Day 7: Bismarck to Watertown

We stayed at the Select Inn in Bismarck. Very nice accommodations for a very reasonable price. We noticed that there were electric outlets on posts in the parking lot. Jim thinks this must be for engine warmers. Another ominous sign of those nasty winters. I don't think I want to be anywhere near North Dakota or Montana after the end of October. You could really be fooled by the beautiful weather we have been having. It has been sunny and in the 60's or 70's the whole trip. We are not used to seeing this much sun seven days in a row.

We left at 9am -- or 8am. It is hard to know what time it is in North Dakota. Yesterday we kept running into signs saying, "Entering the Central Time Zone." Never any saying, "Leaving...", but obviously we had been going back and forth between Mountain and Central time. And we were on one road. To add to the confusion, my cell phone has been on Central time since we entered Idaho. And we forgot our car manual, so I don't know how to change the clock in the car so is permanently set to Pacific time. We've gotten into the habit of just looking at the clock in the motel room to see what time it is. We just eat when we are hungry and look for a place to stay when the sun is low in the sky. One of the joys of being retired. We really don't care what time it is.

We made a detour north today to visit Fort Mandan and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center about 50 miles north of Bismarck on the Missouri River. We took a side road to drive along the river. The river, however, was covered with a ribbon of fog and we got stuck behind an erratic truck hauling drywall, so it wasn't as scenic as we had envisioned. The Interpretive Center was very nice and had a deck overlooking the river. Evidently the river in this area is pretty much the way it was back in the days of Lewis and Clark. The river meanders, moving course miles in one direction or the other along the river valley.

Lewis and Clark and crew built and stayed at Fort Mandan from October to April 1804. The fort sheltered 44 men and about 3 women through that harsh North Dakota winter. Sacajawea and her husband joined the group in November and her son was born there. The fort had small rooms with back to back fireplaces and sleeping lofts (like a short attic) that slept 9 men each.

Jim and I just went down to the "breakfast room" at the motel. They had a crock pot with warm soup which we had for dinner. We walked by the indoor swimming pool on our way back to the room where we turned on the heat because it was getting a little chilly. We have certainly come a long way in traveler accommodations!

In April the Lewis and Clark crew packed up and just walked out of the fort leaving it abandoned. The guide said they probably took the hinges with them. In the past two days we have seen a lot of old houses abandoned, leaning and weathered. I don't know if it is those nasty winters here or what.

Back on course, we headed south on highway 83 - called the Lawrence Welk Highway running through Strasburg ND where Lawrence was born. The countryside looks like it could be on the Lawrence Welk Show. We are out of the badlands and into the goodlands of the midwest farm lands. We saw a beautiful Dutch-style barn and lots of silos. Vast fields of wheat, corn, and sunflowers.

We turned left when we got to South Dakota, heading east on highway 12 which is called the "Yellowstone Trail." The countryside reminds me of Western Kansas here -- and does justice to the name, great plains.

We headed to Groton where Jim's great grandfather and mother are buried. This is grandpa Fry. The same grandpa who's old house we think we found in Montana. He moved to Groton when he was in his 80's to live with his son. We found the graveyard easily. It was very peaceful with corn fields in the background.

Shortly after Groton we passed our MILE 2000!!

The countryside is still rather void of human occupation, but we seem to be gradually improving on the human to livestock ratio. We are in Watertown SD tonight and back in the Interstate system (I-29). Watertown has a population of 20,000 and was founded in 1878 by Winona and St. Peter Railroad Co.

I've discovered that my cell phone has been unavailable since we launched into the wilderness. We apparently are still out of range -- see view from our motel window. I think we will be getting back into civilization tomorrow when we get into Sioux Falls and Sioux City.