September 1-3, 2003 - Bismarck, ND

On the 1st of September we drove 214 miles on I-94 to Menoken, ND, just past Bismarck, ND.  Here is our campsite:

The wind blew hard so Bill moved the satellite dish to a more protected spot:

Bismarck turned to be a nice place, it had a lot of Native and U.S. history around it, plus a nice setting on the Missouri River.  Too bad it gets really nasty weather in the winter. 

We were needing to stay still since we were negotiating with a buyer on the house and faxes and phone calls were going back and forth.  This was the person who eventually bought our house.  People thought our house was large for two people and we ended up selling it to a single man. 

We found a four star place to eat in Bismarck, the Space Alien Grill and Bar had both a funky atmosphere and the food was really good.  Diane says the chicken strips were the best she had ever had.  We tried it on a whim and were glad we went there.

Bismarck was on Central Time, its neighbor town to the west, Mandan, was on Mountain Time.  In Mandan was both Slant Indian Village and Fort Abraham Lincoln.  We started with Slant:

There were costumed interpreters to help us understand the past here.  It was very interesting.

We drove over to Fort Abraham Lincoln and saw this nice scene:

That is the North Dakota capital building, the "skyscraper on the prairie" in the distance.  We also saw this owl on a sign:

The owl was alive.

Now we came to Fort Abraham Lincoln, Custer's last command:

It had a scenic location:

Notice the ND capital in the distance:

The highlight was getting a tour of Custer's house as if it was 1875 by a costumed docent acting as a soldier. He really enjoyed his role and we learned a lot about the Custers and how people thought in 1875. 

Bismarck was not what we expected North Dakota to be like.  It was more interesting and more scenic and we actually found good food there.

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