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