Fort Ransom, North Dakota

It was a relatively short drive of 180 miles yesterday to reach our final destination at Fort Ransom State Park in Fort Ransom, North Dakota. It rained the night before, as I mentioned in one of yesterday's posts. We left the campground under blue skies, but fairly quickly drove into some moody weather. There were a few lightening flashes and some sprinkles, but it never really turned into anything major. We spent most of the day driving east on I-94, and it was a straight, flat road.

Stopping at a rest stop, we were amused to see these three hay trucks all in a row. There have been approximately a zillion bales of hay alongside the roads and scattered in the fields ever since Montana. We keep wondering when they'll get around to picking it all up. It seems the gathering is underway.

In previous trips, I've been a AAA guidebook junkie, looking up every small town we've passed through. We gave up on AAA when they received three strikes on their non-effort to help us on the roadside when we had trouble. It doesn't matter any more with iPhones and the Google to guide our travels. Of course, it only works if there's a cell signal, and that is most of the time these days. When we first started RV traveling back in the late 90's, signal was sometimes hard to find. There were times when we drove along and our phones would say "ba-beep" and we knew we had signal. Sometimes driving just a few yards in either direction we'd lose it. We were known to pull over to the side of the road and back up until we found it again.

So all of that previous paragraph to say that we drove through the town of Jamestown, North Dakota, yesterday where the Google promised us we could see the world's largest buffalo from the interstate. We kept our eyes peeled on both sides of the road, but we never saw it. Enter this photograph from Creative Commons. Splendid, no? 

(image credit: "World's Largest Buffalo" 

by jimmywayne is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

This is what the photographer said about his image:

The buffalo is located at the National Buffalo Museum. It was constructed in 1959 by the City of Jamestown & Chamber of Commerce. Elmer Paul Peterson sculpted the 46 ft long; 26 feet high and 14 feet wide buffalo. It weighs in at 60 TONS.

These giant statues are our favorite thing about this part of our country. When we visited the Great Lakes region back in 2014, I wrote a blog post about it then. On our return trip, we even saw the actual Jolly Green Giant. After that, I could die knowing my life was complete.

Eventually, we turned off the interstate onto North Dakota Hwy 1 and headed south toward Fort Ransom. The road didn't change much, except that it was narrower. If it was possible, it might have even been flatter.

Fields of corn have mostly replaced the fields of sunflowers from our previous day of driving.

Our navigation unit led us astray when it took us down a road to where the park entrance has been closed for some years. When we noticed a sign that said "road closed ahead," some bicyclists came along who could steer us in the right direction.

Even though we were on the wrong road, we enjoyed the things we saw along the way...this barn.

And the Fort Ransom schoolhouse.

It was a rather idyllic little drive with some lovely homes along the way. 

Getting turned around, we drove through the tiny town of Fort Ransom (population 105), 

and eventually reached the park entrance. Along the way, we drove by Standing Rock National Historic Site.

Here we go. We found it.

From there, we crossed a bridge over the Sheyenne River (correct spelling).

There's the visitor center. Pretty fancy, as visitor centers go. Sadly, no shot glasses nor refrigerator magnets were for sale inside.

The campsite is quiet and private, and well away from any other campers. Nothing would do until we got Smitty out for a walk. This was his first good walk of the trip.

And ermahgerd! He found his favorite tall grass with wide blades. Nom, nom, nom. It's important to eat your greens, you know.

North Dakota is has legal weed for medical use only. It's okay because Smitty has been sick. 

Sadie watched from the doorway. If you're new to the blog, then I feel a need to explain that Sadie is an escape artist when it comes to a leash and harness. She has escaped from every harness we've ever tried. Believe me...we've tried them all. She is out so fast, we can't even get hands on her until she's already on the run, and impossible to capture. We nearly lost her right here in North Dakota a few years back. So, she whines and cries, but on this point we are immovable. Sadie stays in the RV while we're traveling.

 

State Park campgrounds are lovely. They tend to be more spacious and private than RV parks, and it's always nice to be nestled among trees and close to nature when we're traveling. On the other hand, they are often short on amenities. At this particular park, there is no water or sewer at the site, and our electrical hook-up is only 30 amp, which means we have to be more careful about how many heat-generating appliances we have plugged in at any given time. There was drinking water available at a central site. We filled our tanks, but still decided to drive the 16 miles into Lisbon, North Dakota, to get a jug of drinking water and some other items on our shopping list. Along the way, we passed the Rockstad's River Inn.

It was only notable because of the quilt blocks displayed in its windows. I wasn't able to capture them very well because of the reflections on the windows, and so I messed with my photo-editing software a little bit to bring them out as best I could.

This was our view for most of the day...flat farm fields as far as the eye could see.

We only passed by a few barns in our travels.

When we returned to the RV, we got out for a little walk around. Here's our campsite.

On the slope to the left in the image above, there is some goldenrod blooming.

We took the loop around the campground, finding the Sheyenne River on the far side of the loop.

A section of the North Country National Scenic Trail passes through here, and we'll be walking a portion of it today. That sort of thing always makes us feel badass. The North Country National Scenic Trail  stretches over 4,800 miles from Middlebury in central Vermont to Lake Sakakawea State Park in central North Dakota. 

It passes  through the eight states of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, and is the longest of the eleven National Scenic Trails authorized by Congress. 

Also, we were reminded to watch for rattlesnakes in this part of the world, and especially when wading through tall grass. There was a hole at the lower end of his shed skin, and we believe the snake probably lived right there.

To our right was this monument to the 100th anniversary of the Standing Rock Lutheran Church. 

There's the church. I'm not sure if services are still held here.

Walking back, we passed by this Conestoga wagon, which is available to rent for "glamping." Don't you think the settlers would have appreciated that air conditioning unit hanging from the bottom?

We ended our loop passing by this weedy field. Those brown bloomed out flowers were kind of interesting.

Here's a close-up shot. They would be pretty in a dried arrangement.

Smitty was able to get out for his second walk of the day. He's feeling better, and he's less congested, although he's still sneezing. Unfortunately, the antibiotics have given him diarrhea, and so I suppose we'll be dealing with that for the next couple of weeks.

As I've been writing this post, the bewhiskered members of the family have been reading the morning news in comfort. Sadie likes the lap post. Smitty keeps Mike's neck warm.

Today we'll do some hiking in the park. I really want to check out Sunne Farm and see the Bjone house. I'll say more about them when I have some pictures to show. We have three nights here (two now), and we plan to work hard on our relaxation skills.