Minot

 6-3-2021 - Thursday

Today we did the western part of the Turtle Mountain Scenic Drive, which took us around Lake Metigoshe.  Pretty lake, lined with lots of lake homes.  For once, we stayed on the main road, so this little side trip didn't take long.  

Next up, we dumbed onto our next point of interest, "Mystical Horizons."  The sign on the highway just said Point of Interest.  We had seen this in a magazine and we could easily have missed it because we weren't really looking for it.  It's designated as the 21 Century Stonehenge.  Besides the stones, it has a sundial and a Polaris sighting tube, aimed at the North Star (unfortunately, Joe couldn't find it in the daylight).

We are still on Turtle Mountain here, and there is a nice view of the valley below from this spot.

Our next area of interest was the J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge.  We stopped at the Refuge's Office and Visitor Center, but it wasn't open.  They did have brochures available on the outside, so we got a map and started out.  It's a 22-mile auto tour Scenic Trail.  It's also a Grassland Trail and a Souris River Canoe Trail, but the water is so low here that it would be difficult to canoe. This is mostly a refuge for birds and waterfowl, and it a really marshy area with the Souris River running through it.  It is 58,700 acres and extends south from the Canadian border for approximately 45 miles.  We aren't really into birds and can identify very few, but we were hoping to see grouse or pheasant.  We didn't.  We did see a heron (we think), some turtles from the bridges, and a deer running across the field.

Heron?

Ducks

Baby turtles swimming

Bigger turtle

There are 6, I think, dams on this river.  We walked over to one, rough walking on these small boulders.  You can fish this river, but we didn't see any fishermen.

The dragon flies were out in full force this morning, and our windshield shows it.  We surely depleted their population.  As soon as we hit town, Joe was looking for a car wash.

We completed this drive and headed to Minot.  Collins was stationed here in 1968 at the Air Force base, and Minot, North Dakota occasionally comes up in conversations, so we thought we should check it out.  I imagine it has grown a lot since then.  We had a very good Mexican lunch at Paradiso's, shopped a little at Walmart, found a car wash again, and drove past the Air Force base on our way out of town.  

 

We had seen this building (church?) a block or so over, so we circled around to check it out.  It turned out to be a Visionary Terrace, maybe Scandinavian. And this other "statue" was right outside this building, I'm not at all sure what that represents.
 

We had seen a roadside decoration on our way this morning, and we happened to come back part of the same road and were able to get pictures.  I know my friend Barbara will want this for her front yard!

Just past this, but on the same property, were a moose and Sasquatch.

Our last item of interest on this Scenic Drive was Tommy the Turtle, this area's local mascot.  It is the world's largest snowmobile riding turtle at 26 feet tall (who knew?).

On the way back to the RV, we drove a little bit of the entrance of the Peace Gardens.  We could see progress was being made.

We got back to camp about 5:00, earlier than we expected, since we drove 275 miles today.  We thought we were going to get out of North Dakota tomorrow, but we decided to spend a couple days at Devil's Lake, so we have a short drive ahead of us (90 miles I think).  It was really hot here today (97), felt like Arizona.  I hope this heat wave doesn't last very long.

International Peace Garden

 6-2-2021 - Wednesday

Today was our day to tour the International Peace Garden.  So after our breakfast at the picnic table (first time on this trip), 

we headed that way.   Joe was determined to drive every road in here, so we did see most of the buildings.  Sadly, the infrastructure here is in very bad disrepair.  We realized COVID probably kept this place shut down last year, but some of the deterioration seems to go further back than that.  The Lodge, which was built by the CCC's, was filthy, bugs all over the counter, the mantle over the fireplace had fallen off.  The Music Camp area looked like it hadn't been used for years.  We saw maintenance trucks out today, so maybe they are just now starting to get this place in shape.  We haven't been bothered by bugs, but apparently they are coming out.  This is the front of the jeep.  Joe had to clean the windows again today, then we got a chip in it when we were on the highway -- a dump truck went by going in the other lane.

This 10 Commandments Plaque is outside of the Lodge.

Lodge

When we went by the greenhouse, there were flats of flowers waiting to be loaded onto wagons.  Joe really wanted to go through the hothouses, but he managed to drive by without asking.

We saw workers beginning to work up the flower beds, so in a week or so, this place will probably be very pretty.

We continued our drive into the Canadian side.  There are lakes on both the U.S. side and the Canadian side, but Canada's is bigger.  Lake Udall (U.S.) and Lake Stormon (Canada).  We saw evidence of beavers in this area, and three different beaver lodges.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any beavers working (watching beavers at work is on our bucket list).

We stopped at one of the picnic areas and Joe took an action shot of me!

For some reason, this area is infested with dragonflies, even at the campground.  You can see them swirling in the air here.  

We finally parked at the Formal Gardens and walked through them.  We didn't expect to see much because the season has not started here, but they were working hard today.  

Red and white trees in bloom here, we assume redbuds and dogwoods.

A very nice acknowledging the CCC's involvement in this place was mounted just at the beginning of the Formal Gardens.  

This is what this place is supposed to look like in full bloom!  Too bad we were too early!

The "flags" of flowers had been planted so we were happy to get to see those.  The U.S. flag on the left, the Canadian flag on the right.  The sunken garden and fountains were not done yet.

We assumed these ladies were volunteers, but they were working hard, unloading and planting the flats of plants.   We talked to this gal briefly.  She said this was the first day of planting, they had frost here on Sunday night and were hoping that was the end of cold weather.  She was sprinkling some kind of pre-emergence for weeds, but there were other ladies out planting the flats of flowers from the greenhouse

When we walked up to this section, the gates were closed and we assumed this, like most everything, was still closed.  But the gates were just closed to protect the plants from the deer, and we were able to open them.

Back near the entrance, we saw this building that turned out to be the Conservatory and Interpretive Center (and Gift Shop).  Next to it was a butterfly at the entrance to a little trail,  with  "Polinator Garden" on it.  Joe needs that for his hothouse plants!  Inside the building, they had quilts on display, but the best part was the cactus garden.

The cactus garden had lots and lots of cactus planted in pots.  We thought that made sense, and it was beautiful.  There were sections entered the "Tropical Walkway, Desert Garden,  Solarium."

 

They also had these 2 old chairs with very nice floral arrangements on them.

In the Solarium, it felt like we were back in Arizona.  But the plants were beautiful, exotic, many we had never seen before.  They should have been selling books with pictures of these plants.  Joe thought some of them might be brought in from foreign countries, like Australia (but what does he know?).

This Peace Dove is at the very front of the Formal Gardens.  

We talked to some of the boys working here.  They were at a Missionary Camp from North Dakota.  One of the boys was from Gilbert.  Joe asked him when he would be back in Gilbert, and he said probably a year and a half.  Joe said we should be home before him, then.

We left here and started on today's Scenic Drive about 2:30 -- The Turtle Mountain Scenic Byway.  I told Joe even though we were getting a late start, since it doesn't get dark here until almost 10:00 p.m., we had plenty of time.   On the way back to Danseith, we spotted the white birds again, and chased them down this time on gravel roads.  It turns out they are North American White Pelicans, not swans, and they nest here from April to October.  He worked and worked to get a good picture of them through the bushes, then we drove on and had a clear picture.  Later on, on our drive, we found them again, out in open water this time.

We reached our Scenic Byway, then we found a dirt road off the main road, and ended up driving that, so it took longer than for most people.

Eventually, he found a lesser dirt road, that turned into a rutted out two-track, and he had to try that one too. Finally, we had to turn around on this one.  I felt like it was a road from "Deliverance."  Some of the ruts could have swallowed the jeep.

We had a map of this drive, but since we took the "backroad" we were never sure where we were.  There were 6 lakes or ponds on the map, and there must have been 20 lakes on this road.  So I kept trying to figure out which of the 6 lakes each one we passed was.  Only two had signs.  Basically, we didn't know where we were the whole time.

At one of the lakes, there was a barrel for bird hunters.  Joe found that interesting.

 

We got back to camp about 4:30, tired from the ride, and were in for the night.  We only traveled 68 miles today, but some of them were hard miles.  We did scare up one deer on our backroads, and found the pelicans again, so we were happy about that.  They were still working in the Garden when we came back.

It got pretty warm today (high 80s), and tomorrow is predicted to be even warmer (mid-90s).  We are ready to go back to the cold weather we had when we first got in the Dakotas!

Cathy Croxton, thank you so much for your help tonight with my never-ending problems with this Blog.  I absolutely could not do this without you.