North Dakota – World’s Largest everything!
Our first road trip of our full time adventure, had us headed to North Dakota. The idea was to follow Homer, (the trailer), and make sure everything stayed where it was supposed to over the roads, and then become a pilot car in search of gas stations or kodak moments. The GPS sent us down two lane roads towards I-94 in areas of Minnesota we can honestly say we have not seen before. (Probably don’t need to again either!) We tried communicating with each other via cell phone and lost coverage more times than we could count. We learned 2 vital pieces of information:
1 – We don’t really like being in separate vehicles
2 – Cell phones don’t always work
As we crossed over the border headed to Jamestown, we actually found ourselves looking for the flatness we had been told was all across the eastern side of the state. Instead, we saw gently rolling hills, just fewer trees then we are used to seeing. Our original perception was we were going to see oil wells pockmarking the land and giant pipelines following the freeway. Instead, we saw very little impact and only a few oil wells. Understanding this is just one small portion of the state we are seeing, it was still surprising to see the plains were not as “plain” as we originally thought. The whole time we were driving, I kept picturing herds of buffalo grazing in these beautiful green valleys and then bands of Native Americans coming over the hills on their horses, hunting for their families.
We have learned to limit our hours on the road to right around 6, including stops for gas and food. We actually packed sandwiches and stopped at a park for lunch and while it was hot out, sitting under a shade tree having a picnic on a Wednesday afternoon, while a group of kids played baseball in the background, was a really nice break.
Our park in Jamestown was right off I-94 . We had some traffic noise although actually, it wasn’t too bad. In the park we saw a family of racoons, a bobcat, of all animals, and enjoyed some of the prettiest sunsets we had seen in a while.
We had no idea that North Dakota prides itself on having some of the “largest statues” in the world. Jamestown boasts of having the largest buffalo statue in the world, and as this is Dave’s spirit animal, we had to see that. It’s part of a frontier village they have created along with having a buffalo herd and museum as part of the overall experience.
Covid has definitely had an impact on the village, as only a few of the shops were really open for customers and they no longer have the different trades, (blacksmith, barber, post office, sheriff, etc.), actually staffed. You can still do the tour through the buildings and read about the late 1800’s, it’s just not a super exciting experience at this point. The buffalo museum was actually very interesting and they have “White Cloud” taxidermized so you can see what an albino buffalo looks like. She was smaller than a typical buffalo which I found a little interesting.
We stayed in Jamestown for a week, found a set of walkie talkies to use on the road to Montana and maybe even had a nap or two. Retirement seems to suit Dave!
As we headed to Montana, we crossed through Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The badlands are alive and well in North Dakota and this is still some of the most stunning scenery we have seen. There is a herd of buffalo in the park and it seemed appropriate that they were grazing next to the freeway as we passed into the park, as if to say “Hi” to Dave.
After seeing the world’s largest buffalo, we were soooooo surprised to see Salem Sue, the world’s largest Holstein and then to find an entire Enchanted Highway that contains multiple, world’s largest statues. We did have lunch with Sue in the background, but I was not dragging a 40+ foot fifth wheel on anything called enchanted. And since I was pulling Homer on this part of our journey, we were on the road to Terry and our next adventure.
See you on the road,
Dave and Theresa