Medora, ND: July 30-31, 2021 - Teddy Roosevelt National Park

Technically, it's Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but when have I ever been known to be pedantic?

This was the big destination for North Dakota.  Fargo was the big city, and Bismarck the capital, so both worth seeing, but the national park was the reason to visit the state at all.  Teddy's a cool character, and it's fitting he have the only National Park named after a person.  And after visiting, I can say: this is easily the most underrated National Park I've been to.  It's not to the level of a Grand Canyon or Yosemite, but it's definitely on par with many of the Utah and Colorado parks that are such huge draws, and yet it seems no one knows about it.

We began the morning of the 30th in Bismarck, departing at a moderately early time and taking basically no stops before reaching the park boundary.  Mix in another time change, and you've got us there shortly after 10am (but noon to our EST clocks).

The park is about 95% comprised of a scenic driving loop, but there is a separate overlook called the Painted Canyon, which we passed by on the way into Medora, where we were staying.  So we figured we'd hop out and see that first.

You'll notice I'm kind of overdoing it on the panoramics.  It's difficult to accurately portray just how vast this landscape is, even with them.  We had a bit of a haze, as you see, which was due to some wildfires up in Canada, so sadly it was a haze that was here to stay.  But the views still turned out alright.

We finished making our way into the town of Medora next, which is literally the gateway into the park proper (as in, the front gate is within the town).  Again, it was still fairly early local time, but internally we felt like another meal, so we had a brunch at the Cowboy Cafe before venturing in to do the scenic loop.

The scenic loop is, by the way, a scenic out-and-back, since a 4-mile chunk is closed for repairs.  I cannot seem to win at this.  A coworker recently pointed out to me that the most prevalent theme of this blog is that I seem to always run into closures and cancellations when I go places.  And recently, I can't argue that that seems to be true: Congaree's boardwalk was closed, Acadia's sunrise and sunset were foiled, the Sunsphere in Knoxville was closed for covid, as was Cuyahoga's famous train ride...incomplete visits do seem to follow me wherever I try to go.  It's never completely debilitating to the trip, though, as with this closure: essentially nothing we hoped to see was blocked off by this.  It just meant a more roundabout journey through the park.

We started with the visitor center, where we watched a brief informational video:

Then took off.  Barely inside the park, traffic slowed to a standstill: an ill omen, as much of the park is a drive.  But then we saw the reason:

Buffs!  Blockin the road!  Road Buffs!

They are clearly used to cars, as they were unfazed to the point of boredom by us passing.  

We continued on, enjoying the roadside scenery until reaching the badlands overlook, which was also the furthest point prior to the road closure and the turn back:

See?  Incredible landscape.  Next, we went to Buck Hill, a very quick hike up to the park's second highest point:

From that vantage point, you could see that the landscape went on seemingly forever.

Boicourt Overlook was next, not a place we had picked out initially, but one that looked worthwhile as we passed by.  It was indeed worthwhile:

The last area of any real hiking was Wind Canyon, which also took us by the Little Missouri River, which at the moment is more of a Little Missouri Sludge Pit:

Slightly further down the road was another chance encounter with wildlife:

A field of prairie dogs!  They really do stand up like that!  And burrow away when you get too close!

Last, an overlook near the entranceway to the park, the Skyline Vista:

Simply exquisite.

We returned to Medora to eat and sleep.  The town has a purposefully-kitschy old west decor to it, but combined with the steep badland cliffs in the background, it actually kinda works:

Bismarck and Jamestown, ND: July 29-30, 2021 - Buffalo Buffalo

The North Dakota portion of this trip is straight across, along I-94.  To break up the 3-ish hour drive from Fargo to Bismarck - the capital - we picked Jamestown, home to the National Buffalo Museum, as well as the world's largest Buffalo:

Is this a verified world record?  Does Guinness care about buffalo statues of unusual size?

Anyway, the museum was fine, and I actually learned some things, like how there were millions of buffalo, then we hunted them down to less than 1,000, and now there's around 400K.  Also, that Ted Turner is an inductee into the buffalo hall of fame for his conservation work (?!)

Also, around this area is when the landscape finally began to change.  It had been this:

But now had a few rolling hills:

The giant buffalo statue also had a recreation old west town and pioneer church next to it:

And in the actual town of Jamestown, a real church, the local Basilica:

Which, by sheer coincidence, was holding a 12:10 mass, meaning, since we arrived at 12:05, we could sneak inside and see it:

Lunch and coffee followed in town, then we continued on to Bismarck.  We arrived just in time to have about an hour at the North Dakota State Museum:

And then the Capitol:

Now this is a weird Capitol.  No domes or rotundas here.  The whole thing looks like a 1930s New York skyscraper.  Even the inside is pure art deco:

And I wondered: why?  Well, it turns out there's a very straightforward answer: the original Capitol burned down in about 1933, and so they rebuilt it, according to the style of the day.  It looks like a 1930s skyscraper because it is a 1930s skyscraper.  Complete with an observation deck on the 18th story:

Saw the house and senate chambers too:

And that was about it.  Hotel, then a place called StoneHome for dinner & drinks, then the day was done.  A fine little stop, and another state capital crossed off the list.

Fargo, ND: July 28-29, 2021 - The Dakotas Trip

This trip has been a long time coming.

My mom has been to almost all 50 states.  There are about 5 left.  A few years ago, realizing this, we sketched out a plan for a trip through the Dakotas, which would check two more off the list.  This would have been about 2017 or 2018 - and we never quite got around to executing that plan.  Until now.

We will be seeing the highlights of the two Dakotas over about a week and a half, and getting them well and truly explored.  We begin in Fargo, the largest city in North Dakota at around 120K people, where we flew in and spent our first night.  

Not exactly a metropolis, but for this part of the country, it's sizeable.  We began with lunch at NoBull, a barbecue place, which offered waffles as a side item:

Yeah, I took a picture of my food.  I don't make a habit out of it.

We had a shared family Google Sheet for the planning of this trip, and color coded things that were "can't miss" in green, "if there's time" in yellow, and "only if there's nothing else" in red.  The first green thing on the list was the Art Museum in downtown Fargo.

Neat!

Next, a yellow: the Roger Maris museum, which perplexed us because the Google Maps preview displayed it as being in the dead-center of a mall.  We figured, okay, the place takes up part of the mall, but the entrance and possible tickets would be external.

Turns out it's just a display case in a mall:

Well, to be fair, there was a little room with a video, and authentic stadium seats!

And like, okay.  Great.  It serves its purpose.  But this is the guy that broke Babe Ruth's all-time record for home runs in a single season, and his legacy is reduced to a window display in a shopping mall.  I think it might have taken the stress off of him in those last few games to know that this is how things would end up, even if he did break the record.

Leaving the mall, I got on the maps app yet again, and whizzing around, spotted something that I had remembered seeing in preparation for this trip, but hadn't set down on the list: the Hjemkomst center!

And you may be asking, what the Hjeck is a Hjemkomst?

I had seen pictures, and thought "hey that's kinda neat looking", but I had literally no idea what this place was.  Given the name, I assumed it was some manner of Norwegian heritage museum, given the strong Norse population of the area (which, by the way, was technically Moorhead Minnesota).  

Turns out it's just some random guy from the 80s who built a Viking ship to sail to Norway on.  He died, so friends and family completed the journey in his stead, nearly dying along the way.  They spent months on this boat and then built a museum about how they spent months on this boat.  Also, totally unrelatedly, there's a replica medieval Norse church next door:

Which is the result of yet another guy who just decided, "hey, I'm gonna build this now".  They slapped these two landmarks together and called it a Hjemkomst.  Hell yeah.

Returning to Fargo, we at last made our way to the hotel.  We relaxed a bit, then headed out again, first touring the campus of North Dakota State University, which had architecture reminiscent, to me, of Old Louisville houses, as well as a statue of their mascot, the Buffalump:

Next, we returned to the main drag of downtown and stopped by an old train station (similar to the one I saw in Springfield), because my mother wanted a picture with the clock:

Her maiden middle name, you see, was Fargo.

Food time was next - not exactly dinner, since we weren't really in the mood for a full and proper meal - and we chose the Würst Bier Hall.  This was an excellent choice.  The beers were good of course, but I have to tell you about the fluff.  Can I please tell you about the fluff?  I'm dying to tell you about the fluff.

We got a Bavarian giant soft pretzel, which on the menu said it came with both beer cheese and "marshmallow fluff".  Marshmallow fluff?  Sounds questionable at best, but it comes with, so fine, bring it on out.  At first we stuck to the beer cheese.  But curiosity gets the better of you.  So eventually I dipped a pretzel chunk into some fluff.

My God.  I've never had anything so good.  I don't know what they put into this fluff but it tasted like all the best parts of funnel cake, a creme-filled doughnut, and cinnamon toast.  It was heaven.  It may in fact genuinely be worth a trip back to Fargo some day just to get The Fluff.

Hotel again, then bed.  We're taking it slow and steady these first few days because, well, the way I normally travel could probably kill a bull moose on a time frame of more than a week, so we're pacing ourselves.  But at a moderately early hour, we packed up, and headed west.