Bismarck, ND

So far Bismarck has been a pleasant surprise. We pulled in expecting to only stay a night or two as a stop to break up the drive into the Badlands. We arrived here and it was so nice, quiet, and surprisingly pretty that we decided to stay for 5 nights.

Mostly we’ve been running errands and trying to relax and unwind from our whirlwind drive. I have to say that the people here are very nice, the hospitality is certainly not lacking. One of the first things we did was find and pick up some essentials at Wal-Mart. Say what you want about the store, but when you live all over the country and move often, it’s nice to see something that you’re familiar with. You never know what stores will be in what part of the country or what to expect from them. So for us, Wal-Mart is a safe-haven that we know what to expect from.

When we went to the Wal-Mart I went in the ‘out’ door without even knowing it, I was changing my sunglasses for my normal glasses so I could see. The older gentlemen standing at the door as the greeter almost ran across the entrance at me, I thought he was going to tell me I came in the wrong door, but instead he stopped and said “Welcome to Wal-Mart.” That was it, I thought I was in trouble, but he just wanted to be sure we didn’t sneak past him without a greeting.

All through shopping employees kept welcoming us and asking if we were finding everything. Then at the checkout when the checker found out we weren’t from here but just visiting she told us all the good restaurants to eat at and the sites to see while we were here. It blew us away. When we left the store and were walking across the parking lot Bill said “it’s really nice here, but the hospitality is freakin me right out.” It was pretty funny, but it’s just the way it is here, quiet, rolling plains, wide open spaces, and incredibly friendly people.

The weather has been incredible. It’s been in the mid 80s with humidity around 25% with beautiful blue skies.

Yesterday (6 June) we drove out to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. Fort Abraham Lincoln is the fort that Custer and the 7th Cavalry launched the campaign that ended at Little Bighorn from. Read more about it’s history here: http://www.fortlincoln.com/Old%20Fort%20Abraham%20Lincoln%20History.htm
The guided tours of the Cavalry compound are really unique. The guides dress in period clothing and once you are on the tour you step back into 1875 and they address you as such, including telling me that I needed to buy a proper dress since only the Soiled Doves (prostitutes) dressed in only their undergarments. I was wearing an ankle length lightweight summer skirt, but still would have looked like a hooker in 1875. I of course told her I had a proper dress in my trunks. It was a lot of fun.

Also at the Fort is a representation of a Mandan (the native people of the area) village called On-a-Slant. Read about On-a-Slant here: http://www.fortlincoln.com/On-a-slant%20History.htm Some interesting points about the Mandan’s is they were a primarily Matriarchal society. Not to say that they saw any one sex better than the other, but when a couple married the man moved in with the woman’s family. The woman was the one who knew how to build the earth home and she owned the earth home. It was the man’s job to be the provider by hunting and the protector by being a warrior. The pics of the village are of their earth-mound homes and the community lodge. The community lodge is the one with the representations of buffalo on log poles.

All in all it was a really neat place to visit, the guides did an excellent job and Bismarck in general is a nice place that I wouldn’t mind coming back to some day.

;-)K

Whirlwind Pittsburgh to Bismarck

Holy Crap! Ok…we did it again. We left Pittsburgh on the 1st of June and were supposed to drive the 9ish hours to Mackinaw City, Michigan and put down there for a day or two. Michigan sucked and we bailed straight through. As a side note, there is a town in Michigan called, and I kid you not, Hell…I find that very appropriate.

So we skipped Michigan and drove on straight into Green Bay, Wisconsin. That’s roughly 16 hours for those who are counting. Oh, we almost hit a deer in Michigan. Bill had looked down at the speedometer for a split second, I screamed (almost like a little girl, but not quite), gave us both a heart attack, but he managed to slow down and swerve just enough to miss it. There were tons of deer all along the side of the roads, dead and alive. I think because we managed to miss the one that he told all his friends we were good people and not to jump out in front of us.

On to Green Bay, can I just say, I was disappointed. For a place that calls itself ‘Titletown, USA’ and the town slogan is “Green Bay – Where There is no Off Season”, you’d never know that it is the home of the Green Bay Packers unless you are standing at Lambeau Field. I don’t know if it’s because the Pack has been sucking it up the last few years or what, but the overall ‘football town’ experience is way better in Pittsburgh. I was really expecting not just Wisconsin, but Green Bay to beat the pants off Pittsburgh in that respect and they just didn’t. Anyway, Lambeau field is cool. I would even go as far as to say that the Atrium and all that is better than what is at Heinz field, but only because Heinz field isn’t open to the public year round and the Atrium at Lambeau is.

The Packers Hall of Fame at Lambeau is also very cool. It costs money to get into, but if you are a Packer fan, it’s worth it. Bill and I spent a couple hours rambling through watching some of the films they have in there and listening to the presentations and such. Like Bill says, there are two places that football fans will make a pilgrimage to, Pittsburgh (after all football started in Western PA) and Green Bay, WI. We have done both.

We left Green Bay on Sunday the 4th and arrived in Bismarck, ND that night at 10:30. We were supposed to stop in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for a night or two, but again…drove in and didn’t even bat an eyelash at the prospect of continuing on. Can I just take a second to say that the Midwest has the world’s worst drivers. Not the most aggressive, not the angriest, not anything like that…just the worst! As my step-dad says, “They don’t know how to get on the freeway, and once they are there they don’t know what to do, it’s like marathon bumper cars.” A truer statement I’ve never heard. The only reason we were going to stop in the first place was to break up the drive west and see the Mall of America. Really, it’s a mall I’ve been there, its huge, but still just a mall. So we pushed on and made it out of Minnesota alive and unscratched (1 in every 3 cars on the freeway through Minnesota had major body damage and/or was missing side mirrors. Not body damage from the chemicals they put on the roads in the winter, oh no, damage from hitting things).

We continued our drive west into Bismarck, North Dakota. North Dakota along the I-94 is so much prettier than the I-90 through South Dakota. It’s mostly flat and you can see forever, but it’s really rather pretty with it’s rolling plains and lakes and the sunset was incredible. The sunset alone made the 14-hour drive worth it.

So here we are, now in Bismarck, ND and here we will stay for a few days before heading down into the Badlands. The park we are staying at is nice, quiet, and the people are friendly. We are looking forward to exploring the Bismarck area and generally relaxing. I should have more to come soon.

Cheers;-)K