The Ambitious Odometer

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

{Road Trip} Day Six - Bismarck, Teddy Roosevelt and the Center of the Nation

We began our Tuesday with a trip over to the North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck. With the tower rising 19 stories, it is actually the tallest building in all of North Dakota!

All three of the littles ran up the steps ~ I just love how the girls have embraced their brother's quirky challenge...

From Bismarck, we continued west to the little town of Medora. It was so amazing to see the landscape change (literally) right before our eyes, from vast farmland and prairies to rock formations and canyons...

We stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and visited President Roosevelt's first cabin in North Dakota, the Maltese Cross cabin, where he retreated to find solace after the untimely death of both his first wife and his mother (they died on the same day)...

We slowed down and enjoyed the beauty of the park, taking the scenic loop drive where we saw a couple of buffalo, a group of wild horses (in the middle of the road) and countless prairie dogs...

From there we headed back to the Painted Canyon stop for a truly unparalleled view...

We left North Dakota and crossed into South Dakota on a wild search for the true center of our nation...

You know, I can't really remember how exactly I even heard about this place, but when I did, I knew that we had to try our best to get there. Afterall, we'd already been to a couple of other weird extreme geographical points on this very trip, so why not???

So, I couldn't find all that many accounts of anyone actually making the trek... I mean, you do have to drive down an isolated dirt road in the middle of what looks like abandoned farmland until you happen upon it... Of course, my luck, it was actually in the middle of an occupied cow pasture... I guess I should be thankful that the cows were far, far, far off in the distance!

Well, anyway, we did it... Donned in our red, white and blue, Hubby and I climbed through a barbed wire fence, lifted each of our three littles over the fence, and traipsed through an overgrown pasture, dodging cow patties (carrying the girls AND a tripod) to the true center of our nation...

{He's a really good man, that Hubby!}

Measured and marked a couple of years after both Alaska and Hawaii joined the United States, there's a small, round disc imbedded in a slab of concrete to prove it...

and we've now been there!

You know, I'm not really that much of an outdoorsy person or an adventurist, but I will say that I am a completest (to a fault, for sure) and now that we have been to a few of our country's extreme points, I just have to try my best to get to all of them - for both the lower 48 contiguous states, as well as all 50 states... I do love to travel and love exploring both our own country, as well as our world ~ I will go most anywhere that I've not yet been before (as long as it is safe), including a cow pasture. Ha!

The best part of all was the ride on to Belle Fourche, South Dakota (the closest actual town to the true center) and recounting with each other our crazy little adventure. Mosquito bites and all, it's something we did as a family, something most families that I know have not done and most likely won't ever do (and probably don't even know about), and that's just neat...

For a bit more information on this center of the nation, click here...

On to a famous South Dakota spot tomorrow!

More {Road Trip} 2014 Fun

Day One - And We're Off!

Day Two - Indianapolis, IN

Day Three - From Springfield to Madison

Day Four - Playing Games and Winning Sights

Day Five - To the Northwest Angle and Back

Day Six - Winnipeg and the Center of North America

Day Eight - Mount Rushmore and The "Street Corner" Presidents

Day Nine - Cruising Through a Few Capital Cities

Day Ten - St. Louis and HOME!

Monday, July 7, 2014

{Road Trip} Day Five - Winnipeg and the Center of North America

We decided to spend most of the day in Winnipeg and started out downtown in and around the area called The Forks.

We walked across the Esplanade Riel...

and dined on traditional French cuisine in the Saint Boniface area of the city...

After lunch, we crossed back over the bridge and drove a short way over to Assiniboirne Park to spend a few hours at the Nature Playground.

I initially planned to stop at this playground because it included a statue immortalizing Winnie the Bear, a real bear cub that inspired A.A. Milne to create his character, Winnie-the-Pooh!

It's a neat story that you can read more about here, but it could actually be said that Winnie-the-Pooh's name was derived from the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada!

The park and grounds are absolutely beautiful, and the playground is fabulous...

We absolutely loved spending our afternoon there...

We left Winnipeg and headed south into North Dakota and the center of our continent...

We traveled on to Bismarck to spend the night, cruising through Minot on the way...

Minot... BOTH Hubby and I had heard of it before... Hubby, because he'd met people stationed at the Air Force base there through his work with the Army and me, well, I knew I recognized it for some reason... It's the home of actor, Josh Duhamel, my favorite... Yes, I know... Hubby humored me and drove around looking for a sign to honor old Josh as I'm like - "If there is a sign with like..."MINOT - Hometown of Josh Duhamel", we HAVE to stop and take a picture!", and Hubby is like - "If there is a sign like that here, I'd be really surprised..." Way to crush my excitement... :)

Well, he was right as far as we could tell, but we did find the restaurant that he owns with a couple of his childhood friends, 10 North Main...

and would've stopped, but it is closed on Mondays. Maybe next time...

More {Road Trip} 2014 Fun

Day One - Indianapolis, IN

Day Two - From Springfield to Madison

Day Three - Playing Games and Winning Sights

Day Four - To the Northwest Angle and Back

Day Six - Bismarck, Theodore Roosevelt and the Center of the Nation

Day Seven - Mount Rushmore and The "Street Corner" Presidents

Day Eight - Cruising Through a Few Capital Cities

Day Nine - St. Louis and HOME!

Sunday, July 6, 2014

{Road Trip} Day Four - To the Northwest Angle and Back

Okay, so, why in the world would we want to travel so far over the Canadian border, back into the USA, through a whole lot of nothing, much of it on unpaved roads, to eat lunch and play on a playground? Well, the Northwest Angle of Minnesota is the northernmost point in the contiguous, or lower 48, states.

Again, so, why would that matter???

Well, it all started when we took our road trip last summer and when researching places to go, I learned about Lubec, Maine. It was somewhat, kind of sort of, near Acadia National Park and super close to a spot that we were going in Canada to see one of President Franklin Roosevelt's homes, AND it was labeled the easternmost point of the states. So, we went!

While we were up there, I saw this on the wall...

Knowing that B had already been to Key West, the southernmost point...

{Yes, we do still need to get the girls down there!}

I knew that next on our list would have to be the Northwest Angle. So, the Northwest Angle along with Mount Rushmore became the two ultimate destinations of this family road trip, and everything else kind of fell into place as I began planning.

We left the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area after dinner and traveled through the night (and a whole lot of nothing) into the northern area of Minnesota, stopping in a town called Bemidji for the night.

The next morning we got up, explored the town a bit, and set off on our grand adventure!

One of the things that I enjoy most about "road tripping" is seeing the outlying areas around all of our destinations, really learning about and experiencing our country in full. It is very beautiful up in the tip-top of Minnesota, but there is really not a lot there, at all.

We continued north through the little town of Roseau, which happens to be the home of Polaris!

From Roseau, we traveled about 10 miles to the Canadian border and crossed into Manitoba. One of the nicest little Canadian border patrol guys ever, was manning the booth, too... He asked where we were from and just went on and on about our accents... "I've just never heard one quite like that before. It's melodic, like you have a song in your voice..." Ummm, how sweet was that?!?!?

After snapping the mandatory photos documenting a new province for the littles, we continued into Manitoba, and some more "whole lot of nothing", beautiful nothing for sure, but not a lot up there!

About halfway to our destination, we changed over from paved to gravel/dirt road. I knew that this was coming, but there honestly aren't a whole bunch of accounts out there of people that have done this trek. I'm sure a good many (well, maybe not a good many, but at least more than I could find that wanted to write about it!) have done it, but still not a lot out there detailing it. So, I wasn't sure what to expect, but aside from our car getting caked, the road was fine. It wasn't awful at all. There are not very many people on it. We maybe passed 10 total cars/trucks (both coming and going) in the total 20ish miles that we were on it.

So, once we finally arrived in "the angle", it was so neat to have accomplished this trip, especially knowing that the only way to reach it is by boat across Lake of the Woods (ice road in the winter) or by dirt road through Canada, like we had just done!

{Now, do remember that we've been on a dirt road for miles and in the middle of nowhere for much more than that + we are all smothered in bug repellent ~ the bugs up there were out of control and totally gross ~ I am not into bugs at all!}

A big thanks to Hubby for my tripod so that we could get a family shot... No matter what we looked like, we needed a group photo to memorialize the occasion!

From this point, we passed the official border sign and continued another 8 miles or so to Jim's Corner.

This is in an experience in itself... Jim's Corner is one of 3 customs reporting booths on the angle and the place where you officially notify border patrol that you are leaving one country and crossing into the next.

After making our border cross official, we grabbed a late lunch at Jerry's Restaurant. It was great, and we loved talking with the owner. He is a native, born and raised. His parents own one of the resorts (now, from what I gather, the word resort is used very loosely up there, v-e-r-y loosely) up there - I think that there are only two or three, and the accommodations are not exactly what I would consider "resort" worthy! He and his wife bought the restaurant a couple of years ago.

I loved learning about the one-room schoolhouse (still in operation) and how the students get to school in the winter...snowmobile and sometimes, ice plane?!?!?

We visited the school and played on the playground. The littles LOVED that... It was a really awesome playground (the big covered slide was super fun ~ we all gave it a whirl!) to be in the middle of nowhere + it had a view of the beautiful lake.