Two weeks after moving into a new house, the Surdus began their annual multi-state romp. I was on a business trip to the left coast the early part of the week, but instead of flying home, I flew to Minneapolis and met Candy and the kids there. After linking up and getting the rental car, we went to the Mall of the Americas to nose around and have dinner. While many of the stores and restaurants are the same as those found in other malls, they did have some things that seem to have disappeared, like GOOD game stores and stores with interesting “stuff.” We enjoyed the huge Lego store. The picture (above) is of Tommy looking at a “pointillist” picture made of Legos. We played miniature golf in the mall and found the indoor amusement park interesting, though we didn’t go on any of the rides.
The next day we headed northward to Lake Itasca state park. The Mississippi River flows some 2500+ miles, but you can wade across the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, where the river begins.
Within the park we took a several-mile hike to an old fire watch tower, which provided a terrific view of the area.
We were attacked by mosquitos and ticks during this trek. The next day I had over forty mosquito bites on my legs. Despite staying on the marked trails, we each had six or seven ticks on us, and we were still finding ticks in the car the next day. We also hiked to the headwaters and waded across the river.
The water was cool and clear — quite different than at its other end in New Orleans.
After several hours at Lake Itasca, we began a LONG car ride to Bismark, ND, to position ourselves for the next day’s activities. Towns were few and far between, but when the GPS noted something called “Pizza Ranch,” Tommy decided that we couldn’t resist checking this out. We got off the highway in the small town of Casselton, ND. Pizza Ranch turns out to be a small chain with a pizza buffet, a nice salad bar, “famous” chicken, and other food items. The price even included an ice cream bar from a freezer. On a big sign in the restaurant, they list their vision statement as: “To glorify God by positively impacting the world we live in,” so they appear to be like Chic-Fil-A in their management style. We try to avoid a lot of chains on these trips, but this was an unexpected gem.
The next day we visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, ND. In a previous trip we’d visited the Bad Lands of South Dakota. This park includes the Bad Lands of North Dakota. While none of the “mountains” are particularly tall, the views are amazing.
We went on four hikes during our visit. Each hike had a brochure at the trail head with descriptions of points of interest that corresponded to marked points on the trail. None of the hikes were too strenuous, but they were fun and interesting.
I expected North Dakota to be pretty flat, but most of the state that we drove through was very hilly. Of course, the Bad Lands are very hilly, but most of the state seemed to consist of rolling, grass-covered hills that looked more like pictures of parts of China than the “great plains.”
This was one of the shorter hikes, out to a point where you could look down into the Bad Lands almost 360 degrees.
After being nearly eaten alive by mosquitos the previous day, the higher, dryer terrain near Theodore Roosevelt National Park seemed cool and windy, which made the day nearly insect free.
The hikes tried to limit hikers to the marked paths in order to control erosion. Along many of the paths, we could see numerous animal tracks and signs of Bison, but we saw no animals during our hikes.
One of the interesting hikes took us through an area were a close-to-the-surface vein of coal had burned for nearly 30 years, beginning in the 60s. It was interesting to see how the underground fire had changed the landscape. These underground coal vein fires are started by lightning, brush fires, or spontaneous combustion.
After several hours in the park, we ate at the Cowboy Cafe in Medora (shockingly overpriced and underwhelming food) and got on the road for Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
It’s hard to see in this picture, particularly after I down-sampled it to upload it to the blog, but the bison hoof mark is almost 10 inches across.
We saw herds of buffalo along the road leading to the park, but we only saw five or six buffalo inside the park. The first few we saw appeared to be sleeping in the tall grass. This one was actively grazing.
This is a panoramic shot taken with an app on Candy’s phone, which proves that I can be in multiple places at once.
Next stop Glacier National Park.
