Day 31 – Drive to Minneapolis

We had a couple of “Fargo” moments today which gave us a little insight into the city. First you need to realize that Fargo is a small city and only has a little more than 111,000 residents, but it is also the biggest city in North Dakota and has a full collection of fast food restaurants and other stores. We were therefore surprised to read an article on the front page of the Sunday paper with a picture showing about 20 cars in line waiting to get into their first Sonic Drive-In. Apparently the grand opening was such an event it caused a traffic jam and the Rotary had to volunteer to direct traffic there for a month. I guess they got a little tired of McDonalds. The second moment was hearing them pronounce the word “Bison” on TV. They pronounce it like “bye-zin” instead of “bye-son” as we do. I think that maybe that is maybe part of the famous Fargo (Fair-go) accent. Accent? You betcha.

World's Largest Prairie Chicken

The drive to Minneapolis was 4 hours long and not too interesting except for a stop at the World’s Largest Prairie Chicken. We decided to pass on seeing the World’s Largest Pelican at Pelican Falls or the World’s Largest Catfish as they were too far off of I-94. So what is a Prairie Chicken? In the 1800’s when the buffalo still were plentiful on the plains, this area of Minnesota and actually several other states was tall prairie grass and prairie chickens were also plentiful. However when the land was cleared for farming, the tall prairie grass was removed and the prairie chicken was driven to near extinction without their natural habitat. Another case of Americans running roughshod over the environment. Seems to be a constant theme in the west.

In Minneapolis we did a quick visit to their Institute of Art to see their impressionist paintings (good but not great) and also did a driving tour of the downtown area and the University of Minnesota.

Day 30 – World’s Biggest…

Enchanted Highway Sculpture

We spent last night in Dickinson, ND, which is in the North Dakota oil fields which have recently been booming due to all the fracking they are doing. As a result, North Dakota has the highest rate of new jobs created in the US and also a housing shortage, hence leading to the high price for a motel room in Dickinson. Not a problem for us as we used Hilton Points.

We drove to Fargo today, but made a detour to drive the “Enchanted Highway.” The Enchanted Highway is a 30-mile stretch of road which features numerous scrap metal sculptures at various points along the highway. Photo is of the “Tin Family.” Dad is 45-feet tall and the family was constructed of farm tanks, telephone poles, barb wire, and augers. We also saw deer, prairie pheasants, grasshoppers and Teddy Roosevelt sculptures among others.

Triceratops at North Dakota Heritage Center

Made a quick stop in Bismarck to see another State Capitol and take a tour of the North Dakota Heritage Center. It was free, of course. I was afraid it would be lame, but it turned out to have a great collection of dinosaur bones which were mostly found in North Dakota. It probably was the best collection of dinosaur bones in a single site that we have seen. Outside the museum was a statue of a local girl made good – Sacagawea (guide and interpreter for Lewis and Clark). Yes, we came across their trail again as the Missouri River, one of Lewis and Clark's main routes of travel, passes through Bismarck.

World's Largest Holstein Cow

World's Largest Bison

North Dakota seems to like to claim the “World’s Biggest” of about anything you can think of. We saw in order the World’s Largest 1) Holstein Cow, 2) Sandhill Crane and 3) Bison.  I stood beside them to give you an idea of their size. The cow was "udderly" gigantic.

One humorous thing we came across was a billboard in Fargo which simply said “Be Polite.” We think that a sign like that would be full of bullet holes and covered with impolite graffiti back in Philadelphia.

Day 29 – Big Sky, Badlands and Bison

Big Sky in Montana

We said goodbye to Havre, MT, and drove across the state to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park which is just across the border in North Dakota. The drive across Montana took 6 hours and was really pretty boring as the landscape was the same almost the whole way. The land was flat, basically treeless, and brown fields with occasional small towns that were spaced far apart. The one thing that was interesting was the sky. We could see why they call Montana the “Big Sky” country as you can see forever and there is really nothing to see but sky. The clouds were the big, puffy kind with flat, dark bottoms. I swear that they seemed only about a hundred feet above us but it had to be an optical illusion.

North Dakota Badlands (TR National Park)

Theodore Roosevelt National Park was the last of the 7 parks we plan to visit on this trip and the newest on our list, established only in 1978. The park honors Teddy Roosevelt who owned a ranch and lived here when he was in his 20s. He also was a big supporter of National Parks when he was president. The original log cabin where he lived is now located behind the visitor center. The park is a mixture of badlands and grasslands, so it is a natural habitat for wildlife including elk, bison and deer. 

American Bison (TR National Park)

We saw several prairie dog towns in the park and also saw bison 5 or 6 times, including a herd of about 30 in the distance. We saw this big one guy sitting near the road and taking in some sun and then also came across another who was blocking the road as we were leaving. He just casually strolled by our car and joined a female bison and her calf up on the hill above the road. He could have cared less about the cars.

Day 28 – Glacier National Park (Day 2)

Bird Woman Falls

Today was our last day at Glacier and we drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road through the park and exited on the eastern side of the park. It is a 53-mile drive through some of the best mountain scenery going. It is also an old road (finished in 1932) and therefore is very narrow, has a lot of switchbacks and almost no guardrails to speak of. I read that it gets so much snowfall, over 80 feet at the summit at Logan Pass, that avalanches keep destroying the guardrails, especially on the eastern side of the park. Needless to say the driver (me) didn’t do much sightseeing until he could pull over. Logan Pass at the summit marks the continental divide.

Going-To-The-Sun Road

We started in the valley that you can see in the second picture, climbed to 6,646 feet at Logan Pass and then all the way back down the eastern side of the park.

Home-made Razzleberry Pie

The weather was good again today, sunny but with a few more clouds. After spotting a bear and some deer yesterday and not having our camera handy, today we were super ready and of course saw no animals (except for some cows wandering free on the road outside the park). Isn’t that how it always is? After exiting the park, we stopped at the Park Café to have a piece of home-made pie based on Bill’s recommendations. Yum. It was enough to tide us over until dinner. Jeanne had peach and I had Razzleberry (a combination of raspberries and blackberries). And speaking of berries, I should give a shout out to the Huckleberry. It is apparently a Glacier National Park local favorite and we had it a couple of times. Last night we split a Huckleberry milk shake and for breakfast the hotel had Huckleberry scones (one of Jeanne’s favorites) and also fresh huckleberries. They look similar to blueberries but smaller in size and more tart.

Harvested Wheat Fields (Somewhere West of Havre, MT)

After the park, we drove east through upper Montana for about 180 miles to Havre. This part of Montana is extremely flat with vast wheat fields, some of which were being harvested as we passed. We could see mountains to the distant north across the plains but we think they were in Canada as the border is only about 25 miles away. Havre is definitely a railroad town as we can hear trains running almost constantly outside our window. Might be a long night.

Day 27 – Glacier National Park (Day 1)

Avalanche Creek

We spent the night in Kalispell, MT, and then drove into Glacier National Park this morning for our planned hike up to Avalanche Lake. It was a fairly difficult hike, at least for us, and it took us 1.5 hours to climb the 2.3 miles to the lake. The hike goes along Avalanche Creek and then up to the lake.

John and Jeanne at Avalanche Lake

Avalanche Lake is a mountain lake surrounded by high glacial mountain walls and the lake can only be reached by backpacking. The lake is formed by glacial run-off and snow melt. All along the hike and in the lake you could see trees felled by avalanches in the area, hence the name. This past winter was worse than normal and the road we took today was only opened on July 4. The scenery around the lake and on the hike in general was fantastic.

McDonald Lake

The weather today, by the way, was perfect. It was full sun and around 60 when we started the hike. We were told it had been raining for the past two weeks, so we really came at the right time.

Bear Crossing!!!

On the drive back, we came across a black bear just ambling across the road and ignoring traffic. We pulled up along side and it calmly rose up and grabbed a paw full of berries from a nearby tree, no more than 10 feet from our car. It was pretty cool and definitely the highlight of animal sightings so far. Photos aren’t the best as we weren’t prepared and the bear didn’t stick around too long. The funny thing is that it was no more than maybe two miles from where we ended the trail. We are really glad we came across the bear in our car and not on the hike!

Day 26 – Scenic Drive

Flathead Lake, MT

Today was mostly a driving day. We drove almost 400 miles, about half of that on 2-lane roads so it took a while. We entered back into Mountain Time and with all the stops we made, we didn’t get to the hotel until almost 8, which is a couple hours past what we normally try to do. Fortunately the drive went through some of the most varied and scenic roads we have seen so far - from forested mountains, to rolling grasslands with no one in sight, to fast flowing rivers, to mountain lakes, etc. For scenery, we liked Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho and the St. Regis river and Flathead Lake, both in Montana.

Grand Coulee Dam

We only made a couple of stops today, the first at the Grand Coulee Dam. This was a last minute addition to our itinerary but well worth it. The security on the tour seemed a little like overkill, but I suppose they know what they are doing. Grand Coulee Dam is the largest dam in the US and was built in the 30s and 40s, but had a significant addition in the 60s. One surprising thing we learned was that the hydroelectric power it generates is not the main purpose of the dam. They claim that the main purpose is really to provide irrigation to central Washington. The region it serves is high desert and gets less than 10 inches of rain a year, but the irrigation water allows them to grow a wide variety of crops. They specifically mentioned potatoes and mint as crops you might not think of as coming from Washington.

Jeanne in her "Little Red Wagon"

To continue in our “Americana” theme, we stopped in Spokane to see the world’s largest Little Red Wagon and the world’s largest milk bottle, which used to be part of a dairy but now is a restaurant.

Day 25 – Turnaround Day

Diablo Lake (above the Diablo Dam)

After 24 days on the road, we have finally turned around and are now headed back for home. We left Vancouver and drove to the North Cascades National Park. One big complaint about the trip: it took 45 minutes to get through the border crossing into the US!

Each one of the new parks we visit has a different surprise for us. North Cascades is kind of out of the way and doesn’t get as many visitors as some of the other parks but it is quite beautiful in its own way. There is only one main road, Hwy 20, through the park and it takes you through a valley surrounded by mountains on both sides, frequent waterfalls and occasional glaciers. The park isn’t quite as unspoiled as some others. There were a series of dams and power plants built on the Skagit River in the 20's and 30's to provide power to Seattle, but they aren’t all that obtrusive and the lakes created by the dams are spectacular.

Ladder Creek Falls

We stopped at the park visitor center to watch the obligatory film and learned that the park has more glaciers than any other park in the lower 48 states. We went further down the road, stopped for a short hike up to Ladder Creek Falls and then cruised through the rest of the park in a couple of hours before reaching central Washington. As soon as we left the Cascade Mountains, we came back into the high desert region again, but with the one difference. We started seeing fruit orchards. They weren’t everywhere but we spotted apples and pears, but also passed some trees which had already been picked, maybe peaches. It was kind of surprising to see orchards in such an arid climate, but they were using irrigation. We also drove through about 30 miles of countryside damaged by the recent fires here before we reached our hotel in Omak, WA.