July 30, 2023
7/24- Drove to Bismarck, North Dakota today. If we have a long drive we always try to find somewhere interesting to stop along the way for lunch. Today it was New Salem, North Dakota so we could see their giant cow on the hill. https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2716
Once we arrived at the KOA in Bismarck, Frank had some work he had to do. I had been trying to find a place to get my nails done but we had been in several small towns and most don’t have a lot of nail salons, so once we got to our campground I called and got an appointment. I had not done my nails since Montana and they were grown out and needed some love. After my nails it was time to do some grocery shopping again because most small towns have very limited items in their grocery stores, so we were able to restock essentials we hadn’t been able to get. This evening we just hung around the campground which is quite pretty.
7/25- Spent today touring Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. https://www.parkrec.nd.gov/fort-abraham-lincoln-state-park It is one of the oldest State Parks, established in 1907. The park had quite a bit to see. Not only was it one of the early forts in North Dakota it was Custer’s last command before heading to Little Big Horn. We were able to tour the rebuilt house he and his wife would have lived in during their time at the Fort. Our guide was great and stayed in character as a soldier telling us about “his general.”
Then it was off to see where the soldiers would have been during that time. We saw the barracks where they would have slept and the blockhouses where they would guard the Fort from the Indians in the area. At least the replicas of the barracks and blockhouses. After the Fort was abandoned most of it was destroyed and the wood taken by local settlers to build their own homes. The regiment graveyard laid nearby.
We learned about the Civilian Conservation Core (CCC). Young men were employed through this government program in the 1930’s and many of these young men built bridges, dams and parks. The CCC did a lot of work around Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park and rebuilt the destroyed original buildings.
Then we headed out for a tour of the Mandan Native American village. We were the only people on the tour and so our guide took his time as he took us around the village and into the Earth lodges including one still used today by local Native Americans for worship. The Mandan where once a huge tribe which were virtual wiped out by measles.
7/26- Found a fun place to stop at for lunch today with another giant creature. This was a giant Buffalo in Jamestown, ND. We toured the small Buffalo Museum they had there and saw an albino buffalo.
It was not a great day temperature wise to have a Harvest Host stay. The temperatures where in the upper 90’s and we were scheduled to stay at the Fargo North Dakota Air Museum. https://fargoairmuseum.org/ Luckily this was a host who didn’t mind if we ran our generator in the parking lot. Our solar is great for a lot of things but the air conditioner is just too big of a draw on it so to run the a/c we have to run the generator. Still we could only run the generator until about 10 pm then the RV got pretty warm overnight.
When we arrived we noticed that the museum had a sign on their door that said it was “paw friendly” so Teddi got to come inside with us to tour the museum. They had two buildings of amazing planes which we enjoyed touring.
The exhibit that I loved the most was the dog tag exhibit. An Eagle Scout for his Eagle project created 1,350 dog tags to honor men who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan war. He used the museum’s World War II-vintage machine—not modern computerized equipment—for the work that took him three months of Saturdays to complete. We have three sons who were all Eagle Scouts and I know the thought, time and materials it takes to complete an Eagle project. I was impressed by what this young man had done.
7/27- Frank had to work today so we knew we couldn’t travel far but we wanted to find a campground with electric hook-ups so we could cool down and have constant air conditioning. Along our route we had found that some of our favorite campgrounds were ones run by the local recreation district, most of them are very reasonably priced and have beautiful facilities. We were excited to find that the Fargo Park District had a campground just a few miles down the road from our Harvest Host. We were able to reserve a spot at Lindenwood Campground but could not move into the campsite until 2 pm. https://www.fargoparks.com/lindenwood-campground So we packed up and drove across town to the nearby park where we found a few shade trees to pull under and Frank was able to work until time to move into our campsite. Our campsite was beautiful and right on the river. We enjoyed just relaxing and watching people Kayak and Canoe past.
7/28- Well, today marks the end of our trip around the perimeter of the United States. We have to head toward Alabama for RV repairs and since we have to be there on August 12th we are starting to head down there instead of continuing across the United States. Today we turned toward the Southeast as we left North Dakota and headed into Minnesota. We had so many places we had planned to visit in Minnesota especially in the upper part of the state but instead we headed down to Minneapolis/St Paul.
We found a campground just outside of Minneapolis that was run by the local Park district called Lebanon Hill Campground. If we can find and get into these local park run campgrounds they have become our campground of choice. https://www.co.dakota.mn.us/parks/parksTrails/LebanonHills/Pages/lebanon-hills-campground.aspx
Once we got settled in our spot we wanted to head to the Mall of America, but first we had to let a bad storm pass. Then it was off to spend three hours wandering around Mall of America and not even seeing half of it. https://www.mallofamerica.com/about# Mall of America was built in 1992 and was then, and is still is, the biggest mall in America. It is so much more than just stores, many of which are quite unique. It also has a full amusement park inside along with multiple restaurants. We stopped for dinner and the manager tried to offer Frank a free ride on the mechanical bull. We said no thanks and then watched another girl ride and get thrown.. We had a great time but our feet were sore and we were tired and ready to leave by 9 p.m.
7/29- Today was exploring some of the Minneapolis area. First we went to Fort Snelling, an early Minnesota Fort. https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling Normally there is a cost to park and another cost to visit the site, but today was a free day sponsored by a business so we were able to get in and explore for free. Fort Snelling has quite the history from early African American troops to Japanese American citizens being trained there during World War II. The Fort was built in 1819 where two rivers came together, the Mississippi and the River Warren. Its objective was to protect the fur traders in the area. Although Fort Snelling was in “free territory” many members brought their slaves with them. One was Dr. Emerson who brought his slaves Dred and Harriet Scott. This lead the Scott’s to sue for their freedom and became the famous Dred Scott case. Although the case went against them they were later freed. It was amazing to be at a place where so much history has taken place.
Then we headed off to the Minnehaha Park to see the Minnehaha Falls and the statues of Minnehaha and Hiawatha. Although he never visited Minnesota, in the 1850’s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a poem making the story of these two well known. In 1893 a Norwegian immigrant, Jacob Fjelde sculpted a statue of the two lovers that stands in the park today near the Falls.
Then we just had a short distance to travel to visit and tour Lock 1, the upper-most Lock on the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River has 29 locks along its upper part. These locks drop boats a total of 420 feet between Minneapolis and Granite City, Illinois. The lower Mississippi does not need locks due to river being naturally wider and deeper. Then it was back to the RV to rest and relax.
7/30- Arrived in Wisconsin today. This is the state where Frank’s father’s family lived after migrating from Germany and before continuing to migrate on to California. We are staying at Skillet Creek Campground just outside of Baraboo, Wisconsin. The campground is a great family campground with lots of fun things for kids to do. The biggest challenge we had was getting turned around trying to find our campsite and wandering through very narrow streets and finally driving through an empty campsite to get to ours. But once we got settled it was time to go do some exploring.
I had heard of Dr. Evermor and his unique metal sculptures, so we headed off to find them. https://www.worldofdrevermor.com/ Dr. Evermor built one of the largest scrap metal sculptures in the world. It is 50 feet high and 120 feet wide and weighs 300 tons. It contains items from power plants, ammunition plants and a decontamination chamber from Apollo 11 spacecraft. Tom Every, who created the persona Dr. Evermor and the items he built, was a demolition expert and collected antique machinery for his sculptures. You can see the wonder of his creations as you walk through the creatures he made along with a band of musical instrument birds being led by a conductor.
Tomorrow we will explore more of the area before heading toward East Troy and Milwaukee, both places which were significant in Frank’s parent’s lives.
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