Month: July 2003

16 Farmers in Garrison North Dakota – Day 112

16 Farmers in Garrison North Dakota

Day 112 – July 21, 2003 – Monday

Our day began in the capitol of North Dakota — Bismarck. We visited the capitol building and the governor’s residence. Eleventh capitol we had seen in 31 states.

From Bismarck to New Salem. Home of the World’s Largest Cow — Salem Sue. Sue is 38-feet tall, and as world’s largests go, she’s a mighty impressive statue. Salem Sue stands on the highest hill in the town of New Salem, North Dakota. Salem Sue is so large that it can be seen from over five miles away. Erected in 1974 by the New Salem Lions Club to help promote area Holstein herds, Salem Sue was the second giant roadside animal sculpture built in North Dakota. The idea to erect such a large cow came likely from the popularity of North Dakota’s first giant roadside animal – the World’s Largest Buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota that was erected in 1959.

From New Salem, we wound through a variety of country roads with Minot as our ultimate destination.

In Beulah, we were unable to find the “Bale People” — some art made out of hay bales. We stopped at three places to ask, but the Civic Center and newspaper offices were closed, and no one at the gas station / convenience store had any idea what we were talking about.

When you are traveling and looking for information, there are now two places never to stop: one is a convenience store and the other is a surveyor. Surveyors never know where they are and they’re never from around the area. We believe one of the prerequisites for being a convenience store worker is to be from another country and commute at least 50 miles from another state.

When we saw the town of Zap on the map, we just had to go. Small town in a picturesque setting. The postmaster’s car is a PT Cruiser with the license plate “ZIP ZAP.”

From Zap, we went to Pick City to see The Dam Bar. The Garrison Dam is just a mile or so away.

In Garrison, Walleye Capital of the World, we saw Wally Walleye, the World’s Largest Walleye. Garrison has quite a sense of humor; the twin water towers are labeled “Hot” and “Cold.” As I headed back to the car after the walleye photo, Boz said some men inside the cafe were waving for us to come in. I went in and met 16 nice, nice Garrison folks. Karen, Richard, Spanky, Don, Ron, Steve, Jerry, Blaine, Larry, Don, Randy, Delores, Edna, Joanne, Cindy, and Mark. I joked that I was sorry I had walked in during a town meeting, and they said I wasn’t far off.

I told the entire cafe group a little about the trip, and they provided a number of ideas on sights to see in North Dakota. Steve asked about the beads. I told a short version of the Floating Neutrinos story, and when I left, half the farmers in Garrison were wearing lucky beads. I wish we hadn’t been short on time, as it would have been great to just sit and talk with them about Garrison and North Dakota. Garrison also has a giant that greets visitors to the local golf course, but we missed it.

Barbara sat out in the car while I was in speaking with the 16 folks in the town cafe. She said the farmers came out one at a time wearing their beads, and she was holding her sides from laughing so hard. Big ole guys in jeans and T-shirts with a string of Mardi Gras beads around their neck. She could just imagine the reaction when these guys walk back into their kitchens and see their wives.

When I told the story about the lucky beads, one of the farmers said he could use all the luck he could get. I asked why, and several of his neighbors said he was getting a divorce. He got two strings of beads.

Down the road we went to Parshall, North Dakota — home of the Paul Broste Rock Museum. The museum is made of rock — uncut granite fieldstone held together with cement. The collection within the museum encompasses much more than the name implies. Mr. Broste was a grassroots artist as well as a North Dakota farmer, and he saw his museum as a way of displaying his paintings, conceptual sculptures, pen-and-ink illustrations, poems, and philosophies, as well as his rocks. Mr. Broste was born in a one-room log cabin with a sod roof in 1887, and he didn’t complete the museum until 1964. He asked the town of Parshall to preserve what he had so painstakingly created after his death, and the museum has been preserved and improved.

We met Coby at the gas station in Parshall. The beads.

New Town provided a real laugh! The Earl Bunyan Statue. Not PAUL Bunyan, but Earl. Earl was “dreamed up by Fred and Berd LaRocque” in 1958. Earl stands about 20-feet tall — a string bean with a mustache. He stands atop a pile of rocks, wears a cowboy hat, boots, and tight-fitting jeans. The story they created is that Earl is Paul’s brother. Fred and Berd are buried beneath the statue.

We visited Stanley, North Dakota to have a Whirla-Whip at the Dakota Drug Store. A Whirla-Whip is a mixture of ice cream with any of a variety of fruits and/or candies. The machine whips the ice cream and additives together, and the end result is a thick blended cross between a milk shake and ice cream. Boz had Vanilla with Butterfinger, and I had Maraschino Cherry with Vanilla. Very tasty! Dakota Drug began using the Whirla-Whip machine in 1949. The machine was manufactured between 1937 and 1942. Whirla-Whip was really popular at Dakota Drug, and the owners of the store had the foresight to begin purchasing Whirla-Whip machines from small town stores in North Dakota in the early 60’s when many of them were remodeling and removing soda fountains from their stores. As a result, the store now has several Whirla-Whip machines, and Dakota Drug is the only place in the world where you can get a Whirla-Whip. Ellen prepared our Whirla-Whips, and we met Nina there as well.

As we were leaving Stanley, I spotted an old building out of the corner of my eye, and we turned back to investigate. We found Flickertail Village — a museum of old buildings. Out front, we found a unique display of fire hydrants painted to represent some of the most notable North Dakotans — Roger Maris, Lawrence Welk, Sakakawea, and others.

When we reached Minot, we met Julie and Katie at the hotel. We asked Julie about the restaurant recommended to us — Ebeneezer’s, and she said it was her favorite place. Louisiana Tiffany took excellent care of us at Ebeneezer’s, and we met the manager, Gary, and he gave us red-white-and-blue beads! Tiffany gave us American flags. They had no idea that beads and flags are so important to us — that we give beads to everyone we meet and photograph flags every day. Quite a coincidence.

We covered a lot of ground in North and South Dakota. If you eliminate the world’s largest statues that we’ve seen across North Dakota, South Dakota clearly has more to see…but we found there to be no comparison between the people. The folks we’d met in North Dakota were much nicer and much friendlier than most of the people we had met from South Dakota.

I’m afraid we’ll have to add a category for time, and give North Dakota the “worst time” because they make it really confusing by allowing the different counties to determine what time zone they are in. You can be much further east and still be in Mountain Time and vice-versa. It’s a mess.

We were reminded again today, as we learned and have been reminded so many times on the trip that there is a kinder and gentler America, and it is alive and well in small towns like Garrison North Dakota.

Random Comments:

We will be at the North Dakota State Fair in Minot tomorrow, and we plan to try to get in to see the Underground Missile Silos in Minot. It should be an interesting day. We have to be in Minnesota tomorrow night.

We are very sorry that we were unable to meet up with a couple of wonderful email penpals in North Dakota. We cannot thank Marilyn, Joanne, and Sonia enough for the wonderful invitations; we just wish our route could have made visits possible. We hope they’ll give us a raincheck. We feel TERRIBLE that we can’t meet up with these especially nice folks!

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today: 
World’s Largest Cow — Bale People — Garrison North Dakota — World’s Largest Walleye — Paul Broste Rock Museum — World’s Largest Earl Bunyan — Dakota Drug Store — Flickertail Village — Ebeneezer’s

 

Free Ice Water – Day 111

Free Ice Water

Day 111 – July 20, 2003 – Sunday

We began today with a few sights in Rapid City, South Dakota — sculptures of various Presidents downtown; a fabulous chapel; Storybook Island — a wonderful free park for children; and Dinosaur Park. We also visited the Berlin Wall Memorial Park in Rapid City where they were having a huge religious event of some type.

Rapid City seems to have good signage for its little city tour attractions, but the map in their guidebook was poor. Maybe they can get someone to work on their map, and then that person could go to Deadwood and re-do the gunfight shows. We did, however, manage to find many of the attractions listed in the visitor’s guide.

Storybook Island was a very enjoyable stop. Storybook Island provides a free, safe, educational environment for those young in years, or young at heart, to experience the power of imagination. The park is filled with sets that portray characters from various children’s stories, fables, and nursery rhymes. Humpty Dumpty, Pinocchio and other favorite childhood characters, nursery rhymes, and fairytales come to life in animated and real life scenes. The park has been open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day each year since 1959. We’d like to congratulate the Rotary Clubs of Rapid City and Rushmore for this special place. Madison would love to see Storybook Island. We made a donation, and we hope they will add an Itsy Bitsy Spider attraction, Madison’s favorite.

Stavkirke Chapel was built in Rapid City in 1969. The unique “Stavkirke” is an exact copy of the famous 830 year-old Borgund Church in Norway. The intricate wood carvings, strange dragon heads and ingenious pegged construction make it a place of unusual interest. Situated in a park-like setting surrounded by forest, it is also a place of great beauty. Summer visitors are greeted by hostesses in Norwegian costumes. A “Stabbur” with grass roof was imported from Norway to be a reception center and gift shop. There is an impressive taped narration to help you appreciate this unusual and unique structure.

At Dinosaur Park, seven life-size concrete replicas of monstrous prehistoric reptiles roam the outdoors in a park-like setting. The larger figure is visible from most points in town. Dinosaur Park was built in the early 1930’s.

Downtown Rapid City features bronze statues of many of our nation’s Presidents. The Presidents are life-size, standing as pedestrians on street corners in downtown Rapid City. These are excellent statues.

Helmets are not required on motorcycles in South Dakota. That’s probably why Sturgis has become so big?because all these crazy people who ride motorcycles can ride here helmetless.

Badlands National Park was the next spot on our itinerary after leaving Rapid City. For quite a few miles, we passed through an area that appeared to be absolutely riddled with prairie dog holes.

Badlands National Park has a region known as “The Wall” that separates the upper prairie from the lower prairie. We took a photo of The Wall.

We saw the Buffalo Gap National Grassland — lots of prairie.

We met Ranger Shannon at the official entrance to the Badlands National Park. We then drove through Badlands National Park to Wall, South Dakota (population 818) where we visited the world-famous Wall Drug.

In 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought the only drugstore in Wall, South Dakota using $3,000 that Ted’s father had left to him when he died. The population of Wall was 326. Most of them were farmers who had been wiped out either by the Depression or drought.

Relatives questioned their choice of Wall, South Dakota. It was in the middle of nowhere. Ted’s father-in-law said: “Wall is just about as Godforsaken as you can get.”

After taking in only $360 the first month, it began to seem that Wall Drug had been a bad choice. Ted and Dorothy struggled, but they decided to give it five years.

The five years were just about up when Dorothy came to Ted one day and said she couldn’t sleep because of the noise from all the cars going by on the nearby highway. But she had come up with an idea that might get some of those people to stop and come into Wall to their drug store. She figured those travelers were hot and thirsty and would love to have a cold drink of water. Her idea was to put up signs on the highway inviting people to come to Wall Drug for “free ice water.”

The next weekend, Ted and a high school boy went out to the highway and put up signs they had made for “free ice water.” The travelers started filling Wall Drug almost immediately. The next summer, the Husteads had to hire eight girls to help out with the crowds.

Wall Drug is now famous worldwide. Wall Drug earned much of its fame from its self-promotion. Billboards advertising the establishment can be seen for hundreds of miles throughout South Dakota and the neighboring states. In addition, many visitors to Wall Drug have erected signs throughout the world announcing the miles to Wall Drug from famous locations.

Wall Drug has grown into a huge tourist attraction/museum/store. It is like a sprawling shopping mall consisting of a drug store, gift shop, restaurants and various other stores. The store now encompasses an entire city block and the interior occupies 76,000 square feet. Wall Drug can feed, clothe, and entertain the entire family for hours. There are many free attractions to keep folks amused while strolling about the store, including displays of Western art and a cowboy orchestra that plays every 15 minutes. Photo opportunities abound, thanks to the 80-foot-long dinosaur, 6-foot fiberglass jackalope, and Mt. Rushmore replica. There is a 520-seat cafe, and there are shops for everything from postcards to cowboy boots.

Wall Drug is the principal industry in Wall. It employs nearly a third of the town’s residents as well as hundreds of college students from around the country each summer.

Before the 1960’s era of “highway beautification” banned most billboards, Wall Drug touted its free ice water on 3,000 billboards in all 50 states.

When I-90 bypassed Wall in the late 1960’s, the Husteads did not sit back and wait for their business to die. Instead, they erected a 50 ton, 80-foot-long dinosaur next to the freeway reminding travelers that Wall Drug was still open and expected them to stop. It worked.

A younger generation of Husteads still runs Wall Drug. The ice water’s still free, and the coffee still costs a nickel.

What an incredible success story — and what a phenomenon! As many as 20,000 people a day stop and visit Wall Drug in the tiny town of Wall, South Dakota. When we tried to find a parking place, we couldn’t believe our eyes. There were cars parked for as far as the eye could see and folks walking a long way to get to the drug store. The store was packed. You have to see it to believe it.

I had some cherry nut ice cream, and Barbara had chocolate nut fudge. We met Carrie at the cash register. She gave us a special Wall Drug – Wall, South Dakota sign. She was very excited to receive her beads.

From Wall, we drove up through South Dakota and into North Dakota across some of the most wide open spaces we have seen on this trip.

We met Angie and Charley at the gas station in Lemmon. They were from Headinger, North Dakota. We would’ve never known about the Petrified Wood Park if we hadn’t seen a sign at the gas station. It said “world’s largest petrified forest 4 blocks.” I guess they learned that from Wall Drug. We went four blocks, and there it was.

The Petrified Wood Park was built from 1930-32 by Lemmon men under the command of Ole S. Quammen. “Thirty to forty otherwise unemployed men received sustenance during this period,” explains a sign at the site. The men scavenged rocks and fossils from the vicinity and hauled them back to Lemmon. The result was a castle, a wishing well, a waterfall, the Lemmon Pioneer Museum, and hundreds of pile sculptures — all made of petrified wood. The park became city property in 1954 when it was donated by the Quammen family. A hundred cone-shaped sculptures are spread around the park at sizes up to 20-feet tall. Some are made from petrified wood and others from round rocks from North Dakota’s Cannonball River. A building referred to as “the Castle” was crafted from a variety of petrified wood and thousands of pounds of petrified dinosaur and mammoth bones. There are two separate museums in the park.

We passed two cars today — #24 and 25.

Boz counted the hay bales that she saw today, and she reported at one point that she had reached 100,000. I think she miscounted, but there were hay bales everywhere.

We took sunset pictures in Thunder Hawk, shortly before we crossed over into North Dakota. We saw two foxes cross the road in North Dakota, and we saw a lot of deer this evening.

We passed the Elgin Historical Society in Elgin, North Dakota. It is nice to see small towns that have museums or historical societies because if a little town doesn?t have a newspaper, if someone isn’t keeping track of what’s going on, the history may be lost.

North Dakota is definitely going to win the award for the most bugs because we drove for less than 1/4 tank of gas after cleaning the windshield, and it was already pretty well covered with bugs.

We reached Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, just before midnight. It was a long day.

I thought about the Husteads and Wall Drug all day. I have such admiration for people who have built successful businesses through ingenuity and hard work. Wall Drug is to me one of the most amazing success stories ever. The Husteads violated the #1 law of real estate — location, location, and location. But, Dorothy Hustead, her husband and son proved to be advertising geniuses. The first signs that Dorothy dreamed up got the attention of motorists, built interest, generated a desire, and moved them to action. Attention, Interest, desire, and Action — that’s what successful advertisers and salespeople try to do with their audiences. Then the idea of giving people signs that they could take with them on their journeys to post in other towns, states, and countries was ingenious.

The lesson for the day comes from the late Ted Hustead of Wall Drug: “Free Ice Water. It brought us Husteads a long way and it taught me my greatest lesson, and that’s that there’s absolutely no place on God’s earth that’s Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!”

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this website. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest, and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Rapid City South Dakota — Storybook Island — Badlands National Park — Wall Drug — Petrified Wood Park
 

Gutzon Borglum Korczak Ziolkowski and Dr Harley Niblack – Day 110

Gutzon Borglum, Korczak Ziolkowski, and Dr. Harley Niblack

Day 110 – July 19, 2003 – Saturday

Are you familiar with the artwork of Gutzon Borglum? Korczak Ziolkowski? Dr. Harley Niblack? We spent most of the day visiting their studios and seeing their work. We also met Ruth Ziolkowski; she has been pursuing her husband’s artwork since he died in 1982.

Gutzon Borglum and Korczak Ziolkowski were both sculptors. Harley Niblack was a world-class woodcarver. While you may not know the name Gutzon Borglum, you are undoubtedly familiar with his work — Mount Rushmore. Neither Boz nor I had ever been to Mount Rushmore. It’s even more impressive than the photographs, and the whole facility is really well done. Our national park pass was not accepted at Mount Rushmore. I don’t understand why.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a monumental granite that represents the first 150 years of the history of the US with 60-foot sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents: George Washington (1732-1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). The entire memorial covers 1,278 acres. The memorial attracts approximately 2 million people annually.

We watched a movie that tells the story of Mount Rushmore, and then we walked through the Exhibit Hall. Fascinating! We visited the Sculptor’s Studio, and we looked at the Monument from several perspectives. The movie theater and exhibit hall are almost hidden, and the brochure distributed to visitors doesn’t effectively show you where they area. So, when you visit Mount Rushmore, be sure you see the movie and the exhibits.

We met a nice family from Puyallup, Washington in the area where everyone poses for photos with Mount Rushmore behind them — Jason, Joshua, Heather, Jessica, Janet, and Jeff. We met Dean and Joanne at the voting booths where visitors can cast their vote for their favorite President. I was half-joking about getting a black magic marker so I could eliminate Bill Clinton as an option. Dean said he would help, and we began talking.

We had lunch at the Freedom Grill at Mount Rushmore. The hot dogs were pretty good (first dogs we’d had in quite some time). The Walnut Fudge Bars we had for dessert were great.

As we were climbing into the car to leave, we met Emily, Ken, and Eric. Then we met their parents. I was talking with the kids while Boz began talking to their Mom. They were on a trip from their home in Illinois to California to visit their Aunt Di. Boz learned that the trip was to celebrate Mom’s triumph over breast cancer. She endured mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, and all the horrors related therewith, and the doctors just gave her the great news that she is cancer-free. How fantastic! She removed her cap to show us that her hair is starting to grow back. Boz commented to young Emily that she must have been a big help to her Mom during all this, and she proudly said: “I learned to make coffee.” I told the boys that I thought they had a very beautiful baldheaded Mom, and little Eric said his Mom isn’t always bald. I told him I understood that, but she looks mighty good without hair. Older brother Ken said, “She’s the best Mom, and she’s EVEN MORE beautiful with her hair.” What a wonderful family. Bozzie and I were both crying as we left Mount Rushmore!

I did not know the name Korczak Ziolkowski, and I was not familiar with his work until I did the research for this trip. Korczak worked with Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore, and then he was recruited by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear to produce a sculpture of Crazy Horse in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Crazy Horse is the world’s largest sculpture. 641-feet long and 563-feet high. Crazy Horse is ten times the size of Mount Rushmore. The work began in 1948, and it is a long way from completion. The 90-foot tall head was unveiled on June 3, 1998. It’s quite a sight to see, especially when you view the mountain with the 1/34th scale model in the foreground.

As we walked out of the theater after viewing the orientation movie, “Dynamite & Dreams,” Bozzie Jane (having just seen her in the movie) recognized Ruth Ziolkowski standing anonymously in the crowd waiting for the next showing. We introduced ourselves, met her daughter Anne, chatted a bit, and gave them lucky beads. Ruth worked with Korczak to prepare three books of detailed plans to be used with his scale models so the work could be continued after his death. Since 1982, Ruth had managed the project with the help of 7 of their 10 children. It was a real honor to meet Ruth and Anne and to have an opportunity to speak with them about this amazing effort.

The huge visitor complex at the Crazy Horse Memorial has the theater, museums, art and sculpture galleries, restaurants, Indian crafts, an Indian museum, and much more. Gale and Jim helped us find our way around. It’s quite a place. The funding is one of the most amazing aspects of this massive project. The project has been financed entirely through private donations and from admission fees — not one cent of federal funding.

From the Crazy Horse Memorial, we went into the nearby town of Custer. We did a U-Turn when we saw Reetz’s Old Fashioned Pie Shop. We met Terry (he and his wife own it) and Ashlee, Lacey, and Luressa. The Rhubarb Pie was great, and we really enjoyed taking with Terry and Ashlee.

There are a ton of tourist attractions in and around Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. We stopped at The Flintstones Theme Park, The Maze, and a few others. We stopped at Mistletoe Place to pick up a South Dakota ornament for our Round America Christmas tree.

Our last stop of the day was at the National Museum of Woodcarving. Since I enjoyed Tinkertown so very much, we thought this would be an enjoyable tour. Most of the museum is the life work of Dr. Harley Niblack. While his woodcarving does not, in my opinion, match the work of Ross Ward at Tinkertown, many of Dr. Niblack’s woodcarvings are animated. In 1954-55, he designed and built the animations at Disneyland. We enjoyed the movie about his life more than the exhibits themselves. The last room features displays of the work from some of the top caricature carvers in the country, and their work was very impressive.

We met a lot of people today. In addition to those already mentioned, we met a nice Wisconsin family having a roadside picnic near Mount Rushmore — Rob, Heidi, Jace, Allie, and Trish. We also met some nice folks in Deadwood this morning — Pat, Rhonda, and Skip. Boz met a young man in the Comfort Inn parking lot in Rapid City who had seen our car several hundred miles away in Dickinson, North Dakota a few days ago.

We saw a few sights before we arrived in the Mount Rushmore area.  We visited Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood — where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried.  We drove by the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota.  We drove through Sturgis, South Dakota where 300,000 bikers take over the town in August each year.

We really enjoyed today. Mount Rushmore was high on our To Do list for this trip. Meeting Ruth Ziolkowski made Crazy Horse even more enjoyable. And we met some really nice people.

The thought for the day is how precious our Moms are. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about Emily, Ken, Eric, and their Mom. My mother died of breast cancer. I hope their mother has a long and healthy life!

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:

Mount Rushmore — Crazy Horse Memorial — National Museum of Woodcarving

Deadwood – Day 109

Deadwood

Day 109 – July 18, 2003 – Friday

The Cruiser was ready late yesterday. New transmission. $2,100, but no charge to us as the car was under warranty. We picked it up from Rob at Charbonneau Car Center, said hi to Nick, Casey, and Mitch, and we hit the road. We drove south from Dickinson through the southwestern corner of North Dakota. Not much down there. The road is as straight as an arrow with only a couple of towns, including Bowman and Buffalo.

It was only an hour and a half or so to South Dakota, our 30th state. We stopped in Belle Fourche, the geographical center of the 50 states. We met Julie at the Visitor Center there. She’s nine months pregnant, and she has two sons and is REALLY hoping for a girl. We gave her both pink and blue beads.

We met Sandy, a delightful lady with a stop sign, on road construction between South Dakota and Wyoming. We spoke with her for about 10 minutes before the Follow Me Car came to lead us through the maze. Wyoming then became state #31.

Wyoming was going to be a drive over the line and back state, but my Dad encouraged us to do more. We stopped and met the folks who own the historic general store in Aladdin, Wyoming (population 15). On the front porch, we met four really cute kids — Nick, Katlyn, Alex, and Phillip. We also met their parents, Julie and Phillip.

A California capitalist laid out the town of Aladdin and chose its name from Aladdin of Arabian Nights fame. The Aladdin Store was built by Bill Robinson in 1896. It was first a saloon.

We had lunch at the Cowboy Cafe in Hulett, Wyoming. Lacey was our waitress. The Apple Pie was very good.

We saw the Devil’s Tower National Monument. Devil’s Tower is a volcanic neck. It is part of the first United States National Monument, established in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. The movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was filmed there.

Then we saw Sundance, Wyoming (where the Kid got his name) before we crossed back into South Dakota. After his release from the Sundance Jail in 1888, Harry Longabaugh acquired the moniker the Sundance Kid, which entered the popular imagination with the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” which won several Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay. Robert Redford, who portrayed Longabaugh in the movie, later named the Sundance Film Festival after this character. “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was the first movie I ever took Boz to see when we began dating in college.

The northeastern part of Wyoming and the western part of South Dakota are especially beautiful places. Wyoming, Arkansas, and West Virginia were just the odd states out in our trip. Each state was off the logical route. We’ll spend more time in each of these states when we go Round America again. Yes, believe it or not, Bozzie Jane and I were already talking about doing the 50 states again.

Our destination for the day was Deadwood Gulch, South Dakota. Deadwood is the old mining town where Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back by Jack McCall while holding Aces and Eights in a poker game at Saloon No. 10. Deadwood is now a nicely-themed casino town. We especially enjoyed walking around inside the Midnight Star Casino (owned by Kevin Costner’s brother) and the Celebrity Casino. Both have great displays of movie memorabilia.

We walked all up and down the Deadwood streets. There was apparently a Corvette meeting of some type in town or nearby because we saw Corvettes everywhere.

Boz and I did something that we’ve never done before. We walked out of a restaurant after our drinks were served and before our meal was served. Saloon No. 10 served us the worst tasting drinks that either of us have ever had. The waitress pretty well ignored us when we politely complained. After a half hour or so and no indication that our appetizers would ever come, we just got up and walked out.

Out into the street we went to catch the last Wild Bill Hickock shooting “show” of the day. It wasn’t much better than the terrible drinks at Saloon No. 10. The emcee bragged that the show has been running consecutively for 89 years. It was free, and we got what we paid for. We respectfully suggest that Deadwood should bring in someone with some entertainment talent to re-do their shows.

Down the street in Deadwood we went in search of another restaurant. We chose the Chinatown Cafe. Our waitress was excellent, though she never got into a conversation with us or told us her name. The Chinese food didn’t hold a candle to our favorite in Atlanta, Tien Tsien, but it beat the heck out of Saloon No. 10.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this website. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest, and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Geographical Center of the 50 States — Aladdin Wyoming — Devil’s Tower National Monument — Sundance Wyoming — Deadwood Gulch South Dakota
 

Prairie Dogs Wild Turkeys Buffalo and Some Trail Horses – Day 108

Prairie Dogs, Wild Turkeys, Buffalo, and Some Trail Horses

Day 108 – July 17, 2003 – Thursday

Not the most exciting of days. We did get good news from Rob that the replacement transmission had come in. If all goes well, the car will be ready today.

We spent the day in Medora, North Dakota and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Medora is a nice tourist-oriented town — themed better than most. Cute shops.

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park features the unusual Badlands landscape, but that’s about it. We did see prairie dogs, wild turkeys, buffalo, and some trail horses.

As usual, the people we met were the highlight of the day. We met Lori and Gail at a business in Dickinson. We enjoyed lunch at the Cowboy Cafe in Medora, and we met waitresses Annie, Marcy, Amber, and Tasha when they asked about the beads as we walked in the door. Tasha served us, and she was a delight — a high school girl from a small town just across the border in Montana. She plans to go to bible college in Portland, Oregon.

The pie was very good at the Cowboy Cafe. Tasha had a twinkle in her eye when she recommended the Sour Cream Raisin Pie, and it was really good. Bozzie ordered Peach Pie, and it was excellent as well. Larry and Joyce were seated at the next table, and they suggested that we eat Ground Cherry Pie whenever we get a chance. A Ground Cherry is a wild cherry that the Amish seem to use a lot. We decided to be on the lookout for it. Larry and Joyce are from Ohio. They no longer have a home; they are traveling the country permanently! Just visiting relatives. Nice folks.

At one of the scenic overlooks in the National Park, we met Marlene and Sol from Philadelphia. They’ve been on the road for a month with another month to go. They’re headed to where we’ve just been, so we gave them a lot of ideas on places to see, and vice-versa.

Both Boz and I have noticed that not as many people ask about the beads in North Dakota. They spot them, and we can see a funny look in their eyes, but not nearly as many ask. Folks here are so nice and so well mannered that we interpret it as manners; they don’t want to be nosy or say anything that might offend.

Rob called late in the day to advise us that the PT Cruiser was ready. I’ll do a radio show in the morning, and then we’ll hit the road for South Dakota and Wyoming. We’ll spend two days there, and then we head back to North Dakota — going first to Minot to see the underground missile silos and the North Dakota State Fair.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Medora North Dakota — Theodore Roosevelt National Park — Cowboy Cafe
 

Enchanted Highway – Day 107

The Enchanted Highway

Day 107 – July 16, 2003 – Wednesday

It’s funny how things happen. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere this morning as we drove down the amazing Enchanted Highway and saw the World’s Largest Metal Sculptures produced by artist Gary Greff. The car started making a funny humming noise. Within a mile, we were coasting. Transmission problem.

Fortunately, cell phones seem to work better here — probably because the terrain is so flat and there isn’t much to block the signals. Chrysler Roadside Assistance dispatched Rick and his tow truck. He hauled us into the town of Dickinson where we met Rob and the delightful group of guys working at Charbonneau Chrysler. The transmission had to be replaced, so they tried to arrange to get a new one overnighted from the nearest spot — Minneapolis (700 miles away). They were kind enough to loan us a car, so after talking with all the guys and meeting some nice folks who also had car trouble (Aaron, Shane, and their dog, Eight Ball), we headed back to the Enchanted Highway where we saw the six fabulous sculptures that stretch over a 32-mile stretch of county blacktop road. These are not just any sculptures, they are huge sculptures — some over 100 feet high.

As we pulled into the last of the sites, we saw two men painting fence posts. I hollered out to one of the men asking if he was the artist. Much to my surprise, he said yes. Bozzie Jane and I spent the rest of the day with Gary. We visited his shop and then he was kind enough to take us to his home where he showed us his latest projects. It was a fascinating day. Even more fascinating because Gary wouldn’t have been out there painting fence posts earlier in the day, so the transmission was a problem in some ways, but it enabled us to meet a number of really nice people and have a special afternoon with a very interesting and talented artist who is producing something that is truly unique.

Gary is a native of Regent, North Dakota. He was a teacher and a school principal and had never done any art work or welding prior to 1989. He then began dreaming of ways to bring people and businesses to the small community of Regent — fearing the town would someday die if it relied solely on farming. A hay bale strongman built by a farmer inspired him. He watched people pull off the road to snap photos of the oddity. He wondered how many people would stop for huge metal sculptures. He began designing, welding, and painting. The Tin Family was erected in 1991; Teddy Rides Again in 1993; Pheasants on the Prairie in 1996; Grasshoppers in the Field in 1999; Geese in Flight in 2002; and Deer Crossing in 2002. He was working on Fisherman’s Dream. In 2002, Geese in Flight was named the World’s Largest Scrap Metal Sculpture by the Guinness Book of Records.

Geese in Flight was begun in 1998 and completed in 2002. Gary chose to sculpt geese because the birds are significant to North Dakota. They fly through the state every spring and fall, migrating north or south. The geese are enjoyed by bird watchers and hunters alike. The sculpture is 110-feet high and 154-feet wide. It weighs 157,661 pounds! While this is the largest of the sculptures, they are all huge.

Gary leases the land from the farmers for $1 for 20 years with the right to renew at that point. So, the farmers in the community are behind his project. The idea of the project, obviously, was to bring tourism and people to Regent to revitalize their farming town. Gary used to be a teacher, and then he was a principal, and then he became an inventor. He worked for several years on inventing prepared, diced onions like you would buy garlic in the grocery store. The product was even chosen as one of the most inspirational products at a New York food show. But, he spent all of his life savings on the product development and didn’t have money left over for marketing and so the product has been shelved. He’s been doing the Enchanted Highway since then. Gary said he didn’t have enough money to have a website. He was hoping at some point to have a website just for the Enchanted Highway. We set up a website for him that night as a gift — www.enchantedhighway.net, and we maintain the website for him.

The Enchanted Highway is off Interstate 94 (Exit 72) approximately 20 miles east of Dickinson, North Dakota. It then extends for 32 miles south to the town of Regent. The six sculptures are spread out along the 32 miles of The Enchanted Highway.

There is no charge to see The Enchanted Highway. Gary depends solely on donations to finance his work. Please send your tax-deductible donations to Enchanted Highway, PO Box 184, Regent, ND 58650. When in Regent, be sure to visit the Enchanted Highway Gift Shop. We met Claire at the Enchanted Highway Gift Shop. The pralines and cream ice cream was very good. We also met Belinda at Gary’s home.

One of the things that’s unique about North Dakota is the grass just seems to grow everywhere; it’s like the whole place is carpeted with grass. Texas has a lot of grass, but a lot of ugly grass. North Dakota has prettier grass.

We were reminded again today of the impact of Forks in the Road. We probably would have never met Gary Greff if the transmission had not failed on our car. We were also reminded that people can do amazing things when they are committed, focused, and persevere. It was truly incredible to us that Gary has built the Enchanted Highway with little or no money.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this website. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest, and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Dickinson North Dakota — The Enchanted Highway — Regent North Dakota
 

Major Item Checked Off My Lifetime To-Do List – Day 106

Major Item Checked Off My Lifetime To-Do List

Day 106 – July 15, 2003 – Tuesday

We saw Zurich, Malta, Dunkirk, and Glasgow today. These are all towns in Montana — named by the Northern Pacific Railroad as part of a program to attract immigrants to the area back in the late 1800’s. We drove from Havre — in the middle of Montana — all across the eastern half of the state on Highway 2. There isn’t a lot to see, but we enjoyed the drive.

We left the Great Northern Inn Best Western in Havre, Montana at about 9:30 am. Worst towels on the trip, but a nice room. We were headed for the bison death area.

The Wahkpa Chu’gn buffalo jump (or bison kill) is located behind the Holiday Village Shopping Center near the northwest corner of Havre. Over 2,000 years old, it is one of the largest and best preserved buffalo jumps anywhere. In prehistoric times, Native Americans would drive bison over the edge of the cliff, killing or severely injuring the animals. Afterwards, the Native Americans skinned the animals and preserved the meat. The buffalo jump is now an archaeological site.

When we were trying to locate this unusual spot, we learned that Havre has another attraction. Small grids of purple colored squares could be seen in some of the sidewalks in the downtown area on the north side of the city. These are skylights for a sort of underground “mall” built in the city over 100 years ago. Throughout its history, this underground area has been host to a brothel, a Chinese laundry, a saloon, a drugstore, opium dens, and rooms used for smuggling alcohol during Prohibition. The underground area is now designated “Havre Beneath the Streets.”

In Saco, Montana, we saw the one-room schoolhouse that newscaster Chet Huntley attended as a boy. The school has been turned into a museum and is now named “Huntley School.”

We saw a few Quirky spots along the way — including one big hill covered with animal sculptures of various types — grasshoppers, a giant fly, dinosaurs, bear, elephant, and much more. We never saw a sign, and we have been unable to determine the origin of these giant statues.

On the side of the road outside Malta, we met Dan and his mother. We were at “the big buffalo rock.” The sign said the Indians had an area a little bit north of here, where all of the rocks were rounded and appeared to be like sleeping buffalo. So, the Indians considered it a sacred area. Two of the rocks that were saved were on display at this spot in the road.

Dan lived in Culbertson, Montana — near the North Dakota line. He suggested that we try to eat at the Pitchfork Fondue and see the Medora Musical in Medora, North Dakota. We received that same suggestion this morning in an email from one of our online travelers and email pen pals, Becky Brown. Dan told us where Medora was, and we calculated that we MIGHT be able to make it if we put the old PT Cruiser in high gear, didn’t run into Vincent Passarelli, and didn’t stop for many photos.

We were in a hurry, but when we hit the North Dakota border (29th state on the trip), I had to jump out of the car for a photo. Boz took a photo of me holding up a sheet of yellow paper with a big black checkmark on it. While it was the 29th state we have visited on the trip, this is the 50th state I have visited in my lifetime, so I checked off “Visit all 50 States” from my lifetime To Do List.

We passed through some of Badlands National Park on our way to Medora.

Nine cars were passed (hated to do that as this increased our total passes in 21,000 miles from 13 to 22), but we pulled up at the Pitchfork Fondue just in time to watch them dropping pitchforks holding a dozen huge steaks each into the boiling oil. We enjoyed a delicious Pitchfork Fondue steak dinner, met and spoke with some delightful people, and enjoyed the Medora Musical performed in the big, beautiful Burning Hills Amphitheater. The musical is a look back at the “Wild West” days of the region and includes Theodore Roosevelt.

We were very excited to be in North Dakota as the people of the state have been so wonderful in emails over the last several months since a number of the newspapers in the state ran stories about our trip. When I got out of the car at the border between Montana and North Dakota, it was an especially big deal for me. We were surprised thus far with how great the scenery is in North Dakota.

We met a lot of really nice people today. Dan. Bill and Char and Tami at dinner. Jody and Wally after dinner. Stephanie and Denise at the Amphitheater. Margaret, Sweeney, Sally, and Jan at the musical.

If you haven’t planned your next vacation, a trip to the Dakotas, over to Yellowstone in Wyoming, and up north from Yellowstone to Glacier National Park in Montana would make a wonderful vacation! We thoroughly enjoyed western Montana, and we know we will really enjoy the Dakotas!

We were reminded today of the power of goals. Success is a journey…not a destination. Most people will make careful plans for small trips and none for their longest trip, that is, for their entire life. In training employees over the years, I have asked: “If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you expect to get there?” We should begin with the end in mind. In 1971, I read a book that had a profound influence on my life. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Our children have read it. I have given the book to many friends and fellow workers. While the book teaches many valuable lessons, the main message is: “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” The book caused me to realize the power of positive thinking and goal setting. I have been a goal person ever since. One of the things that I have wanted to do is to visit every state. Now that I have accomplished that, the goal is to finish this trip and see all 50 states in one continuous trip. That goal will be accomplished with another 45 days on the road.

Random Comments:

We understand the newspaper story about our trip written by John Garrett appeared in a number of newspapers — not just the Memphis paper.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:Havre Montana — Buffalo Jump — Saco Montana — Medora North Dakota — Pitchfork Fondue — Medora Musical
 

Best Scenery in America – Day 105

Best Scenery in America

Day 105 – July 14, 2003 – Monday

Glacier National Park is absolutely breathtaking. Bozzie Jane and I vote it Best Scenery in America so far. It’s hard to imagine that we will find a place that’s any prettier…but we know better than to say that at this point as we continue to find a variety of things that we feel are EVEN better than something great that passed before.

The western entrance to the Glacier National Park at West Glacier is not far from Kalispell, Montana where we spent the night. There are a lot of tourist trap-like places between Kalispell and West Glacier. Columbia Falls (a town with no falls), Hungry Horse (great name), Martin City, Coram, and then West Glacier are the towns between Kalispell and the National Park.

The Hampton Inn was very nice in Kalispell, and we loved the Huckleberry Pie at Bojangles Diner, but there didn’t appear to be any sights to see in Kalispell. We read about a nice mansion there, but we never saw a sign, so we missed it.

Hungry Horse has a dam, and the town advertises itself as the “friendliest dam town in the west.” As we did a few days ago in Coulee City, the town that advertises itself as “the friendliest town in the west,” we stopped to check out the friendliness factor. No one bowled us over, but the young lady who served my Huckleberry Milkshake (lunch) at The Huckleberry Patch Restaurant was extremely efficient. We would like to invite everyone who lives in the Northwest to come down south to meet truly friendly people.

Hungry Horse must be the huckleberry patch capital of the world as there were huckleberry stands and shops throughout the little town. The House of Mystery is probably fun — on the eastern edge of Hungry Horse, but Boz wasn’t feeling her best this morning, so we didn’t go in.

The scenery became more and more beautiful as we drove from Kalispell through the Park to Logan Pass at the top of the Rocky Mountains midway along the “Road to the Sun” drive that is THE drive to take through Glacier National Park. Montana is an especially beautiful state!

We were able to use my shiny, new National Park Annual Pass at Glacier National Park, so it didn’t cost $10 to get in. The Park Ranger at the entrance did not look like or act like an actor and was not the least bit friendly. She remained beadless.

If you are 62 years of age or older, U.S. citizens can purchase a Golden Age Passport for $10, which is a lifetime pass to the national parks. Gee, I can’t wait to be 62.

The “Road to the Sun” is a wonderful drive. Spectacular scenery. Lakes, streams, waterfalls, bridges, trees, spectacular colors, and the stars of the show — glaciers. The road is two-lane, and the guardrails are limited. It is a scary drive as you get high up in the Rockies. Boz was on the outside of the mountains during the scary part of the drive, and with us at least, being in that position is much scarier than when you are in control as the driver. I would say the drive through Glacier National Park is not for the faint of heart…people who are not good at driving cars, should stay away from there. People who’ve had anything to drink should stay away from there. People taking Benadryl should stay away from there. People afraid of heights should stay away from there.

Logan Pass is at an elevation of 6,680 feet, and it marks the Continental Divide. This was the sixth and last time we would cross the Continental Divide on the trip.

We got some pretty good photos of Glacier National Park, but as we’ve written many times before, there is no way to appreciate sights like these from photos or video. The experience is 360-degrees, and the colors are simply more vibrant than our camera can capture.

Glacier National Park is known for tours in gorgeous bright red antique tour buses. Wayne, the driver of a red bus, told us that the buses were the original buses used for the park. In the 1930’s, the White Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio designed and manufactured a style of bus that would become one of the primary modes of transportation throughout National Parks. The buses survived in Glacier because of the famous “Going to Sun Road,” built in 1933. Prior to the road’s opening, the only access to Glacier’s high country was still by horseback. As soon as the road opened, it was acclaimed for its beautiful scenery and daring engineering. Many people feared the breathtaking drop along the road, and found it hard to sightsee while driving; thus, the red buses became one of the most popular modes of transportation to the park’s high country. In the fall of 1999, old age, metal fatigue, and reliability concerns finally stopped the historic “Reds.” Ford Motor Company donated $7 million to have them totally refurbished. So the buses were brand spanking new, bright red with black, and they have wood paneling inside — just gorgeous. And of course, they have the open top where you can not only look out the sides, but you can look up and see the beautiful blue skies and white clouds in Glacier National Park.

In terms of National Parks, I rank Glacier National Park #1, Big Bend #2, and the Grand Canyon #3.

As we came down the mountains from the Park, we reached Browning, the tribal headquarters of the Blackfeet. We saw the Rocky Mountains in our rearview mirror, but nothing but flat plains for as far as the eye could see ahead and on either side of the car. We understood there is nothing but plains all the way through Montana to the Dakotas.

We saw horses running in the wild near St. Mary, Montana. Beautiful horses.

At the city limits of Rudyard, the sign proclaimed the town to be the home of “596 nice people and 1 old sore head.”

I stopped to photograph two lonely trees in central Montana. In this part of the state, you can often look as far as the eye can see with nary a tree in sight.

We drove through about 20 small towns on Highway 2 between the National Park and Havre, Montana — our resting place for the night. Two towns offered special attractions — Cut Bank and Kremlin. Cut Bank is known to many of us as it is often the coldest spot in the nation every winter. It was 80-degrees when we were there today. The World’s Tallest Penguin is in Cut Bank — 27-feet tall made from 10,000 pounds of concrete. Kremlin is special in name. We decided to turn off the highway into the town, and we never saw a single solitary person. We did, however, see an “array” of grain silos just outside of town…or perhaps they were flying saucers.

We met Pam, Mike, and Patty when we stopped to hike down to a lake for some photos in Glacier National Park. We then met some folks from Georgia — Nancy, Jamie, and Mott — and their dog Sport. We also met Myron and Lynda; they were celebrating their 41st anniversary. We met Woody, driver of one of the gorgeous red National Park tour buses, and then we met two brothers, Jason and David. We made Kinder’s acquaintance tonight at dinner.

We managed to stop by and get the last room at the Best Western in Havre — after calling for several days to hear there were no vacancies.

We drove around town looking for a place to eat, but about all we found were small casino/bars. Then we spotted Rod’s Drive-In. A strange layout, but several cars lined up to get food. We pulled in. The specialty was the Uglyburger. We had two, and they were very good. Kinder took our money. She was wearing a T-shirt that said “I got Ugly at Rod’s Drive-In.”

Random Comments:

One more day in Montana. Then we just touch the edge of Wyoming (sorry Wyoming) as we head to South Dakota for two days — Deadwood, Rapid City, Mount Rushmore, the Chief Crazy Horse Sculpture, Wall Drug, and then a number of stops in North Dakota.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this website. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest, and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Hungry Horse Montana — Glacier National Park — Cut Bank Montana — Kremlin Montana — Rod’s Drive-In
 

2000 White Crosses on the Side of the Road – Day 104

2000 White Crosses on the Side of the Road

Day 104 – July 13, 2003 – Sunday

It was a pretty drive from Spokane Washington, across Idaho, and 120 miles into Montana. Mountain driving in Idaho and Montana, but the roads thus far are situated in valleys, so the driving hasn’t been at all tense.

We met Gene at the hotel in Spokane. We met Dan, Linda and Don, and Peggy and Herman from Libby, Montana at a late lunch. Linda said she would have 201 pies for us if we come back again. Then we met Freddie at dinner in Kalispell, Montana.

We saw the Bing Crosby Room at Gonzaga University in Spokane as well as the truly beautiful Davenport Hotel. The Bing Crosby buildings at Gonzaga are interesting as Bing was a dropout there. I know there must be a lot of parents out there hoping the universities their kids dropped out of will name buildings after them!

Gene suggested that we see the historic Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane. It is a really beautiful old hotel. We passed through a town named Athol. We may have pronounced it incorrectly. We laughed for miles. Sometimes the silliest of things can be fun. We wondered what the people from Athol are called…Athols?

Bonners Ferry, Idaho had a very special spot on today’s agenda. It had been over 50 days since my last haircut, and I planned to get my hair cut at the Barber Ship in Bonners Ferry. The Barber Ship is a houseboat that has been turned into a barber shop. Sadly, the ship/shop was closed on Sunday. Boz and I probably didn’t even realize this was a Sunday. We don’t watch or listen to the news, and we don;t read the paper. That way, we don’t see or hear all the bad news. The one downside is that we often do not know the day of the week.

The highlight of the day, and one of the highlights of the trip for Boz, was seeing the Kootenai Falls just outside Libby. It’s a beautiful spot that many miss as it was not marked along Highway 2. Fortunately, we used several reference books, and one of the books reported the mile marker.

The Falls go down several different ledges and levels and then the whitewater sprays everywhere. We saw guys in kayaks trying to stay in the river against the current, and we saw kayakers coming down the river. We walked over through beautiful wooded area with trails, and a lot of other people were doing the same. We went to see the swinging bridge, which we chose not to walk across. We understand “The River Wild” was filmed here.

To the Kootenai Tribe, the Falls is a sacred site – the center of the world, a place where tribal members can commune with spiritual forces. Kootenai Falls on the Kootenai River, adjacent to U.S. Highway 2 between Libby and Troy, is a scenic attraction not to be missed.

Another highlight was Huckleberry Pie for dinner at Bojangles Diner in Kalispell. Neither of us had ever eaten a huckleberry before. It’s a little round berry about half the size of a blueberry, and it has a completely different taste from anything we’d ever eaten. As our waitress said, it tastes “very huckley.” Delicious.

We saw a muffler man with a flag in Algoma, Idaho.

We notice that the mountains in Idaho tended to have rounded tops.

We passed through the infamous Hayden Lake and Ruby Ridge areas. From the 1970’s until 2001, the headquarters of the Aryan Nations was in a 20 acre compound at Hayden Lake. In September 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million judgment against the Aryan Nations from an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to Victoria Keenan and her son, Jason, who were attacked by Aryan Nations guards in 1999. Bullets struck the Keenan’s car several times and the car crashed. Aryan member held the Keenans at gunpoint. As a result of the judgment, Richard Butler turned over the 20-acre compound to the Keenans who then sold the property to a philanthropist who subsequently donated it to North Idaho College, which designated the land as a “peace park.” Ruby Ridge refers to a violent confrontation and siege involving Randy Weaver, his family, Weaver’s friend Kevin Harris, federal agents from the United States Marshals Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The events took place on August 21, 1992 on the Weaver family property, located on a hillside between Caribou Ridge and Ruby Creek near Naples in northern Idaho.

We crossed the Moyie River and stopped at the Moyie Springs Bridge Overlook.

Idaho is state #27, and Montana is state #28. I forgot to get an Idaho license plate photo for my virtual license plate collection — realized it about 12 miles into Montana — so we turned back and got one at the border. We have, of course, seen Idaho license plates at every stop since. BUT, if we hadn’t gone back to get the photo in Idaho, we’d have probably never seen another Idaho license plate for the rest of our lives.

We saw the World’s Largest Eagle in Libby.

The Yaak River was very pretty, so we stopped at a spot where the river was flowing through the mountains. The water was an interesting shade of blue.

Across Highway 2 in Montana, we have seen many white crosses indicating traffic fatalities at that location. There are way too many of these. It’s very sobering, but the American Legion-sponsored program seems like a great way to remember those who died and warn the rest of us about the hazards of the roads.

The Montana American Legion White Cross Highway Fatality Marker Program began in 1953. The unique idea of marking fatal traffic accident sites with a white cross was the brain child of Floyd Eaheart, a member of the American Legion Hellgate Post #27, Missoula, Montana; after six lives were lost in the Missoula area over the 1952 Labor Day Holiday. The safety program started out as a county and later district project for the Missoula American Legion Post. However, the idea was so good that it was soon adopted as a statewide program. The American Legion’s White Crosses can be found within the borders of Montana, along state and federal highways, secondary and forest service roads, and even city streets. One white cross is erected for each traffic fatality. Not all highway fatalities are marked. Due to a federal ruling, white crosses are not allowed along interstate highways. Only about half of the 132 American Legion Posts in Montana currently participate in the program. Since the White Cross Program’s inception, 50 years ago, it is estimated that over 2,000 white crosses have been erected along Montana’s highways.

The lesson of the day was to drive especially carefully in Montana so the American Legion wouldn’t be erecting any crosses with our names.

Random Comments:

We will see Glacier National Park tomorrow. Then on Tuesday, we will drive across the rest of the state. This will put us in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore on Wednesday. Two nights there, and then we spend a few days in North Dakota where we expect to meet up with some of our email friends. We have received hundreds of emails from really nice folks in North Dakota because several of the newspapers across the state ran stories about our trip. We are REALLY looking forward to North Dakota.

A phone call yesterday advised us that a story about our trip ran in the Memphis, Tennessee newspaper travel section. The article was written by John Garrett — http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/online_traveler/article/0,1426,MCA_533_2095132,00.html.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Bing Crosby Room at Gonzaga University — Davenport Hotel — Barber Ship — Kootenai Falls — Bojangles Diner — Hayden Lake and Ruby Ridge — World’s Largest Eagle — American Legion White Cross Highway Fatality Marker Program
 

And a Garbage-Eating Goat Sculpture – Day 103

And a Garbage-Eating Goat Sculpture

Day 103 – July 12, 2003 – Saturday

Spokane, Washington. We decided to spend a leisurely day here today and complete the catch-up work on the web site photos. Spokane is a lovely town, and it seems like an especially nice place to live and raise a family.

The highlights in Spokane are along the Spokane River where Spokane has an exceptionally nice park called Riverfront Park. The Marriott Courtyard sits right on the river, so we just walked out the door and began our walk on the Centennial Trail.

Just across the river is Gonzaga University. Gonzaga gained prominence recently due to an exceptional basketball team. Back in 1887, Father Cataldo started Gonzaga University as a mission school for Indians. Gonzaga’s most famous dropout was local boy Bing Crosby.

The river is very pretty — lots of ducks, geese, and beautiful landscaping and bridges. The river flows through two falls that are used to generate electricity. Spokane has a wonderfully designed Convention Center right along the river and Waterfront Park.

Riverfront Park is home to a lot of great art — wonderful sculptures of all shapes and sizes. An absolute highlight was the World’s Largest Radio Flyer Wagon. It’s huge! The wheels are about 8-feet in diameter. Children of all ages climb the ladder in the back, and slide down the slide built into the handle.

Bozzie Jane did reconnaissance work on pies today. The Desk Clerk at the Marriott said Cyrus O’Leary’s was THE place to go — famous for homemade pies. It was just past the big red wagon, so we stopped for lunch and pie. Our waitress, Mariah, was just darling. She’s a senior at the University of Wyoming majoring in chemistry. She will either go to graduate school or law school. She’ll be a big success at whatever she does — sharp young lady and delightful to talk with. We also had a great time talking with Chris, the manager. Chris told us a lot about Spokane, the two big annual events, and he suggested some spots we need to see in Idaho tomorrow. Our lunch was great, and we really enjoyed the pies. We narrowed our want list to three, and we had Sizzling Skillet Apple Pie, Sour Cream Lemon Pie, and Boysenberry Pie. The Sour Cream Lemon won the best citrus pie in America in a contest last year. All were excellent!

We rolled out of Cyrus O’Leary’s and headed back to Waterfront Park to see the absolutely gorgeous fully-restored 1909 Loof Carrousel. It was originally located at Spokane’s Natatorium Park. We sat and watched children riding. Beautiful hand-carved horses and animals.

Right near the Carrousel is an incredibly unique piece of art — a Garbage Eating Goat Sculpture. Boz held a piece of paper under the goat’s mouth, and it was immediately sucked up. The trash passes through the goat and out its rear end into a trash compactor. What a hoot!

Chris told us that Spokane has two huge events. Hoopfest is the World’s Largest 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, and Bloomsday Run is the World’s Largest Individually-Timed Road Race. 43,000 people race in the Bloomsday Run. There is a wonderful sculpture commemorating the race in Waterfront Park just across from City Hall. It wraps a corner and features sculptures of perhaps a hundred runners. Very unique and impressive.

We visited the Spokane Falls, and we walked by the IMAX Theatre, and the U.S. Pavillion Entertainment Center.

The center of Waterfront Park has a beautiful Clock Tower. It was constructed in 1902 and was originally part of the Great Northern Railroad depot.

We walked the Centennial Trail along the Spokane River and Waterfront Park.

We thoroughly enjoyed a relaxing afternoon just walking through Waterfront Park. We took a late afternoon nap — perhaps the first such nap in 103 days, and we just relaxed in the room and watched a little TV and worked on the website this evening. A nice, relaxing day!

And a Garbage-Eating Goat Sculpture

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

 

More Information on the Sights Visited Today:
Spokane Washington — Riverfront Park — Gonzaga University — Cyrus O’Leary’s — 1909 Loof Carrousel — Garbage Eating Goat Sculpture