Posts Tagged With: Minnesota State Fair

Bismarck, ND Saturday August 26, 2023

We are back on the road for an extensive seven week road trip. This started out as a planned trip to Idaho, a state we have only visited minimally. As time went on, we added parts of Oregon and northern California, as well as a few more stops in Montana. If the federal government does not shut down on October 1, we will spend two nights in Yellowstone National Park and two nights in Badlands National Park. The end result is the map you see above.

Regular readers of the blog will know that we are seeking to visit most of the 420+ units of the National Park Service. Currently we are over 320 and this trip should add 15 more units that are new to us.

We had to schedule our time for this trip with sufficient days to be able to see the critical items on our list. In addition, we wanted to make sure we could get into the Minnesota State Fair before we left on our journey. That was accomplished by going to the fair on its opening day, Thursday, two days ago. I managed to fit in a volunteer stint with Mississippi National River And Recreation Area from 10 to 2. The rest of the time was spent eating and wandering the fairgrounds with Chris.

Interstate 94 to the North Dakota/Minnesota border was a routine run. Starting west from Fargo, we were back on an interstate highway we have not visited for probably eight or nine years. The terrain was similar to the North Dakota plains we passed through on our trip to Winnipeg in the middle of July, without any fields of canola. And, despite the fact that North Dakota has less than 100 dairy farms, milk is the designated state beverage. All of the cows we saw on the farms along the highway looked like beef cattle, not dairy cattle.

We decided to break up the day’s journey with a stop in Jamestown North Dakota. Jamestown is a community of about 15,000 people with a kitschy tourist attraction called Heritage Village/ National Buffalo Museum. You can tell the attraction is older, since it still uses the term of buffalo rather than bison in its name. However, within the museum itself, it utilizes space to explain the difference between the bison of North America and the water buffalo of Asia.

We picked up a few new factoids about bison. For instance, I had not remembered that there are two types of bison in North America. The plains bison are primarily found in the United States. The wood bison are primarily found in Canada and are 10 to 15% larger than bison found in the U.S. Nor did I remember that bison only require water every three or four days. I was pleased to see that the museum, while not highlighting the fact, did at least make it known that the killing of bison was also a tactic to subjugate Native Americans.

Lucky for us we have seen bison in numerous locations around the United States. The bison at the museum, according to one staff member, generally leave the area of the museum around the time visitors arrive at the door, and return from wooded areas after the visitors have left. For over fifty years, the museum has had a sculpted 26 foot tall, 60 ton bison on display outside. Of course, we got a picture of it.

Heritage Village is a collection of pioneer day buildings, and businesses. The general store was doing a brisk business by the selling of ice cream and had a seven piece band playing on the porch outside the store. Heritage village even had a stage coach ride and pony rides for the young in age and size. I had to take a picture and send it to my sisters. We used to assist neighbors with Shetland pony rides when we kids were young.

By this time, we were ready to head out and so left the Buffalo Museum thinking to stop at a wildlife refuge prior to stopping in Bismarck. 2/3 of the way to the wildlife refuge we decided enough was enough, and just continued on to our Airbnb where we will stay in Bismarck for two nights. Dinner was takeout from a local grocery store.

Ed and Chris, Bismarck ND 8/26/23