Saturday I visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in southwest North Dakota. These are photos I took with the digital camera from the overlook at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center, the first Park facility I reached before getting to the “South Unit” of the Park.
Saturday I visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in southwest North Dakota. From Bismarck I drove west on the dreaded interstate 120 miles just to get to the State Highway which would later take me 50 miles north to the “North Unit” (the Park is split into two parts). Another 10 miles west on I-94 took me to the Painted Canyon Visitor Center, which is pretty much just a combination rest stop and orientation center for people traveling on the interstate. This is where I saw the bison pictures I posted Saturday night. After taking the photos in this post I drove another 9 miles on I-94 to get to the exit which would put me on the road to the entrance to the “South Unit” of the Park.
When I got out of the car at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center (and after taking pictures of the bison) I went to the overlook and was quite surprised at what I saw. While I have been traveling throughout North Dakota I have pretty much been seeing vast stretches of farmland and rolling hills, with an occasional river or lake thrown in. I was now looking down into a valley (canyon) which reminded me very much of the Badlands National Park in South Dakota – which is not actually very far away from this Park. Until I looked at a map in the Visitor Center I had no idea I was this close to the Badlands (where I started my big trip last year).
Here is the view from the Painted Canyon Visitor Center overlook:
This Park reminds me of the Badlands but with more grass, hills and trees than the Badlands, which is in more of a desert setting.
When I get home from this trip one of the first things I plan to do it post more pictures from the Badlands, and other early stops from last year’s trip. Looking back, those were the first posts on the blog and I often only posted one photo, even though I took lots more. So before I go back and post pictures from earlier trips I will post some more from early in last year’s trip.
I was just on the Airbnb website to send a message to my next host regarding my ETA for tomorrow and I was reminded that the Airbnb where I am staying in Bismarck, ND was once the home of Harold Schafer, the founder of Gold Seal Company, the original company which made “Mr. Bubble.”
(Photo credit: popicon.life)
(Photo credit: urban-collector.com)
Thursday when I drove to Bismarck (south-central ND) from Havre (north-central MT) I put a total of 566 miles on the car, more than any one-day total this trip, excluding the three travel days to make a beeline to Colorado at the beginning. This confirmed something I have long suspected – Montana is a very big state, and apparently North Dakota is too. Saturday I traveled west of Bismarck to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and it was 140 miles just to get to the south entrance and I put a total of 532 miles on the car for the day, making a rectangle to both the north and south “units” of the Park and an 80-mile sidetrip before returning to Bismarck.
This was a lake I passed on my way in to town on Thursday:
It is Lake Sakakawea, north of Bismarck, and I read in some information I got at the Visitor Center on Friday that the coastline around the lake is longer than the entire California coastline with the Pacific Ocean!
Here are some other fun facts about North Dakota:
The parking meter was invented here.
They have more miles of road, golf courses and millionaires per capita than any other state.
They are the leading US producer of spring wheat, durum wheat, sunflowers (I have seen far more fields of sunflowers here than I saw in Kansas either of the past two years), barley, pinto beans, canola, flaxseed, lentils, oats and honey.
They have the only synthetic natural gas producer in the country.
They have 63 wildlife refuges, more than any other state.
The highest and lowest temperatures in the state were both recorded the same year, -60 degrees in February 1936 and 121 degrees in July of that year.
Now you know!
My friend and frequent blog commenter Shawn asked for more pictures of strip cropping (See “Havre, Montana” post from a few days ago). I have been keeping my eyes peeled and finally spotted a field north of Bismarck, North Dakota which had been planted in the manner I described a few days ago. The field went up and over a hill so I couldn’t see how far in the distance it went. The fields I saw in western Montana last year were huge. I will continue to look for other examples.
Saturday morning I drove west from Bismarck to visit Theodore Roosevelt National Park in southwest North Dakota. At one of the Visitor Centers just off the dreaded interstate this huge bison was munching on grass in the circle between the incoming traffic lane and the parking area. He seemed oblivious to all the attention he was getting.
I have lots more pictures to post from the Park but will review them and post them Sunday morning.
This is probably the most interesting thing I found in the Havre, Montana area on Wednesday. As I was driving through town early Wednesday to get my bearings I saw this sign near the Best Western motel just west of the downtown district:
When I first saw the term “Buffalo Jump,” and before going back for a picture of the sign, the first thing that entered my mind was a competition, like bull riding, to see who could make their bison jump the highest or furthest. Of course that’s ridiculous and it turns out it is nothing like that at all.
This is the recently (1960’s) discovered area just west of town where several native American tribes drove buffalo off the steep cliffs overlooking the Milk River and slaughtered the injured bison for food and pelts. Wakpka Chu’gn (pronounced walk-paw-chew-gun) is derived from the Indian words for Milk River, which runs just north of Havre. Other signs directed me a little further west, where I had seen a teepee and bison statue next to the road but didn’t realize the significance of it.
That sign is in front of a strip mall, behind which the site was discovered. Other sites nearby were inadvertently destroyed when the railroad ran a series of tracks just north of Havre and roughly parallel to the river.
The site was open for regular tours during the summer months but since it is now past Labor Day it is open by appointment only.
Thursday is yet another travel day as I go from north-central Montana over to south-central North Dakota. I will head east, a little over 300 miles on Highway 2, a 2-lane, 70 mile per hour highway to Williston, ND and will then take a series of smaller, scenic roads south, zig-zagging south and east to Bismarck. I will lose another hour by crossing into the Central time zone but will be back in Mountain time briefly on Friday when I backtrack to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in extreme western North Dakota. That Park, split in two parts, will have scenic loops in both halves so once again I am hoping to have some good photo ops. I traveled 3 different directions from Havre on Wednesday and while it is pretty countryside there was nothing which particularly caught my eye.
I am hoping to see more examples of “strip cropping” like I saw last year. The fields I have seen thus far in Montana have been fairly ordinary.
Tuesday was a travel day as I went from Spokane, Washington north and east to north-central Montana and the little town of Havre (pronounced as if you reverse the last two letters – HAVE-r). Monday night the smoke moved back into the Spokane area and when I left around 8 o’clock Tuesday morning the air quality was the worst I had seen the whole time I was there. Fortunately they had great weather Friday through Monday for the food and music festival being held downtown and early reports were that attendance was up 15 to 20 percent from last year.
I headed east on the dreaded interstate, quickly reaching the Idaho border, past Coeur d’Alene and through about 70 miles of Idaho before crossing over into Montana. I stayed on the dreaded interstate until I got past Missoula and then switched to more scenic Highway 200 which was a more direct path to my destination. The road was only two lanes in most spots but traffic was light and the speed limit was 70 so I still made good time. In Great Falls I got on Highway 87 which was a very pleasant drive of a little over 100 miles, pretty much a straight shot, to Havre.
Once I got past Missoula the landscape really opened up to huge fields on both sides of the road with crops and some cattle. Montana is a big wheat producing state and I suspect that is what many of the fields contained, although I learned last year that some farmers do what is called “strip cropping” where they will plant long rows of alternating crops. It creates an interesting visual effect which I wish I had taken photos of last year when I traveled from Bozeman up to Glacier National Park. I didn’t see anything quite that dramatic or photogenic this year but in places it looked as if they had planted 1/10 of a mile of regular wheat (light brown, like sourdough) then 1/10 of a mile of dark wheat (like pumpernickel) and those rows went out for a mile or more. I know that’s not how bread works, and the alternate rows may have contained something totally different, but my point is it looked really cool. This photo, which I found online, illustrates what I am trying to describe:
(Photo credit: alamy.com)
Those colors are exaggerated but that pattern is what I am talking about.
Here are the actual colors I did see. This is looking right (east) off Highway 87:
And looking left (west):
Now imagine those two colors planted in the same field, side by side, like the internet photo above.
At one point, near the town of Fort Benton, I saw a turnoff for a scenic overlook. Based on those fields of grain I didn’t expect to see anything different but I stopped anyway. Much to my surprise, just below the surface area I had been seeing from the road, was the Missouri River!
I kind of knew it was in the area because part of what I plan to go see on Wednesday is a National Recreation Area and various Wildlife Preserves which border the river as it goes east through the state. But I had no idea that I was that close to it and seeing it just off the highway was a bit of a shock.
I arrived in Havre and am staying it a beautiful home up on a hill south of town. This is the view from the living room upstairs looking east towards Saddle Butte. My guest room downstairs has the same view.
I will be out exploring the area on Wednesday and will hopefully have some good photo opportunities.
Once I got past Coeur d’Alene yesterday the smoke cleared and visibility was good the rest of the day. I should now be far enough east of the wildfires that hopefully the smoke shouldn’t be a problem for me going forward.
Sunday I went back to spend more time at this large city park in southern Spokane. I had visited parts of the park (general areas, a large rose garden and a small Japanese garden) but I neglected to visit the Duncan Garden portion and I’m glad I went back to see it.
It was a beautiful day with pleasant temperatures and no smoke! The glass building you see in the second and third photos above is the Gaiser Conservatory. Inside that building I found these plants:
A Lollipop plant:
A Burro-tail:
And several varieties of cactus plants, most of which were not labeled:
I have visited lots of city and county parks in and around Spokane in the last three days and, frankly, haven’t done much else. I did go back to my Airbnb Saturday mid-day to watch the NASCAR Xfinity race from Darlington and came home early Sunday to listen to the NASCAR Cup race from the same track. Monday I should have no distractions and plan to spend the entire day outdoors. Tuesday will be a travel day as I head further east to northern Montana. There will be a large National Recreation Area near there I plan to visit on Wednesday.
Friday was my first full day in Spokane (pronounced spo-CAN), Washington which in the extreme eastern part of the state, not far from the border with Idaho. Getting here on Thursday was no big deal although the drive on my scenic roads took most of the day. The only wildfire smoke I encountered on Thursday was near Twisp (as expected) but I didn’t notice it until I was about a half hour away from town and the road I was on would then turn slightly northeast whereas the majority of the smoke was southeast (towards Chelan and Wenatchee) so I drove out of it just as quickly as I had driven into it and the rest of the day was gorgeous.
Friday morning I drove downtown to go to the Visitor Center for maps and brochures. When I got back to my car I had a low-tire-inflation warning so I found a gas station to put more air in it (it wasn’t even noticeably low but was 10 lbs. lower than the others), then took it to Discount Tire on the north side of town. Turns out there was a nail in it. I ate lunch up near where I had the tire fixed, then drove back into town to visit Riverside Park, the largest park in the area and right across the Spokane River from the downtown area.
Much to my surprise I discovered that it was the site of “Pig-Out in the Park,” a six-day extravaganza of fair-food and free music:
The building on the left in the photo above houses a hand-carved wooden carousel, made by Charles Looff in 1909. The carousel was restored and moved to this enclosed, climate-controlled building back in 1975 (it ceased operations in 1968 at it’s prior home).
I had seen another Looff carousel last year, I believe in Missoula, Montana.
Just outside the carousel building was this large water fountain. The temperature was in the low 70’s and the kids were having a blast running through it.
This is the view from outside the carousel building, looking over the river at the area where most of the food vendors were:
The clock tower was part of the old railroad station and the clock is hand-wound once a day. The metal structure in the center of the photo was part of the US Pavilion at Expo 74, held in Spokane, and the ground underneath it is being re-worked to become a more useable area of the park. Riverside Park is usually a large open-space for people to enjoy when not being used for special events.
There was at least one vendor selling frozen “Nitro Puffs,” also known as “Dragon Puffs,” which are supposedly all the rage at State Fairs and outdoor festivals this year. The puffs are treated with liquid nitrogen and then have smoke vapors emanating from them. I saw a guy standing next to me eating them and smoke came out of his nose. I asked if I could take a photo for the blog but the next three bites didn’t have the same result so I left him alone and you’ll just have to take my word for it. I had actually just read an article online a few days ago about this trend and apparently the FDA is discouraging it because it can harm people with asthma or other ailments. I really don’t think liquid nitrogen was intended for human consumption…
This huge wagon is supposedly the world’s largest Radio Flyer replica:
Friday was a beautiful day and you’d never know there were wildfires in other parts of the area. I had feared that the air quality here would have gotten worse again by the time I got here but the weather forecast last night sounded pretty optimistic for the remainder of the Labor Day weekend.
I don’t really have any big plans while I’m here so I will probably just visit many of the other city parks (they have lots) and may even go back down to Riverside Park.
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