Theodore Roosevelt National Park South Unit

We pulled into the park early in the morning when the sun was coming up. 




Sunrise

  It had a nice campground called cottonwood a national campground. No hookup but nice spots with good rates. As we found out later in the day the bison come into the park. They will just lay around in the RV spots or eat.

 We went to the visitor center and museum first. Then the small town of Medora. Where they have a lot of shops and restaurants. Looked through some of the shops but there were lot of them not open yet. They have a couple campgrounds and motels there also.

We drove the 36 mile scenic drive through the park. There is a lot of petrified wood exposed in the badlands.

 There is a blue-gray layer of clay that has been traced to ash from ancient volcanoes far to the west. Some of the views were beautiful.



scenic view

  We saw bison throughout the park and small calves too. The first time for me to see the babies.

They were reintroduced in 1956 and elk in 1985. We saw mule deer and white tail deer and three turkeys. They were quite large. Wild horses roam in the south unit, we saw a few. There were hundreds of prairie dogs running all over the place.

 Roosevelt had two ranches in the badlands. He pursued his interest in establishing the U.S. forest service. He established 5 national parks and 51 wildlife refuges. He proclaimed 18 national monuments. They have a lot of Roosevelt memorabilia in the visitor center.Very nice place to visit.








 

After taking this picture relized we saw a face in the rock looked like a lion









 More to come.         Ginny

North Dakota

We entered North Dakota and that is our 48^th state we have visited in the three years of our travel. It has been a wonderful journey. Some of you thought I would have killed Charlie by now but truly we have enjoyed every minute. A few disagreements .
While traveling in North Dakota it was mile after mile of farm land. A small line of trees between the fields for a wind break. These farmers are serious and the tractors they drive are really big. They have lots of water in North Dakota it might be a small pond to a large lake. Some areas you can’t tell what they are.

We saw a train from Canada come through. Not sure how important it was but there were a couple cars of people who got out to watch it and their cars were marked Canadian Pacific railroad.

                                                  Lake Ashtabula

We stayed at Lake Ashtabula in North Dakota. It was a beautiful park on a lake. While we were setting up the frogs were all over the place. I wanted to take some back to my grandson Logan as he loves frogs but they probably wouldn’t make it. I took a walk around the park and took some pictures.


pelicans on the lake

  I saw three pelicans on the lake but I had to walk through the weeds to get a better shot. I got some great pictures of them. There were some boats on the lake saw a man catch a bullhead he didn’t want to touch it so he keep swinging his pole around to knock him off. When I got back I realized I had a bunch of dog ticks on me. Charlie was helping me get them off. Well later that night we found one of them on Charlie’s belly. It had attached. I had a hard time getting to sleep even after a shower that night thinking there might be more.

                                                   Jamestown
We went to Jamestown ND to see the largest Buffalo in the world.



Buffalo

He was pretty big. He weights 60 ton and stands 26 feet tall. His name is Dakota Thunder. They had a herd of bison and three were albino bison but we didn’t see them they were in a field away from the center for the winter months. American Indian legend holds the rare albino bison as sacred. They also have a nice Buffalo Museum. They have a frontier village with artifacts and antiques from the region. It was not open yet but you could look through the windows.
We stopped in Steele ND. They had the largest Sand hill Crane in the world. It was built in 1998-99.

He was also big you could see him from the road. He is 40 feet tall and weights 4 ½ ton. The man who built him was a self-taught ironworker .
We went on down the road to a town called New Salem where Salem Sue was up on a hill you could see her for miles. We parked into a fairground. Then I walked up the road ½ mile or so to see her.



Salem Sue

 We couldn’t take the 5^th wheel up as the parking lot was too small. She was pretty a big cow. She is the worlds largest Holstein cow in the world.
38 feet tall 50 feet long weights 12,000 lbs. built in 1974 and cost $40,000.

We went to Regent ND where Gary Greff builds the worlds largest sculptures. One of them is called the Geese in Flight. The sun ray is 156 feet long and 110 feet tall .The largest goose has a 30 foot wing span and is 19 feet long.

My favorite is the fisherman’s dream. This sculpture is a three dimensional that is made out of tin to form seven fish. The fish swimming under the water scene includes a small mouth bass, walleye, catfish, northern pike, salmon and bluegill which measures thirty feet long. Jumping out of the water is a 70 foot long rainbow trout.

Pheasants on the Prairie are made of wire mesh. The rooster stands 40 feet high and 70 feet long. The hen is 35 feet tall and 60 feet long. The chicks are15 feet tall and 20 feet long.

The Tin Family. Built of used farm equipment. The pa stands 45 feet and is held up by 16 telephone poles. The ma is 44 feet tall while the son is a mere 23 feet tall.

Tin Family

                                                  Grasshoppers in the field.

                                                           Teddy rides again 

                                                             The deer family

The next one will be dogs. The area around Regent has lots of Chinese ring neck pheasants. 

Pheasant


The farmers will allow you to book hunts on their farms. When we left Regent we ran into a bit of trouble. The wind was blowing and the gusts were pretty bad. It blew the medal from the under belly loose under the storage area. We stopped to try and hook it down until we could get to town. It looked like it could pull a big hole in the side.
We pulled into a Wal-Mart in Dickenson. We were trying to hook the medal down and the wind got stronger and pulled out our awning and was flipping it over the top of the fifth wheel. We had to turn the truck around so we could roll it back in. It broke a bracket off one of the arms. We were getting hammered by the wind. We stayed in the parking lot for the night. It is so hard to sleep in a parking lot. We were waiting for the high wind warning to go off and we left at 4am headed for the Theodore Roosevelt National Park about 45 miles away. More to come
Ginny

Sandy Lake Recreation Area Minnesota

We have enjoyed our stay at Sandy Lake Recreation area. It is located 13 miles from McGregor, Minnesota and is part of the historic canoe route that linked Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. The native Americans had villages on the Lake about 10,000 years ago. A  major fur trading  post was on the western edge of the lake by the Northwest Fur Company in the1700s.

The original wood dam was built in 1895 and included a lock that allowed steam boats to travel through to the Mississippi River. The original wood structure was replaced with concrete in 1912 and the lock was last cycled in 1956. They grow wild rice on the lake too.

Lock on the dam and small museum

Today, the lock house has been converted into a small museum containing historical artifacts of the area. Educational programs are also offered seasonally and are open to the public free of charge.
The lake is very beautiful and has lots of duck, geese and occasional white swans.

Sandy Lake

 I ran into a snake on one of my walks it was a garter snake he turned around and looked at me. The water to the park has not been turned on so we filled our tank at the office and have been using it sparingly as we stayed for 7 days. We drove to Lake Superior from here it is about 75 miles. We have seen many deer in the park and in the fields. They don’t have any horns at this time of year so we don’t know if there were any bucks in the mix. We have gone to some of the small towns in the area to do the laundry and look around.
We have seen all kinds of lakes as they are everywhere.

Aitkins Lake

Flowage lake

 Fishing  season has not opened for some of the fish. It is still winter in Minnesota . We have had some cool days only in the 30s brrrrr.

We saw this big walleye fish in Rush City it was big.
 

Sandy river

Sandy river

 

 More to come.

Ginny

Lake Superior



Lake Superior


We drove to Lake Superior in Duluth Minnesota and Superior Wisconsin. We have gone to 4 of the 5 great lakes. It was a nice day.

 The lake is beautiful we pulled into the Gleensheen Mansion. There were people walking around with there tickets to go inside the mansion, 24 bucks. A bit much for a tour through a mansion. I just walked with them and got a few picture of the outside of the mansion.

Gleensheen Mansion

It was right on Lake Superior, Duluth side, It was real rustic. Built in 1905 completed in 1908. If built today would cost 30 million. There were two murders in the mansion. One was the owners youngest daughter. Murdered with a satin pillow put over her face. The other was her nurse maid. She was killed with a candle stick on the staircase the same day in 1977.

We went to the east lake walk. It was right on lake Superior and it was beautiful. The walk went along the banks of Lake Superior. We then went across the large bridge called the John A Blatnik, into Wisconsin.



bridge

  We went by the Fairlawn Mansion and museum. It was closed so we couldn’t tour it either. I found it is haunted by a ghost . They think the ghost is a servant girl.

Farlawn mansion

 We have seen quite a few deer in the fields and parks, no horns but don‘t think they have horns this time of the year. A mother and her fawn coming out of a parking lot right in front of us and got chased by a mother goose.

 We saw a wild turkey in a field and a porcupine walked across the road in front of us. The road we traveled around lake superior was very pretty. There were birch trees mixed with pine trees.

 We could see the lake at times a lot of private homes along the road and we would pull over whenever we could on pull outs to see the lake. We found a lot the businesses were not open until some time in May. It is winter for this end of the country. We stopped at Cornucopia harbor where boats go out fishing. Went into a antique store but didn’t see anything I needed. There was another store I would have gone into but it was closed.

 We went to the Madeline Island Ferry. It’s where you can go over to the Madeline Island but the things are closed for the winter there to. It will take people over to the island as people live there. We saw the lake and we could see the islands where people were living. We tried to see the Apostle Islands but must not have been in the right spot.

At the Ferry landing

 The shore line around Madeline Island looked beautiful like an ocean. Sandy beaches ,beautiful blue water and day use areas for picnics. We saw a boat out fishing too.


sandy beaches


Wisconsin and Minnesota have so many lakes and bodies of water. If you tried to stop at all of them you would never get where you are going. We made a big loop and a long day it was after nine when we got back. Beautiful trip, I hope I never forget all the beautiful things we have seen. I look at some of the pictures and they are not the same as looking through your eyes. Some of the trees still have some color from fall. This has been a trip to remember for sure.

Beautiful country


More to come .

Ginny