Discovering North Dakota

Since neither of us had done much traveling in North Dakota, Ron & I had decided to head straight west from Fargo/Moorhead and see some of  the state.  Our first stop was the Frontier Fort Campground in Jamestown, ND, home of the world's largest buffalo.  Little did we know, our campground was right around the corner from it and the Buffalo Museum.

During our visit to the museum, we learned lots of interesting facts (no, really) about buffalo including:  a bison's forehead is made up of a double layer of bone and is covered by skin that is over 2 inches thick and fur that is 4-5 inches thick, they can run up to 35 miles per hour for up to half an hour and at one time there were estimated to be 30-200 million buffalo roaming Alaska to northern Mexico, by 1905 there were 500.  The Jamestown Buffalo Museum also has a buffalo herd roaming the large pasture adjacent to it.  They are very honored to have "White Cloud", an albino buffalo cow who has produced 2 albino babies.  We were able to see White Cloud a few times as we walked by the pasture.  There were also buffalo in our "back yard".  The campground had a male, female and baby buffalo in a pen right behind our camp.

The other attraction we visited was the Frontier village.  It was very well done with buildings that had been moved from other locales and were set up with tools of each trade they represented, for example, here is Ron in the saloon

There was a blacksmith, churches, railroad station, Louis L'Amour's writers shack (he's a hometown boy) and we took a very bumpy ride on the stagecoach.

We took long walks on a beautiful trail along the James River.  It was hard to believe we were only a few miles away from the downtown area.  One day, we decided to explore downtown Jamestown and found a beautiful Catholic Church that was quite old.  Afterwards, we met Hailey the bartender from Wisconsin.  She was a delightful 21 year old who had moved to Jamestown in the spring and was loving it.

After 3 nights in Jamestown, it was time to move on to our next stop, Dickinson, ND.  We stayed at the campground in the beautiful Patterson Lake Recreation Area.  As we drove in, we saw lots of signs of the oil industry and the thriving North Dakota economy.  Lots of construction, homes, apartments, businesses, roads;  long trains of oil tankers constantly traveling the tracks.  There were several people in the campground who appeared to be living there.  The lake was large and seemed very popular for swimming, boating and fishing. 

 

We also found some really pretty areas for walking and enjoyed seeing the birds in the area.  I added the American White Pelican, Common Grebe and Yellow-headed Blackbird (haven't seen them since I was a kid) to my list.

We spent a day in Dickinson at the Dinosaur Museum and Pioneer Village.  The dinosaur museum was very well done with many of the dinosaur bones having been discovered in North Dakota.  They also had a fantastic collection of rocks!

We've had pretty good weather, lots of sun.  I'm sure you'll all laugh like my kids did at my tan lines on my feet.

Last stop in North Dakota is Medora, in the North Dakota Badlands.  Looking forward to exploring this area that I have heard a lot about from my horseback riding friends.  We also plan to buy our Lifetime National Park membership (only $10 for Ron since he just turned 62) at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.