NORTH DAKOTA: BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA HERITAGE CENTER AND SICKIES GARAGE

September 16, 2019

On our last morning in North Dakota, we spent some time in the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum, located on the capitol grounds. Called the "Smithsonian on the plains," the original building opened in 1981, and an expansion that added 127,000 of space was finished in 2014.

 They have a large collection of fossilized remains, including this huge mastodon skeleton.

The displays are creatively placed, often showing the animals in conflict.

NORTH DAKOTA: THEODORE ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK

September 14-15, 2019

Theodore Roosevelt National Park comprises over 70,000 acres (110 square miles) and gets about 800,000 visitors a year. Roosevelt's experiences here in the 1880s and 1890s influenced his pursuit of conservation policies as President of the United States from 1901 to 1909, so it seems appropriate that it is now a national park.

The Park started out as the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge in 1946. In 1947 and 1948, two parts of it were designated as The Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park, the first (and last) Memorial Park ever established, and in 1978 it received its current name and status.

The park is known for its wildlife, and we were excited to get "up-close and personal" with some if it . . . until we saw these signs:

I like the "rule of thumb" at the bottom of this one:

I spent parts of two days in the park, and Bob, who got up VERY early in the morning on the day we flew home so that he could spend more time in the park while I slept, spent parts of of three days there.

Roosevelt spent much of his time in an area called "the badlands."  "Badlands" is a generic term for a type of terrain characterized by eroded sedimentary rock with steep faces, unusual rock formations, deep ravines, minimal vegetation, and often unusual color displays.

NORTH DAKOTA: MEDORA

September 14-15, 2019

I have a love-hate relationship with Teddy Roosevelt. I love his break-the-mold, swashbucklin' style, his bold approach to life, his can-do attitude. But there is part of me that doesn't care for his certitude, his belief that he was always right.

Teddy was a bit of a chimera, a beast made up of many different body parts. Among those parts are the politician part, the Rough Rider part, the cattle rancher part, the conservationist part, and the husband and father part. I've already included David McCullough's insightful biography of TR, Mornings on Horseback, in my post about Oyster Bay, which covers Teddy's childhood and young adult years. That book (and another book I review in my next post) covers Teddy's loss of his first wife and his mother on a single day--February 14, 1884--and his subsequent flight from New York to North Dakota, where he would work through his grief.  (Apparently he rarely if ever mentioned his first wife again, even to their daughter, one part of him I am not impressed by.)

Teddy had been to North Dakota the previous year to hunt bison (a very TR-esque activity), and during that time he had purchased the Maltese Cross ranch for $14,000, substantially more than his annual salary. When Teddy returned to North Dakota in 1884, he purchased a second property, Elkhorn Ranch, and built a home on it.  He maintained both ranches, which were near the just barely established town of Medora, until 1898. 

Never very large, in 2010 Medora had a population of 112, and yet these days they manage to run a few hotels and several restaurants, and their website claims they are "North Dakota's #1 Vacation Destination."

However, it's not the town people come to see. Rather, it is the national park that is right down the road: Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  

But first, Medora.

When Teddy came through Medora on a presidential tour of the Western United States in 1903 (not surprisingly, he was the first president to visit Medora), he made such a good impression that a local hotel changed its name to the Rough Riders Hotel to honor his role in the Spanish-American War. The hotel was renovated in the early 1960s, and since 1986 it has been operated by the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation, a non-profit organization. Another remodel in 2008 added 68 guest rooms.

We stopped for dinner at the hotel, the nicest place to eat in town.  It has a beautiful lobby.

There are several pieces of Roosevelt-themed art in the lobby.

NORTH DAKOTA: STATE HIGH POINT

September 14, 2019

Besides capitol buildings, another thing we like to visit in each state is the state high point. Bob has checked off more than I have, but I'm proud to say that among the state high points I've conquered are California's (Mt. Whitney, 14,505 feet) and Colorado's (Mt. Elbert, 14,440 feet).

North Dakota's high point (White Butte, 3506 feet) isn't quite in the same league as those other two, but it certainly beat Florida's high point (Britton Hill, 345 feet), which I've also "climbed." Believe it or not, in the rankings of state high points, North Dakota's comes in at #30.

The turn-off from the main highway was well marked . . .

 . . . but once we hit the side roads, there were no more signs to get us to where we needed to go.  Still, we were in better shape than this poor porcupine who looks like he got run over. (I wonder if he left some quills in the tire?)

Bob actually stopped and asked for directions twice (a miracle), and eventually we did find this sign (next to what can loosely be described as a parking lot) that told us that if we followed the path next to the fence for a mile, we would arrive at the trailhead.

So that's what we did. We didn't get started until late afternoon, and I recall being much more concerned about being able to make it up and back before dark than Bob was. 

NORTH DAKOTA: THE ENCHANTED HIGHWAY

September 14, 2019

As we were driving along, making our way to North Dakota's Enchanted Highway (more on that later), we passed through the tiny town of New Salem, pop. <1,000. 

Off in the distance we could see what looked like a gigantic cow standing on the ridge of a small hill. What??

As we got a bit closer, we could see that yes, indeed, it was a cow, a Holstein, no less.

Bob veered quickly onto the dirt road that appeared to lead in the appropriate direction, and we discovered that the object of our detour was "Salem Sue."

Yeah, that's my husband. I can't take him anywhere.

NORTH DAKOTA, BISMARCK: STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

September 13, 2019

One of the things we like to do as we have traveled around to the 50 states is visit the state capitol buildings. There are a lot of states we will have to go back to because we didn't go to the capital city or because it was Sunday and the capitol was closed or because of some other reason.  

But we made it to the capitol in Bismarck, North Dakota's capital.  It was not super exciting, but it had some fun components. 

First, some info on Bismarck itself. It was founded in 1872 by European Americans on the Missouri River and was made the capital in 1889, the year the state was created from the Dakota Territory and admitted to the union as the 39th state. (FYI, it made it in ahead of South Dakota, the 40th state.)  Bismarck has a population of about 75,000 people, not very big, but by no means the smallest capital city.

The original state capitol was built in 1883-1884 to house the territorial government, but it burned to the ground in 1930, requiring that a new building be built during the height of the Great Depression. They came up with this 21-story Art Deco structure, still the tallest building in North Dakota. Its nickname is "The Skyscraper on the Prairie."

They have a very nice state seal, which is in the front entry.

NORTH DAKOTA: FORT MANDAN, FORT CLARK, AND INDIAN VILLAGES

September 13, 2019

North Dakota was a surprise in so many ways. It's one of the best examples of why you should "Travel America." There is always plenty to see and learn.  

We spent the good part of our first day in North Dakota learning about its history. I've already covered our visit to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. The next logical place to visit was Fort Mandan, where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805.

Looking from the fort towards the Missouri River

NORTH DAKOTA: WHERE ELSE WOULD YOU GO FOR YOUR 40TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY?

September 12-13, 2019

Our wedding anniversary falls in September, a time when it is very hard for me to get off work. However, our 40th wedding anniversary was coming up, and that seemed important enough to beg for a couple of days off. I did and they were granted.

Now where to go? How to celebrate? It wasn't hard to figure that one out. We've been on a decades-long quest to visit all 50 states, and we had been to 49.  Mind you, "been" might mean driving through in our car, which hardly seems like "being" anywhere, but Bob is adamant that putting your toe in the state counts.  We need to go back to a few states to "be" there a little longer.

Anyway, the only state we had not had any contact with, even on a drive through, was North Dakota, not exactly the pinnacle of romance (think Hawaii), but certainly a Milestone Befitting a Milestone. We booked our flights.

We got off to a good start with a layover in Denver that was just long enough to eat some ice cream.

We flew into the Bismarck Municipal Airport, arriving in the early evening. The airport may look a bit prehistoric, but it is was built in 2005.

On our way out of the airport, I noticed a Bobcat parked inside. Now that's not something you see every day. Turns out that the Bobcat Company has its headquarters in North Dakota. Okay, now it makes sense!