Days 1 and 2!

(I wrote this yesterday.)

Good Morning America!

I’m blogging this morning from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It’s a positively surreal experience. I’m in my camp chair with a cup of freshly brewed coffee staring out at the North Dakota badlands. There’s a bison lolling in the grass across from me and the Little Missouri River is right behind me. All is as it should be except that I have a laptop sitting in my lap. It’s 7am. The kids are still sleeping. I’ve been up since 4:45.

A few minutes ago I learned first hand just how close to an American bison one should get. I was circling around it giving it what I thought was a wide berth (the darn thing was busy eating anyway and was paying me no attention). Well here’s dumb Ken looking into the camera when I see through the lens that the bison, which while languidly eating had looked like a “Daisy,” was now looking straight at me. So after taking my photo (my years of training as a photojournalist in the Vietnam war had taught me never to lose the prize), I start slowly backing away. The bison, who now was looking less like Daisy and more like an angry Dick Cheney, charges me! No kidding, he/she took about 4-5 loping strides right at me. It scared the bejeezus out of me and started me wondering how the kids would manage the remainder of the trip if I were flattened by a bovidae on its second morning. Since a bison can weigh about 2,000 pounds and can run up to 30 mph for brief periods. I decided to take the mock charge at face value and not wait for the real thing. In short, I skeedaddled the heck out of there.

Yesterday was a very good day. We traveled 550 miles and crossed 12 rivers, including the Missouri. We stopped in Fargo/Moorhead and walked the bridge connecting the two cities and Minnesota and North Dakota over the Red River of the North. Later in the day, we had lunch at Space Aliens Grill in Bismarck. It did not disappoint; offering the tasteful decor and fine cuisine that one would expect given the establishment’s name and location. The chef’s abiding motto seemed to be that nothing could have too much cheese. (I guess ordering the tortilla cheese soup was sort of asking for it though). Now in one of my less healthy past incarnations that type of food would have tickled my fancy but new model healthy (er) Ken would prefer something a bit less heart attack inducing.

While in Bismarck we toured the state capitol, an 18 story art deco “skyscraper.” It was nice. I liked that they thought a bit outside the box, rejecting the standard domed model. We also toured the North Dakota State Heritage Center.

Most of the day was driving though. We hit a huge storm around Alexandria , MN. It was cool. We could see the storm clouds in the distance ahead of us and drove straight through it. The cloud pattern was pretty amazing and the rain was torrential for about 15 minutes. Besides that, the drive was uneventful. The kids were good passengers. Carson showed a lot of interest in the landscape we were travelling through. Addie was mostly quiet. (We were all pretty tired from having woken up so early.) Mostly we listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (We have a large number of recorded books for the drive, including all of the Harry Potters.)

We pulled into Teddy Roosevelt National Park around 5:30. By then the wind had picked up to an incredible level. We found a beautiful campsite (one of the nicest I‘ve ever seen). Unfortunately the wind was so bad that we couldn’t set up the tent in it. (Our tent is colossal. It’s 10 feet by 12 feet and 6 feet tall. It doesn’t exactly offer a low profile to the cruel North Dakota wind.) Carson was a superstar in the tent setting up fiasco. I was seriously starting to think of what plan B would be (Sleep in the van? Drive to a motel?) but Carson remained calm and encouraged me to keep trying. We finally set it up in a site more sheltered from the wind. We lost the great view but at least had a tent that stood proud in the face of the gales. Dinner was low key-mac and cheese. (Forget all that nonsense about me being down on cheese. Bring it on I now say. It’s going to be a very cheesy summer.) We then went into the tent. I read to the girls for 15 minutes until we all collapsed into sleep.

I spent about a half hour rearranging things in the van this morning attempting to organize things in a more user friendly way after having spent vast portions of last night’s campsite set up and cooking periods cursing and trying to figure out in which plastic tub, suitcase, or portion of the van any given item might be. I hope things will be better now but I suspect it will take a while to get fully organized.

We spent the late morning and early afternoon today touring the park. We did the 36 mile park loop, stopping to take three short hikes. We learned about sage, yucca, juniper trees and the differences between north and south facing slopes. Don’t quiz me on any of this upon my return as I will have forgotten it all. The wind was as bad as any I can ever recall. There were times it nearly blew us off our feet. The park ranger said that there had been gusts of 60 mph. We toured TR’s ranch house and debated whether to add a stuffed TR doll wearing spectacles and clutching a teddy bear to the travelling companion/mascot collection. We decided (at least for now) to decline. Poopy was a bit sad at this. Benedict was happy. (He’s a bit of a misanthrope we’re learning.) His Mini-Holiness maintains that the TR doll lacked dignity and that the teddy bear appendage was historically inaccurate and a blasphemy. Privately, I must admit that I agree.