Well, if your idea of something to do is shopping at Macys, eating at a 4-star restaurant, and then attending the opera, you probably want to give North Dakota a pass. But if you like sightseeing, visiting historical sites, fishing, boating, camping, and getting away from it all, this is a great place. There are two huge lakes in ND -- Devils Lake in the northeast, and Lake Sakakawea in the west central -- as well as a number of smaller lakes. There is lots of Lewis & Clark and pioneer history. And the state has a very nice set of state parks with campsites, cabins, picnic areas, fishing piers, etc.
Third, North Dakota is not just one huge wheat field. There are also fields of corn, barley, soybeans and sunflowers. Sunflowers! Yellow and perky in vast, undulating fields reminiscent of southern France (no, really).
The problem is that there is no one in North Dakota to tell friends and family about how nice it is here.
I took Route 2 from Grand Forks. The item of immediate note was the butterflies. Ohio has suicidal birds, South Dakota has suicidal pheasants, North Dakota has suicidal butterflies. All across the state, and particularly in the eastern half, zillions of little white butterflies flitted across like handfuls of rose petals tossed into the wind. Every few yards, one of their white bodies made a spot in the road. I think they were seeking union with each other but, much as I would wish otherwise, many achieved union only with my windshield. I'd like to tell you what they were, but they stayed in constant zig-zaggy motion, preventing observation of identifying marks.
The second item of note was that the drought didn't appear to be bad here, because the crops looked pretty healthy, and the road passed a number of small lakes and sloughs (pronounced "slews" -- marshy areas full of tall, thick, very green grass). Agriculture appears to be the only thing humans do here. Most of the little towns did not have signs pointing to a business district and, when I nevertheless drove in to investigate, there indeed was no business to speak of. But the houses looked nice. Lakota was a number of blocks of well-kept houses, even though there were few places of employment apparent. As I've often wondered in rural areas -- what in the world do these people do for a living?
About an hour out from Grand Forks, I lost NPR on the radio and discovered the strongest stations were from Canada. Then I found the Spirit Lake Reservation station, which alternated rock and country with Indian chants and announcements about events at the Pow-Wow, including instructions on how to register for the rodeo.
I had a reuben at the cafe on the lively main street of the town of Devils Lake, then turned south to Fort Totten. I went that way because the road went on a causeway over Devils Lake, but since the road went to Fort Totten, I did too. The historical site is a group of two-story white-washed brick buildings around a parade ground. After the military had stamped the Indians into resignation, the soldiers left and the buildings became a school to stamp the Indian language and culture out of Indian children. Each building had two labels - what it had been for the fort and what it had been for the school. I poked around in the musty history for a bit, but became saddened at the thought of lonely enlisted men, probably thinking they had been consigned to the end of the earth, and of lonely Indian children, stripped away from their families and berated for who they were.
The next stop was much happier. Minnewaukan, at the western end of Devils Lake, was having a summer festival. Townspeople were sitting in front of the stores on Main Street, just like an Andy Griffith show. In the area behind the American Legion park, in the shadow of huge grain elevators, local community groups were raising money by selling lemonade, snowcones, back massages, and the privilege of petting a pony. Families sat on chairs or blankets and half-listened to the Indigo Sisters wannabes playing sweetly on the the sound stage. I splurged one whole dollar for the first orange Julius I have had in decades. It tasted just like the ones my grandmother would treat us to when I was wee.
Back up to Route 2, and then on to Rugby. After checking into the Econolodge, the first thing to do was to visit the stone monument that marks the geographical center of North America. According to the US Geological Survey, who established the point, the geographical center is the point at which the continent would balance, if it were all of a uniform thickness. OK, but how in the world do they determine that? Anyway, there I was, at the very heart of the Heartland. Next I visited the kiosk by the sculpture honoring the Northern Lights, which apparently can be seen in Rugby when conditions are right. Sad to say, they weren't that night, but the kiosk had a nice video and slide show on a computer screen, as well as pictures on the wall. I also went to the Pioneer Village, but it closed at 7:00 pm and I arrived at 6:55, so that will have to wait for my next visit to ND. Dinner was at the Corner Cupboard, because there were lots of local license plates in the lot. The bacon on the BLT was superb, the homemade soup delicious, and the salad bar full of carbs, including butterscotch and tapioca puddings. Yum! The coasts may have forgotten how to eat, but in the Midwest it is still easy to get iceberg lettuce with Thousand-Island dressing, chicken fried steak, and coconut cream pie.
The next morning I began by centering myself at the Center of it all, then headed straight north, because it turned out the International Peace Garden was only 46 miles in that direction. 20 or 30 miles up the road, at the top of a rise, pretty hills came into view on the horizon -- they turned out to be the Turtle Mountains. At Dunseith, there was a log cabin rest stop/gift shop/museum, right next to an enormous turtle made completely of car wheels. This one sculpture tied together the themes of the Turtle Mountains and the speedway that is nearby. After free coffee, a chat with the proprietress, and purchase of a book on Lewis and Clark at the log cabin, I stopped in at Patti's for a cheeseburger and shake. It appeared Patti's had once been a drive-in, but now there were picnic tables where the cars would have gone, and you had to get out of your car and go up to the window to place your order. The young woman at the window said she would call Number One when my order was ready. I asked if I was the first customer of the day, and she said yes. I felt like I'd won something. When my order was up, although she probably could have used her regular voice, the window person announced over the loudspeaker that Number 1 was ready. It was good. The burger bun had been grilled in butter, which adds so much to a burger (and one's thighs). The shake was slightly on the thin side, but that is far preferable to a shake that is so thick you can't suck it through the straw. If I want to eat my ice cream with a spoon, I'll order a sundae, thank you.
The International Peace Garden is a monument to the friendship between Canada and the US, and a celebration of the longest unpatrolled border in the world. The entrance is in between US and Canadian customs. The property is a large acreage, half in the US, half in Canada. At the far end, you can see the border stretching into the distance, cut through the Turtle Mountain forest with white pyramidal markers spaced along its length. There are roads that go around lakes, with picnic tables and hiking trails. In the center is a long mall, with a huge concrete tower at the far end, and lovely flower gardens at the near end. Behind the tower is a small Peace Chapel, with quotes about peace inscribed in the walls. At each corner of the chapel were stands with flip panels, like stores use to display posters. Here, the flip frames held the front pages of newspapers from around the US and the world, dated 9/11/01 or 9/12/01. Since that dark event has triggered armed hostilities, it seems weird to put up reminders of it in a peace chapel, but whatever. There is a memorial to the World Trade towers in the middle of the mall, with some of the WTC girders salvaged from the wreckage.
Upon leaving the gardens, it is necessary to go through customs. I had visions of the border agent thinking I looked suspicious, and deciding to search my car, which is stuffed with boxes and bags -- about half of my life. It wouldn't have been a surprise, as I have been tapped more than my share of times for the extra security check at airports. But this time the white-haired, middle-aged, little-lady disguise worked, and I was waved through after assuring him I had not crossed through Canadian customs, had not purchased anything, had not picked up any bird's nests, was born in the USA, etc.
I set my sights for Washburn, at the eastern end of Lake Sakakawea, my route first paralleling the Canadian border through the Turtle Mountains, then going south through Minot. On the way I saw my first killdeer -- a bird with two striking black chokers that seems to prefer running to flying. On seeing the sign pointing to Lake Sakakawea State Park, I decided -- some of you need to be sitting down for this -- to camp that night. I found a nice spot with a lake view and impressed myself by figuring out how to set up the shock-cord tent single-handedly. Then I sat down with my cashews, prunes, carrots and root beer and prepared to spend a pleasant evening in the warmth and late prairie light. The weather forecast was "slight chance of scattered thunderstorms", but I'd heard such forecasts all week and they all came to nought. But after a bit a stiff breeze started up, and the clouds to the west started to look more serious. I decided to put the fly on the tent just in case. Excellent choice, because the wind got stronger, the clouds darker, and then the slight chance of a thunderstorm became 100 percent. I sat in the car and watched the wind tear at the tent, which, I am proud to say, stood its ground. After about 45 minutes of hard rain, the storm finally let up. After 15-20 minutes without any drops, I was about to emerge from the car (I'd been on the cell phone -- no signal in Grand Forks but one in the wilds, go figure), but then the wind started up again, and a series of lightening bolts introduced more rain. Eventually it all passed to the east, and then there was a magnificent display of stars. I can't remember when I last saw the Milky Way; it felt like coming home to see it up there with Cassiopeia and the Big and Little Dippers and lots and lots of other stars that didn't have to compete with street lights. I took off the fly and laid under those beautiful stars, enhanced by a couple of shooting stars and occasional flashes of lightening from the eastern horizon.
At dawn, the wind started back up and the flapping tent sounds woke me and prevented any more sleep. It suddenly dawned on me that, in all the pictures I've ever seen of pioneers in covered wagons, it is a nice sunny day. Laura Ingalls Wilder includes no descriptions of how their family coped with major thunderstorms and high winds during their months on the the trail. I have a whole new level of respect for the pioneers. But there was a compensation for the early rising -- a 360 degree sunrise. There were clouds scattered in all directions, and the sun painted all of them.
I thought about calling the Farmer's Bureau and asking them how much they would pay me to camp out another night in a drought-stricken area, but instead mapped out a route to get me to Montana via the Lewis & Clark trail. In Pick City (pop. 200+), right outside the park, I filled up at a gas station that had old-fashioned pumps -- a separate pump station for each grade of gas, pump handles on the side with a lever to turn the pump on, analog dials toting up the gallons and dollars, no guards against filling and fleeing. The cash register attendant, looking into my fully packed car, said it looked like I was running away from home.
Not far south of the Lake Sakakawea State Park is the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Next to the Visitor Center is a replica of an earthlodge -- a big, domed building made of earth piled over an impressive log structure. The inside was cool on the hot day, but looked like it would be cozy in the winter, especially with the extended family, dogs and horses gathered in there. The Park Ranger who gave a talk in the lodge must have gone to the University of Chicago, because he explained the relationships among the Indian tribes and the impact of the horse in economic terms. He was a Lakota Indian, and mildly poked fun at his peers who would self-righteously claim the were living in accordance with the old ways. He said to truly do that, they would have to give up horses and depend on dogs. (Horses were introduced to the New World by the Spaniards, and were closely held by them, as they didn't want to give the Indians equal advantage in warfare. (The Park Ranger called them "Horses of Mass Destruction.") But the Indians gained horses in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and the horses were traded up from Santa Fe to the Plains Indians.)
A trail from the visitor center went down to the Missouri River, where you could see depressions in the earth as the remnants of an earthlodge village. It was one of several Mandan and Hidatsa villages that made this an important trading center, and is believed to be where Sakakawea (Sacagewea) was living when Lewis and Clark hired her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, as an interpreter. (Sakakawea was Shoshone, but had been captured by the Hidatsa. It was her interpretation skills Lewis and Clark really wanted, for when they got to Shoshone land.) The Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter of 1804 at Fort Mandan just downriver of the village, and that was my next stop. The original Fort Mandan burned between the time the expedition left and returned (someone forgot to turn off the iron), and the charred remnants were covered by a shift in the Missouri. But a pre-burn replica has been built and can be toured in conjunction with the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center just outside of Washburn. The fort looked adequate to withstand an Indian attack, but the Mandans and Hidatsa were friendly and helped keep the party alive with corn, beans and squash (as well as the bison, elk, and deer the soldiers shot). The real enemy was the cold -- Lewis recorded the thermometer at -70 F one morning!
Onward west, past many signs pointing to Lake Sakakawea boat ramps and past some huge power plants. A stop at the Lake Ilo National Wildlife Refuge was rewarded with a sighting of an Eastern Screech Owl that flew fairly close before it realized a human had shown up in the otherwise deserted park. I turned north at Killdeer and paralleled the Killdeer Mountains (see -- topography in ND!). In the softening evening light, right after entering Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, my sight was shocked when a fearsomely beautiful badlands suddenly appeared below the level of the road. The road descended into the badlands, which was the Little Missouri valley, then up again to plain old prairie stretching to the horizon again.
It was late, so I stopped at the Roosevelt Inn and Suites in Watford City (pop. 1357). If you ever make it to these parts, I recommend this motel. It is as nice as any Days Inn or Travelodge, but is family owned and is filled with fun Teddy Roosevelt memorabilia. Watford City is near the north end of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where TR had a ranch and woke up to the need for conservation. And bully for that, I say.
So I haven't made it to Montana yet. But Lewis and Clark spent fully 1/4 of the time of their great expedition here. There is something about North Dakota that holds explorers, I guess. Who knew?
posted by Annventurer | 10:20 AM
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