North Dakota Photo Album
Page 3

These are photos from our trip to Bismarck, North Dakota.

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Our first stop was the Dakota Zoo. By most standards, it's not exactly a huge zoo, but it is the largest zoo in our state.

Our first stop inside was at the goat/chicken enclosure. They have a feeding station so that you can feed corn to them, but I told the kids to beware-- some of the roosters still had their spurs, and some were well over 3 inches long.

Here's one of the chickens waiting for his taxi to get done with a break.





Here's my oldest daughter and her new friend the squirrel monkey. When she got near his enclosure, he squashed up close to the window and kept reaching out his little hand to try and touch her. And when she started to walk away, he jumped up and down on his little branch and starting doing a "monkey yell". I don't know what this means . . . was he attached to her because he knew she had a kind heart or because she looks like a monkey? We'll never know.





This zoo has a lot of my "standard favorites" animals, like these:

Mule deer





Otter





Prairie Dogs





But it also introduced me to a new favorite-- an animal so weird that I can't help but love it. This little guy is a deer (a Chinese deer, is what I believe the sign said). But it is SOOO tiny, even smaller than most of my cats. And the males have tusks! So it's a tusked deer the size of a toy poodle!

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After the zoo, we decided to try out the trolley ride advertised in one of the tourist brochures. It was a pain to find! The tourist brochure just said it was at the "3rd St Station". We looked for it for a while, then asked directions twice. The second set of directions finally got us to the right place.





We weren't sure about it at first, because it's right in the middle of town, and in sort of a lower-income looking area (mainly industrial businesses, some run-down). But we gave it a go and it was great! Along the way, you see some great scenery,





and we even watched as a wild turkey ran down the tracks in front of us (with the kids yelling "Run! Run! Run for your life!" until it finally ran off the tracks).

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Next, we headed for Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. Our first stop in the park was Custer's house. When you begin the tour, they warn you that once you step into the house, it BECOMES 1875. Your tour guide goes into "full character" mode, and any questions you ask HAVE to be in 1875 mode (in other words, you couldn't ask "what happened to the fort in 1880?" because your guide, in 1875, woulnd't be able to know). I honestly thought it would be really lame, especially since my two oldest daughters and I consider Custer a cold-blooded killer . . . add to that, an "era" tour with your guide pretending to be in the era, and you are talking one lame-ass time. But it was actually fun. My youngest daughter got a huge kick out of it, especially, because our tour scenario was that we were all guests arriving to have dinner in the evening with Custer. Our tour guide picked my youngest daughter as the one she was going to set up with an eligible bachelor from the calvary who was going to be dining with us that evening. So it was fun, and very interactive (after a while, you could almost believe that you were in 1875). So the tour started with us whispering to each other, "Oh my god. We would have never come here if we knew it was going to be so lame", to ending with all of us enjoying the hell out of it. And it was educational, too! We will definitely visit again (especially since my camera batteries were getting low, so I couldn't get any pictures)!

Which reminds me, one of the things I MOST wanted to get a picture of in the Custer house was Libby Custer's wardrobe. I think she was the original goth! The outfits that they had on display were all black, and most were velvet with beautiful black bead accents. And I have a pair of boots (black pointed-toe lace ups) just like the ones they have on display.

One of the things that pleased us most about our visit to the Custer house was the visit to the gift shop. Although they have the standard "historical souvenirs" like most of the historic site gift shops in our state (books about how difficult it was to deal with the "hostiles", little Native American kewpie dolls, etc.), most of their books were Native American history books! There was shelf after shelf of titles written by Native Americans covering life and history from the perspective of non-whites (both Native American and Buffalo soldier)! I know where I am going to be going when it's time to buy books for our North Dakota history studies.

Our second stop in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park was at "On a Slant Indian Village" to see the earth lodges. It was so hot outside, and the lodges were so blissfully cool, that I've decided that our house is going to become an "earth house" once we move it onto some land.





Our last stop in Fort Abraham Lincoln was at the blockhouses. I had no idea what we were going to be seeing when I saw the word "blockhouse" on the map, but apparently these were sort of lookout points. All the little rectangles you see in the side of the building are "flaps", which seem to be perfect for sticking a gun out of and shooting at attackers.





The blockhouses are on hills, so they are perfect for getting a beautiful view of all the countryside for miles around.







And last but not least, here's a picture of the Missouri River, where it divides Bismarck, North Dakota from Mandan, North Dakota.

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