North Dakota – TooBusyForWork

Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We spent the nights of 21-23 August (Wednesday through Friday) at Medora Campground in Medora, ND. It gave us two full days to see the sights. The campground itself is fair to good. Sites were decently sized, and there was some grass plus lots of trees. In facet there were so many trees we couldn’t get the satellite antenna to track. It was ok since I had a few seasons of “Endeavor” to catch up on. It is the prequel to the Morse series that I originally saw on PBS.

We didn’t do much on Wednesday, but we wandered around the town a bit. There is a state historic site in town, the Chateau de Mores. It was the summer hunting “cabin” of a French Marquis and his wife Medora, the town’s namesake. The Marquis tried raising beef and cold shipping the meat to the east, but lost a huge amount of money doing it. The house is quite fancy for the time period, and it contains a veritable goldmine of original furnishings, both the mundane (utensils and cooking supplies) and the ornate (beds with mosquito netting hangings and a huge piano). The family owned the 22 room house from the 1880s when they built it until they sold it to the state in the 1930s. I didn’t remember to take a picture of the outside, but it was a tall, two story house with big verandas on the very top of the hill.

Mundane items like the grinder are orignals

The parlor is also almost all original with the exception of the wall paper, a copy of the original

Another fun thing was seeing the Colorado Model A club in town!

My second favorite. I think that is a water container in front of the rear wheel.

There were lots to choose from, at least 14

Thursday evening we really played tourist and went to the Pitchfork Steak Fondue. Their claim to fame is spearing the steaks on pitch forks then cooking them. They also had the normal “fixins” at a cowboy-style event.

Steak (notice the pitchfork holes), coleslaw, great beans, potatoe, Texas toast, fruit and brownies. They had some fresh veggies too, but I didn’t get any.

We then went to the “Medora Musical.” I was expecting a play with music, but it was a musical variety show. I was surprised, but not disappointed. Two MCs, one who sang and the other was more a comedian, a nice band, 12 college aged singers, horse riders, and even fireworks at the end. There was also a nationally known comedian just after intermission. He was good, but the spectacle was the musical acts. Lots of costume changes.

Note the horses to the right of the stage

Lots of flag-waving patriotism with a mixture of country, rock, and gospel songs.

Friday we headed to the National Park. We went to the south unit this time (we did the north unit when we were at Lewis and Clark State Park). The scenery was more “badlands” in the north unit, but the south had some great views too.

There were also animals. The bison was walking at the edge of the road, away from the nursery herd. The main attraction of the south unit are the wild horses, and we did see this one band. I also got a hilarious video of a territorial prairie dog. Click on the link to see it. He or she is really getting after a territorial rival!

Rather ratty looking fellow at this time of uear

Umm. Video doesn’t work, so I will work on it later.

In the middle of all of this “touristing”, I also finished a sewing project. It is a washable throw rug made with quilt batting and a jelly roll of fabric (2 1/2” strips). I was quite pleased with it, and it fits fairly well in front of my sink. Hopefully it will keep the carpet there cleaner! It is actually isn’t as oddly shaped as it seems in the picture! I must admit I really like my new sewing machine and the sewing table I bought for it.

Tonight we are staying in a Cabela’s parking lot in Billings, MT. We have decided to head toward Yellowstone instead of Great Falls, so we are hoping to get a Fish and Game campsite north of Gardiner tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes.

Oil and lots of fur trade history

We spent Monday, 19 August, seeing some sites around Williston. Williston itself is a heavily industrialized oil field town in the Bakken oil field area. I grew up in Oklahoma and have been through the Permian Basin in Texas, but I have never seen so much oil development as I did in this area of North Dakota. Most sites had only 2-4 pump jacks, but the largest we saw had 24 pump jacks in three gangs of eight. These were the big ones too, not the little ones seen most frequently in Oklahoma. It was still pretty clean with the rig sites being contained. Of course occasionally I would get a whiff of petroleum due to the numerous gas flares that burned, but it wasn’t as bad as Texas. I am guess it is because the Bakken field was developed more recently with stronger environmental policies. It was pretty amazing.

We first visited the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Center. Besides the obligatory Lewis and Clark exhibits, there was also a surprising display about rural electrification and the growth of electric co-ops. It was an entire room, and it was remarkably interesting showing the electric and non-electric versions of all kinds of conveniences such as irons and washing machines. Of course I forgot to take any pictures, but the river was not very close anymore.

We then went to the nearby Fort Buford site with a few rebuilt buildings from post civil war era. We weren’t as interested in that era, so we just looked around a bit. I did take pictures this time though!

We then headed to Fort Union, a much more interesting location to me. It was from the fur trade era, and is a National Historic Site (the two previous sites were ND State Historical Sites). I have never been to a bad NHS, and this one didn’t disappoint either.

It sits on a lovely hill overlooking the Missouri

Might as well post the first information sign for details.

The fort was the most important trading center along the Upper Missouri from 1828 – 1867. They have rebuilt much of the main fort including the palisades and some of the working rooms.

Looking at the gate and wall from the inside.

The crown jewel of the fort was the main building. It had a well documented exterior, and was rebuilt very faithfully to the 1850s view. Fabulous place, though no documentation of the interior was available.

While we were there two men who were retracing the route taken by General Ashley in the early 1820s. They had come the Columbia River drainage across South Pass using horses and mules. They had just arrived in pirogues and bull boats after a trip of hundreds of miles on the Missouri! They were dressed in period clothing, one as a French Canadian trader and one as Indian complete with only a breach cloth and shirt. I wanted to get a picture of them, but I was too shy to bother them. They were coordinating with the NPS about their journey.

We also decided to visit the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, about an hour from Fort Union. Gorgeous place.

Obligatory buffalo picture. Notice the tracking color.

It was hazy and I was shooting into the sun.

The Little Missouri carved the badlands of the park.

The colors are muted by the sun angle, but even better in real life

One of the more unique features of this part of the park are these odd cannonball secretions. They are just big circular rocks resulting from some sort of secretion, but no one knows exactly how they were formed.

Some not quite so round, but interesting.

We didn’t get back until late, and we were tired. We decided to just take Tuesday off, relaxing, sewing (me), and bike riding. We also caught up on the mundane chores of laundry and grocery shopping. We arrived Wednesday afternoon at Medora campground, the subject of the next posts.

FMCA rally in Minot, ND

We arrived by 11:00 or so, and we didn’t wait in line much for parking. While the parking crew was getting us ready, I heard them saying they were short volunteers, so Kevin said he’d help out. That turned into three long days! They really did need the help though. FMCA is an organization for RVers, and they are run by volunteers. Yes, there is a fairly small paid staff, but all the heavy lifting is by volunteers. The parking crew had to help more than 1600 RVs (mostly motorhomes) get through crowded interior roads and park in a spot that matched what they had requested at signup – 30 amp electric, 50 amp electric, dry camping (generators allow), handicapped, etc. It was a lot of work, but he seemed to enjoy it.

My volunteer job was driving a golf cart that picked people up and took them wherever they wanted to go in the grounds. There were also trams that went on defined routes, but most people preferred us since we went point to point. Kevin also drove a golf cart when his parking duties were done after the third day.

As for the FMCA rally itself, it was informative, wet, muddy, enjoyable meeting friends again, and the entertainment was quite good. The problem was that the headliner entertainment was in an arena with miserable accoustics! We heard Captain Sullenberger (Miracle on the Hudson) gave an outstanding talk about integrity and leadership. There was no mention of the current president, but one could see that Sully wasn’t a fan. He really demonstrated the best that our military academies produce. Sully for a President! (I wish). Like nearly all membership organizations, FMCA is going through a membership decline. They are trying to address an aging membership by adding some younger entertainers, and those were very good. Mostly they were local country or bluegrass batsman and I liked them all. The headliners were two dance bands playing mostly older music and the Spinners who would have been great fun if not for the lousy sound.

Since we had heard some of the seminars before, I did get a bunch of sewing done. I finished the individual strips for my planned kitchen rug, and it is now ready to be assembled. I hopefully will get that started soon.

We left this morning, and I was ready for something other than 10’ between motorhomes! We found it at Lewis and Clark State Park on Sakakawea Lake, but far up river from our Corps of Engineers spot from just before the river. It is lovely.

Note I didn’t take a picture of the FMCA spot – it was just gravel in a parking lot.

We are heading to Williston tomorrow to do more Lewis and Clark stuff, so more to come then.

Lake Sakakwea, Lewis and Clark, and Mandans

We are spending three nights at the Corps of Engineers campground at Lake Sakakwea, 80-ish miles south of Minot, ND. It is an absolutely gorgeous campground with huge sites, asphalt and concrete sites, lots of grass and trees.

We arrived on Thursday, and went spent time Friday and Saturday seeing historic sites nearby. We started at the North Dakota Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center outside of Washburn, ND. Very, very nice historical presentation and some replicas of outstanding art, both modern and 1800s.

Sculpture in front of the Lewis and Clark Interprative Center

Once we got ourselves oriented, we went to Fort Mandan, a recreation of the fort the expedition stayed in during the winter of 1804\1805. There was a charge for the interpretive tour, but the guide was really, really good.

The fort had had a lot of furnishings to show how they lived.

Eight enlisted men lived in each of these small rooms plus the attic

We then went to the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site a few miles away. This is the same group of Indians whose dirt/log buildings we saw recreated at Fort Abraham Lincoln a few days before. This recreated building had a number of furnishings in it and was slightly larger.

The original inhabitants built caches for food both inside and outside the lodges

Historically accurate artifacts were all around

Definitely bigger than the others we saw

It was a foggy, dreary morning. We noticed how many boats were fishing the outlet of the spillway, and we drove down it a little to see.

There was a LOT of water coming over the spillway with 4 big gates open

Today we went back to Washburn for a late breakfast and tried to see the local county museum. Silly us didn’t check the times though, and it wasn’t open. Then we decided to go to the “ big town” of Garrison to get some groceries before heading to the FMCA rally in Minot. We had a fascinating detour through the Audubon National Wildlife Refuge. The building itself was officially closed, but the cleaner let us in. I didn’t want to spend too much time inside, but we did do the Auto Tour. It was gorgeous, and I saw this huge hawk. I am not sure what kind it is, but it was so big I thought it might be a a juvenile eagle. This is a picture I took at as big of a zoom as I possibly could manage.

I will put the name of I find out what it is!

We had pork chops in the sous vide along with potatoes mixed with onions and mushrooms. Lovely. Tomorrow we head to the rally pretty early so we don’t get caught into the line here for the dump station. They only have 2 dumps for the 90 or so campsites here!

Bismarck, ND

We moved yesterday to the Bismarck KOA. Nice place where we are going to stay for two nights before heading to a Corps of Engineers park at Lake Sakakwea (yes, it is really spelled like that). What a surprise! Shady sites which means no satellite, but we get decent OTA channels.

Unusual to have a pull through shady site with full hooks

Today we went to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. Great place with lovely views and interesting history. First the scenery along the Missouri River.

The park is set on a small hill overlooking the Missouri. The first settlements known were Mandan. They lived here in a town of up to 1500 people known as Slant. Sadly their numbers were decimated by small pox brought by Comanches in the mid 1700s and the site was abandoned by the time Lewis and Clark arrived in 1805. A few of their earthen lodges have been recreated.

A bit closer via the path from the Visitor Center

I think the thick earth walls would make this a much more comfortable place to live in the hot summers and the cold winters.

The next people to settle were American infantry soldiers who were to protect settlers and rail readers. Not a very intelligent move to send infantry to protect against some of the finest horsemen ever known! Fort McKeen was built in 1872 on a tall site overlooking the river.

One of the reconstructed infantry blockhouses

When the US decided to send cavalry, the fort was moved closer to the river and renamed to Fort Abraham Lincoln. The first commander of the expanded fort was George Custer (until he went to the Little Bighorn). A number of buildings have been reconstructed.

One of the many horse barns. This was the only one reconstructed since the river took the foundations of many of the others

Even the old post cemetery was still there

A distant view showing some barracks and Custer’s house, tucked next to the barracks on the far left

The fort was abandoned in the 1891. As usual it was the CCC who built the park visitor center (a lovely stone building), shelters, and roads. They also built the Ft. McKeen blockhouses and the Mandan village. The other buildings were built by a combination of park employees, volunteers, and the ND National Guard.

Oh, and we went by Scheel’s to buy me a new pair of walking shoes. Woah! Those things are expensive, but hopefully they help me walk more.

Made it to Spearfish, South Dakota

We left Ely on Thursday around 11:00. We had just over 200 miles to go, and we weren’t supposed to check in before 4:00 so we definitely took our time. The road wasn’t too busy which is good because it was narrow and windy. I was very glad to be on a wider state highway after Virginia. We did get to see some minor wildlife. Not far outside of Ely we saw a pond with two swans on it, definitely a surprise. We also had to slow down while a momma turkey hustled a chick across the road. There were more chicks and another adult turkey waiting for them on the other side.

When we neared Itasca Lily decided she was going to be adventuresome and see what was going on. Normally she hides under the recliner, coming out rarely to express her displeasure, eat, drink, and use her box. This time she climbed right on the dash and looked outside the window for 5 minutes or so.

I was hoping this meant she would finally get brave enough to come out more, but it didn’t. She hid all day today.

We got set up at Bear Paw campground a bit before 5:00. The campsite was plenty long enough, but the interior roads were a bit narrow. It took two attempts to get it backed in correctly. Then we just enjoyed the park. We took the Wildlife Loop, but didn’t see any wildlife. We did see lovely green forests though. We ended at the big park lodge where we had a lovely dinner. I had a wonderful walleye stuffed with wild rice, cranberries, and blueberries with a side of perfect asparagus. Kevin had pot roast that he said was quite good. Here’s a picture of the campground.

The campground had a number of vacancies on a Thursday in mid summer, something that is good to remember for a future weekday trip when we can spend more time.

We left the campground by 9:00 am. We only had 300 miles to go to our destination – the Walmart in Bismarck, ND. There weren’t a lot of choices; North Dakota gets vacant really fast. The Walmart was clean and quiet though it was hot. We easily got leveled and turned on the generator since tonight was definitely going to be a night for AC. I feel pretty good about the generator since it was definitely quieter than another camper’s Honda 2000. We watched the evening news, and I was in bed by 10:15. Of course there was a little noise from the campround’s sprinklers going off at 10:00, but I took a cyclobenzoprene for back pain and was out like a light.

We left Bismarck by 8:30, headed another 300 miles to Spearfish, SD. We are at a KOA with reasonable tree cover and lots of grass. Full hookups mean that I am doing laundry in the coach. Have I mentioned how much I love the washer and dryer there? Yes, it takes a lot longer than going to a laundromat, but I get to do other things while it is running. It is lightly raining right now, and I am sitting under the awning writing this. Pretty good gig! Tomorrow we will head up Spearfish Canyon for some sightseeing. We leave on Monday morning for our first Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Gilllette. We will be going to a number of information sessions, seeing entertainment, and visiting friends from the RVForum.com.

I am definitely feeling more comfortable driving the coach. My arms aren’t stiff and my shoulders aren’t sore because I am much more relaxed. I do have a sore back though because of the seat. It has this odd bump out on the seat back just about where my shoulder blades are. I have started padding the lower part of the seat, and that is much better.

The rain is getting stronger and a bit of a breeze is with it. I think I will go inside, or at least take the iPad inside.