From Devils Tower, where we awoke to a layer of forest fire smoke hanging heavy over the campground, we headed out to Medora, ND. It would have been a beautiful drive if. It for the strong cross winds, gusting at 40-50 mph. So much that it confused the Automatic Stability tracking in the RV, along with the Anti Lock Brakes and the Cruise Control. Tom was a trooper while Cheryl was the official hand-wringer and worrier. Fortunately, the computer reset itself after the wind effect was gone, but not for about 200 miles.
We arrived at Teddy Roosevelt National Park, found our campsite, and then headed out to see the park, prairie dogs, Teddy's cabin and finally, the Medora Musical. The musical is set in a large natural amphitheater, and it starts out with two huge elk posing on the ridge top in the distance before they are herded down the mountainside by the Cowboys. The musical is a fun two hours of patriotic singing and dancing with a feature act which changes every week or so. This week's act was Terry ----. You may have seen him on America's Got Talent last year with his dog Oliver; he is a ventriloquist. Anyway, during the audience participation section, who does he pick but Tom to work with him. As the Dummy. Tom was hysterical, even cracked up the ventriloquist who started laughing instead of ventriloquizing...and the audience was in tears laughing, me included.
Luck was again with us, as we arrived back at camp about 10:15 after the show, got ourselves tucked in for the night and the thunderstorm broke over us about ten minutes later. We were nice and dry in the RV, and awoke with the sun about 5 am, and after a quick breakfast and shower we were on our way by 6:30 am as we had an even longer day ahead, 350 miles.
Shortly after our departure we encountered some cloud cover, which remained with us most of the day, not to break until we got nearly to our final destination. But because we had a long day, we broke it up with a few stops, the first being the Lewis and Clark Interpretive center, at the site of Fort Manden. Don't know if any of you plan to be be near Bismarck, ND, but if you are, this museum and the nearby reconstructed fort are well worth the stop for a couple of hours. Interesting factoids are that this is where Sacajawea joined the expedition, and where they over-wintered for five months in 1805-1806 out of their 28 month expedition to the Pacific and back.
Our journey continued along the Lewis and Clark trail for quite aways, until we headed east again at Minot and then north at rugby. Along the way we saw a lot of prairie, cattle, highway mowers and twere fascinated to see that they don't just mow the medians and side verges, they also bale the cuttings into those giant round rolls, which seem to dot the landscape this time of year. Rugby was our second stop, primarily for gas, but we also took note that this is the Geographic Center of North America.
45 miles later we were at our final destination for the night, the International Peace Garden on the border between Canada and the USA, just north of the town of Dunseith, ND. The entrance is located midway between the US and Canadian border checkpoints. One 'leaves' the US side to enter the garden, so you have to have your passport to get back. Or as we plan to do, go into Canada. We toured the gardens and did the obligatory picture straddling the international border. They have had a lot of rain recently, and our campsite is near a wooded meadow...very picturesque and full of flying and biting bugs, so we're cooking in tonight.
Made it the next day to Winkler where our alarm issue was resolved with a new detector, they fixed a few cosmetic blemishes and gave us a factory tour by Dean, the guy from the LTV videos.
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