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!

Bob had scouted out the best restaurant in Bismarck for our 40th anniversary dinner and decided on Pirogue Grille, rated #1 in Bismarck by TripAdvisor (and still rated #1 today, almost eight months later). A "pirogue" is the type of canoe, generally made from a single tree trunk, used by Lewis and Clark on their journey on the Missouri River through North Dakota in 1804 and 1806.

Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed on the night of our actual anniversary because of a street fair, but we are flexible, and Bob booked a table for the first night of our visit. 

I started with an appetizer of herbed spaetzle, braised rabbit, soffritto (diced onions, carrots, and celery), and parmesan. It was delicious.

If there is lamb on the menu, that is usually my choice. For my main course, I had lamb chops with a black fig sauce. It was tender and flavorful--a great choice.

Instead of a main dish, Bob ordered a slew of appetizers, starting with a bowl of roast corn and bison soup that really hit the spot for him.

He followed that with house-made venison sausage with onion relish and stone ground mustard.

His third appetizer was a green salad with corn relish and chanterelle mushrooms. He wasn't impressed.

His final and favorite appetizer was a sampler of smoked walleye, prosciutto wrapped walleye, and a walleye cake (like a crab cake).

If there is something that involves rich chocolate on the dessert menu, I will usually fall for it, which I did at Pirogue. It was an excellent choice. Bob had a berry trifle that he thought was pretty good.

We had a pretty good night's sleep at the Sleep Inn & Suites in Bismarck in spite of the fact that we were next door to this unique establishment:

The next morning, our first destination was the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. Just outside the Center stands a group of 12-foot-tall welded steel figures (with me in the center for perspective).  Called "The Mandan Winter," it depicts Shehehe-shote, the chief of the local Mandan tribe, meeting Lewis and Clark on their first journey through this area in the winter of 1804. The Mandans saved the lives of the expedition members by feeding them buffalo meat, corn, beans, and squash through the winter. Without that aid, the rest of the journey may never have occurred.

I enjoyed the Interpretive Center more than I thought I would. It was a lot more than a series of maps and artifacts, which have their place but don't hold my interest very long. I liked how it focused on the relevance of the expedition to today.  Here are a couple of examples:

Another reason I enjoyed the center was because of the art, including Mandan Warrior by John Coleman and another bronze of Captain Lewis, Captain Clark, and Sacajawea by Bob Scriver. (The original of this last one is actually 21 feet tall and can be found in Fort Benton, Montana.)

I absolutely love this piece, Mother and Child by Walter Piehl. It is Sacagawea and her son Jean Baptiste with halos like a Madonna and Child in a nativity scene.

Another painting of Sacagawea (there are at least five different spellings), this one by Michael Haynes.

And to complete my obsession with Sacagawea, here is a painting of the birth of her son: Birth of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, February 11, 1805 by Vern Erickson. The baby was born at Fort Mandan, subject of my next post.

I got a little obsessed with the Mandan warrior head gear:

Meanwhile, I am sure this had Bob salivating.

 Doesn't he look fine in this fur collar?

Ewwww....

The area outside the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center is the mental image I had of North Dakota before going there--a place where I can imagine herds of buffalo on the plains.

 However, I think it was much more lush than I expected, at least in some places:

Meriwether Lewis brought a Newfoundland dog with him on the expedition. He had purchased the dog for $20 in Philadelphia while was outfitting the expedition. Newfoundlands are known for their excellent swimming ability, and Lewis named him Seaman. There is a monument to Seaman not far from the Lewis and Clark Center.


Bob, can I have a Newfoundland puppy? Please? (Oh, and will you take care of him?)

Behind the Seaman monument the Missouri River flows steadily south. I did not realize it is the longest river in North America, flowing 2,341 miles from western Montana to the spot where it joins the Mississippi north of St. Louis. I always thought the Mississippi River was longer, but it covers 2,320 miles, 21 fewer miles than the Missouri River.

READING

It has been years since I read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, which was first published over 20 years ago, but I have a hankering to read it again.  It is the perfect book for this part of North Dakota. The hero of the story is Meriwether Lewis, but Ambrose includes the stories of Thomas Jefferson, Lewis's partner and frontiersman William Clark, the Indian girl Sacagawea who served as guide and translator, various Native American tribal chiefs, and other prominent figures of the early 19th century. Ambrose draws on Lewis's journal and other documents of the day to create a fascinating account of a truly heroic exploration of unknown lands.