Blogs from Dickinson, North Dakota, United States, North America

When I start planning a journey, there is often one overarching goal. This journey was no exception. Chuck, Lucie, and I had never been to North Dakota, and it was the one state that still eluded us. Today we fixed that 50th state oversight. As I think I have mentioned before, one of the most important things upon which to concentrate when studying the L&C trip is the Native American tribes they encountered. Establishing trade with the various tribes, and forming relationships that would facilitate other trade were two of the prime goals of the expedition. Among the Native American tribes, through whose lands the expedition passed, intertribal relationships tended to be some fluid and disjointed. Today's enemy could be tomorrow's ally, and one band of a tribe might be far different in their approach than ... read more

Geo: 46.879, -102.791We planned a long travel day today. We didn't visit any attractions and most of my photos were taken moving along the interstate at 75 MPH, so they aren't very impressive. Sorry for that. We left Helena, MT at 7:25 AM and 54 degrees. As we headed out of town, the sky was rather menacing, especially up in the direction that we drove through to get to Helena. The sky was full of black rolling clouds under a ceiling that covered the sky as far as we could see. And that is quite a long distance in the State of The Big Sky, where you can see forever.We headed east on the interstate. To the south, off in the distance, were the Rocky Mountains, where breaks in the cover allowed the early morning sun ... read more

Jean’s House (aka: Antelope Creek Kennels) It’s the middle of July, we’re half way through summer, and this is the first time I’ve blogged since we left project; it’s like starting a Christmas letter~~I’m wondering where to begin! Since leaving Ohio we’ve visited all our kids (they’re all great, and the grandkids are extra-great!), had a family reunion on Bob’s side of the family (a remarkable time to see the young kids, now married with kids of their own~~which leaves us as the older part of the family…how did that happen so quickly?!), visited my dad and brother (fun to see them again), set up in our summer home in Jean’s yard, in Dickinson, ND (where she and Bob are tearing down the old kennel and building a new one so she can board more dogs), ... read more

(Antelope Creek Kennels) I wasn't going to post a lot of pictures of the kennel construction, because I thought you could keep up to it better if you went to Jean's website ~~ antelopecreekkennels.com ~~ and she could post the pictures, but the progress is just exciting! Once they got the concrete poured, everything they do makes such an improvement. I've added just a couple, but do go check out Jean's site. Besides pounding, there's not a whole lot going on. It's been hot (duh) and dry (DUH) and we're all surprised that July is almost over. And that's my news! Oh, I do have one funny story: Jean has a recipe for a wonderful rhubarb slush, and we've been having one every afternoon (our pop-on-the-patio refreshment!) Yesterday we were out of slush, so I made ... read more

(Dickinson, ND) We’ve done some traveling since I last posted; we went Salt Lake City, and on the way to Townsend (to meet up with Bob’s siblings) we drove through snow! I’m not kidding. June 12 it snowed 4” in Great Falls, and we as we drove through the Bozeman area there was fresh snow on the sides of the highway! Let’s talk global warming! Traveling through the state we were grateful to see the snow in the mountains, and the rivers are running higher and faster than we can remember seeing them. Much of the state is in drought conditions, so this should help some. The countryside is such a brilliant green. (On a side note, remember when we were in southern California and everyone told us by the beginning of June the countryside would ... read more