Advertisement
Published: September 25th 2013
Edit Blog Post
image
Dakota Thunder Last night was the noisiest sleep we have had yet on this trip. Every truck passing through the interstate highway 94 must have stopped by here. About
2am a large rig carrying a full load of livestock parked up next to us - kept his motor going for the next four hours. You could hear the cattle moving around in the truck and of course the occasional "moo". He finally left
at 6amjust when we needed to get up and get moving too.
Drove onto Jamestown to visit Frontier Village - a recreated prairie town. Admission here is free they just ask for a Donation - well worth a stop and a good donation. The Main Street has 24 buildings that houses artifacts and antiques from the pioneering days of North Dakota.
This is also the home to the worlds largest buffalo - Dakota Thunder - yes you need to visit the bison just so you can say you did! It is 26 feet (7.9 m) tall, 46 feet (14 m) long and weighs 60 tons. It was constructed with stucco and cement around a steel beam frame shaped with wire mesh. The final cost of construction was approximately $8500
image
painted saws by artist Florence Trudell in 1969.
Frontier village has several stores selling antiques and hand made crafts. One of the locals, a lady 80 years of age does amazing paintings. Her name is Florence Trudell and she paints her work on just about anything - feathers, saw blades, spoons, watering cans, rocks, etc. I have included a photo of her work...if we didnt have to travel back to Australia we would definitely have purchased some of her work - it is amazing!
We spent a couple of hours looking through all that Frontier Village had to offer before heading off. Weather today was fine and warm - quite a contrast to yesterday's weather. We are getting used to being prepared for any type of weather. Laundry duties were on the list of "must do's" today. We stopped at the town of Valley City - parked out front of the laundromat - did the washing/drying and had lunch in the RV while the clothes were being washed! That worked out well.
Also had to make a follow up call to Celebrity Cruise Lines regarding our reimbursement of money from the failed cruise and also our credit of funds to book another cruise.
image
no wonder people fear the dentist ... X-ray machine We have now been reimbursed the cost of the Alaskan Cruise minus taxes and gratitudes - still waiting for money for outlay of expenses in Anchorage - needed to resend copy of receipts and hopefully that money will be in our account in the next few weeks. Must say that it really hasn't been too much of a drama to get refunds, etc back from the cruise line and now we are looking forward to spending our credit money on a trip to the Caribbean - so it's all worked out in the end.
Next stop was the city of Fargo - close to the Minnesota border. Staff at Pioneer Village told us about an attraction called Bonanzaville - a must see when in Fargo. Found the place quite easily - paid admission of $10 per person and set off to have a look around. This pioneer village is huge - we spent 3 hours here but you could easily spend a lot more time here if your interested in looking at historical places.
There are several museums at the attraction including - law enforcement,telephone, air museum, car museum and the main museum as well. As well as
image
Barber shop at Frontier Village the museums there are all the shops that make up a village - blacksmith shop, town hall, harness shop, church, barber shop, bank, harness store, jailhouse and more. Between all the village shops there are log cabins and houses that are open to the public. Really enjoyed our day learning about the pioneering days in North Dakota.
Just a few minutes drive was another tourist attraction "celebrity walk of fame. A bit of a take off from Hollywood I guess but interesting walk and grabbed a few photos from the celebrity's we recognised.
Spending the night just over the border in Minnesota rest area. Tomorrow we will drive to Minneapolis.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0413s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb