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Published: September 24th 2013
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Metal sculptures on the enchanted highway. Deer crossingAfter leaving Dickinson our first detour of the day was "The Enchanted Highway", a 32 mile stretch of highway starting at Interstate 94. This highway features some of the world's largest scrap metal sculptures. In fact, the sculpture "Geese in Flight", is currently listed in the Guinness World Book of Records as the Largest Scrap Metal Sculpture in the entire world.
Currently, the Enchanted Highway consists of 6 extremely large metal sculptures depicting geese, deer, pheasants, grasshoppers, Teddy Roosevelt, and even a complete Tin Family. The artist responsible for this awesome creation, Regent native Gary Greff, plans on adding even more giant sculptures to the highway in the upcoming years.
The sculptures finish in the small town of Regent - where there's not a lot to see but we got some good photos of the place.
Driving along this road I can't help wondering what life is like out here. seems most folks are living on large ranches and they are a long way from anywhere. It's certainly a much different lifestyle than we city folks live.
Next detour was to the town of New Salem where the town attraction was able to be seen for miles
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Grasshoppers in the field. sculpture on enchanted highway before the turn-off - the worlds largest Holstein cow standing at 38 ft high, 50 ft long and weighing in at 12,000 pounds - now that's a must see when in town! Salem Sue as the Holstein cow is named, is at the top of a hill overlooking the town.
It was raining and blowing a gale at the top of that hill but we managed to set up the tripod and get a few fun shots with Salem Sue.
.After we finished having fun with Salem Sue we headed to the petrol station and refuelled $3.489 per gallon - $150 to fill up RV - also topped up propane $10.15 for 5 gallons - used the Sani dump and filled RV with water...gotta love "Tesoro" gas stations as when we went to pay for the thermos full of hot coffee we were told it was complimentary with the fuel fill up.
Montana and North Dakota are both country style states. It is always cool to be in cities where the locals are sporting Texan style cowboy hats and driving pick up trucks covered in mud! True American style and we so love that side of America!
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Fishermans dream sculpture Most of the countryside today has consisted of corn and sunflower farms. Miles and miles of them bordering both sides of the highways. This afternoon we came into the capital of North Dakota - Bismarck. Stopped at an overlook at Manden - which had views over the Missouri River and the city of Bismarck - unfortunately views were not the best today due to the low cloud and rain.
We decided that we would turn off at Manden turnoff to explore Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park about an 8 mile drive off highway 94. Paid our park admission of $5 per person and were just in time for the guided tour of Custer House $6 per person.
The interpreter of the tour was dressed in period costume from 1875 and gave us a comprehensive tour of the replica house of General Custer and his wife Libby. The weather wasn't good enough to be wondering around the park too much but we did have a drive through - walked through the "slant Indian village" which had been occupied by an agricultural Indian tribe - dating back to the 1500's. The village got its name from the sloping ground
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Pheasants on the Prairie it was built on. The village has 6 rebuilt earth lodges that are interesting to check out.
On our way out of the State Park we stopped by the Veterans Memorial of North Dakota to pay our respects for the soldiers and their families who fought in various wars and enabled America to be the free nation that it is today.
We have by-passed Bismarck and continued our trip on towards Fargo. Although there are adventures we could investigate in the capital city - we need to remind ourselves at times that we are taking this route in order to make it over to the east coast of Canada. We chose to drive on the USA side for this part of the trip to keep the costs down.
This evening we have stopped in a rest area at Crystal Springs. Geoff has cooked up an amazing dish of fish, potato and sweet potato fries with salad. Dessert is strawberries and frozen Greek yoghurt (Ben&jerrys of course!).
Most of our overnight stops in the USA have been free stop overs. After all by the time we are finished for the day it is dark and we don't
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Teddy rides again see much point in paying for an RV site of anywhere up to $50 just to sleep - it has also helped us in cutting down the overall cost of the holiday.
Weather today has been in the 50's f and mostly rain although it hasn't spoilt our day too much. We are now in Central Time so clocked is moved forward 1 hour.
North Dakota has fantastic arrest areas. There are plenty off them and they have clean bathroom facilities, vending machines for food/drink, pet areas, free wi-fi (which where we are stopping to up date blogs), picnic tables and are very well maintained.
More road tripping tomorrow.
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