If anybody ever tells you that North Dakota is dull and boring, you can bet they have never been there! There is so much to see and do here that it would take an entire year just to get to it all, if you hurried!
We awoke to wind yesterday, but at least it had cooled off quite a bit from the previous two days. We don’t like driving in strong wind, but since we had a short driving day, and it looked like it would be a tail wind, we left Miles City and headed east on Interstate 94. Unfortunately, the “tail wind” we had expected didn’t count for the fact that the highway has a lot of curves along the route, so sometimes we were getting pushed along from the rear, which really helps the fuel mileage. 🙂 Unfortunately, every time the road curved around a hill we got slammed hard from the side. It was not a fun ride. 🙁
We stopped at the Flying J in Beach, North Dakota and filled our tank, then continued another 24 miles to Medora, where we stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I’ve always been a fan of Theodore Roosevelt, and it was neat to tour his Maltese Cross cabin and the museum at the Visitor Center, which had a nice collection of Roosevelt artifacts, including rifles, ranching tools, and an undershirt with a bullet hole in it, from a 1912 assassination attempt. Though a deranged man shot Roosevelt from point blank range, the bullet was slowed down by a folded up speech and a spectacle case in the presidential candidate’s pocket, saving his life. Not one to be deterred by one little bullet, Roosevelt insisted on making the speech he had come to Milwaukee to give. I wonder how many of today’s politicians have that much stamina.
Back on the road, we drove to Dickinson, where we toured the Dakota Dinosaur Museum, which has a fascinating collection of dinosaur bones and skeletons, fossils, and an amazing collection of gems and minerals.
Miss Terry was really impressed with these fluorescent minerals, which are displayed in a dark room, but glow in an amazing assortment of colors!
It seemed like the wind was getting worse, and after touring the dinosaur museum, we decided to find an RV park for the night. Dickinson is the center of an oil drilling boom and the place is really busy, but we found a pull through full hookup 50 amp site at the North Park Campground, a couple of miles off the highway. We had covered 173 miles, a rather short driving day for us.
But we weren’t done driving yet! Once we had the motorhome settled in at the campground, we drove the Explorer a few miles further east on the interstate, then got off at Exit 72, and took the Enchanted Highway south. Between 1989 and 2006, artist Gary Greff created a series of seven giant whimsical sculptures that are spread out along the highway for 32 miles to the small town of Regent, where Greff lives. These are reportedly the world’s largest metal sculptures, and I can believe it. Geese in Flight is 110 feet tall and 154 feet wide, and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the official World’s Largest Metal Sculpture.
Regent is a tiny little town, so small that we saw two different people driving riding lawnmowers down the main street! There are a few businesses, including the Enchanted Highway Gift Shop, an American Legion post, a heritage museum, and a small full hookup RV park. If you want a quiet place to hang out for a while, I can’t think of a better location than Regent!
Miss Terry is an expert at spotting wildlife alongside the road, and when we were retracing our route back to Interstate 94, she spotted this hawk sitting on a hay bale.
We took over 500 pictures yesterday, but I’m out of space and it’s late. But don’t worry, I’ll have feature stories on Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the Dinosaur Museum, and the Enchanted Highway in an upcoming issue of the Gypsy Journal.
Today we’re off in search of new adventures in North Dakota, a state with so much to see and do!
Thought For The Day - My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. – Jimmy Durante
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Nick Russell
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If your travels take you close to Jamestown, ND, you might want to stop and see the White Buffalo. They have three. There is a buffalo museum there as well. Not real big, but interesting. I LOVED North Dakota when we were there last summer.
Thanks for the interesting entey on ND. We were not aware of the sculptures and will add that to our list as we are heading to Gillette.
Safe Travels
How interesting the sculptures are, I have never seen rocks that glow in the dark and in so many colors. We will add this part of ND to our bucket list. Stay safe
OK, Nick, the joke is on me–noticed in the comment I posted yesterday teasing you about traffic in Billings and the location of Homestake pass, I spelled words wrong and used the wrong word–oh well, enjoy your time in North Dakota, those metal sculptures are cool.
Check out the Peace Gardens at Roulette – on the Canadian border – they should be beautiful this time of year. Coming thru MN on 94? We are just south of I94 at St Cloud about 30 miles would be fun to meet you guys – have been following your blog for a long time.
Bob & Vicky
http://www.cedarcreekin.blogspot.com
We’ve traveled through North Dakota twice. Both time, we were amazed! So much green grass! So many small, deep blue lakes! We wondered whether we hit the state a “the right time”… but once was July 2008, the other time Sept 2010 (would be a different story in winter, for sure). Many, many interesting places to visit (we, too, drove the Enchanted Highway and talked with Gary Graff while we enjoyed our ice cream cones: http://laurieandodel.blogspot.com/2008/07/enchanted-highway-and-amazing-happening.html).
Isn’t it amazing how our stereotypes are shattered by travel?
Nick…I believe you drove “east” when you left North Park RV Park to get to Enchanted Highway. Spring, summer and fall is wonderful in North Dakota…it’s those darned winters that drove me to seek tolerable weather beyond the borders. Ted and Maureen, owners of NorthPark, are wonderful people. Hope you had a chance to chat with them!
So we have to buy a subscription to read the rest of the stories? That sucks. I can find anything out I want to on the net without payng you $20 a year for your paper. There are too many guys out here trying to get rich on blogs and websites. I’ll do my reading elsewhere. It’s just like campgrounds wanting $25 a night or more. For what? A place to park? Give me a break. We just were at the big rally in Bend. Everything was buy me!!! Buy a dish, buy a dome, buy insurance, buy this and buy that. RVing is way too commercialized.
Bev – thanks for noticing that. I have corrected it.
Jason D –
It’s time for you to sell your trailer.
JC
Anybody who badmouths ND doesn’t know what good is. Problem is the winters. I-94 is a delightful ride, but we especially enjoyed traveling across Rt. 2, further north near the Canadian border. There is nothing especially spectacular, but the miles and miles and miles of beautiful rolling prairie, seen from a 2 lane road, is just delightful. Don’t miss the Space Aliens Cafe, in Bismark, Grand forks, Minot, and Fargo. I believe there are others elsewhere in MN. Best ribs we have ever eaten, served in a truly unique setting. Enjoy your trip, and travel safe.
PS – Jason D is a Jerk.
Why am I a jerk? Because I refuse to spend every dollar I have on one geegaw or another? Because I don’t want to shell out $20 a year for the same stuff I can find for free? Because I don’t want to give some greedy campground owner my last dollar just for a place to park? Come on, $20 or more to rent a patch of ground for a night? Give me a break!!!
To JD
WOW, you must be one miserable fool looking for everything for FREE. Your friend list must be very long, ONE, yourself. Enjoy your solitude pal. Keep up the good work Nick.
Jason, we all have choices to make in life. Isn’t it great that we have so many to choose from? Read what you wish from the internet but the friends you make while parked in campgrounds can’t be found on the internet. BTW…Nick has been a newspaper editor with years of experience and has freely shared it with us through his blogs. Keep reading them…you may learn something!!! …maybe…
Hello Nick:
Your post today led me back to this old post. I was interested to see what you had to write about ND because we had our first visit there this past autumn when we participated in the sugar beet harvest.
I take exception to your comment about today’s politicians. Everyone knows they have plenty of stamina for giving speeches. It’s ‘thinking’ where they have no stamina.