Day 11

North America » United States » North Dakota » Lake Sakakawea
September 4th 2007

Published: September 11th 2007

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Obfuscator

Mystery Bird

International Bird of Mystery

Obfuscator writes: We departed Graham’s Island after drying our stuff out for a bit again. On our way out of the park, we stopped to look at a strange bird. The next time we saw such a bird, things would be very different indeed. Our first destination was Maddock, ND, a small (and I mean very small) town not too far from Devil’s Lake. At Maddock, following our Uncle’s directions, we found the grave of our Great Great Grandfather (on our mother’s side) (approx. 47° 56.896N, 099° 31.946W). His North Dakota wife lived to be 97, which I found rather surprising. We also found his church, which was very pretty. We’re not really sure if he was ever in that structure, since we’re not sure when he died, and his tombstone didn’t say.

We drove north from Maddock, in search of the geographical center of North America, which is in Rugby, ND. On our way there, Onaxthiel saw a real ghost town. I saw the back of my eyelids. Rugby was small but nicish. The geographical center is Onaxthieled with a monument, and that’s about it. There’s a restaurant there with wireless access though. We had bacon bleu cheese burgers

North Viking Chuch

North Viking Church interior

and uploaded stuff to the blog after a lot of fanangling with the wireless card. Rugby also has an enormous collection of school buses. After all that, it was back on the road.

We got to Minot, ND, which has a lot of Air Force stuff around it. Minot has a nifty park full of Scandanavian heritage things, including a Danish windmill, a Stave Kirke, and some other cool things, including our new friends, the trolls. Minot also has a lot of “Lounges” with no windows. Incidentally, Minot is also the home of economy, and also the First Western Bank & Trust, which has brands from all sorts of ranches on its façade.

Once we left Minot, we headed south to Lake Sakakawea, which apparently is the Hidatsa way of spelling Sacagawea. Lake Sakakawea is, we think, the largest man-made lake in the U.S. The Garrison Dam was quite nice, and I guess it supplies power to a lot of people, or something. More importantly, next to the dam, we found a wild apple tree, which had deliciously tart, if small, apples. We got into Lake Sakakawea State Park a bit after they closed at 5:00 PM, so

Geographical Center of North America

we did the self registration thing and found ourselves a spot in the primitive camping (which wasn’t hard, since we were the only ones there). We then hiked around the shore of the park, and saw a lot of neat things, including semi-petrified wood. We also scared up a lot of wild animals, who I guess aren’t used to people hiking off the trails. We definitely scared up a deer, a rabbit, and some kind of bird. Maybe a grouse.

Eventually we decided to call it an evening, gathered up some dead wood, and built our fire to eat dinner. After that, sleep. Unlike the previous two nights, it was pretty clear, at least at first. We definitely are starting to get into “Big sky country” and you could really see an astonishing number of stars. Onaxthiel’s Lessons learned: Circular fire rings with squarish grills are easier to keep fueled than square fire “rings” with square grills. Making sure all gaps around your fire ring are filled before you build the fire is a good idea, unless you want fire shooting out the sides of the pit. Food cooked in high wind conditions cools down much faster than otherwise,