A State at a Time: North Dakota - Day 19 - Writing Rock, historical sites, and wheat

Buffalo Trails Campground, Williston

Monday, 19 July 2021

Yesterday it was 101° at 7:15 PM with 4% humidity. The forecast is for more of the same today.

today's route

On the road

The main thing I wanted to see today was the Writing Rock State Historic Site, and I left the campground at 7:40 to get an early start on the amount of driving I'd planned.

Near Grenora (GREat NOrthern RAilroad - a sign in town spelled it out for me like this), I saw 3 horses following a herd of cows as they walked along a fence, though I couldn't see a destination - no gate or road or any reason for all these critters to be walking along the fence. I thought the horses had more sense.

I surprised an adult and a young Mule Deer, who were crossing the road in front of me. They can bound like kangaroos. I knew they were Mule Deer because of their ears - sticking up like radio antennas (or antennae).

The road off the state highway to the historic site is 2 miles long and unpaved. After the first mile I saw another one of those "Minimum Maintenance Road" signs, and that minimum maintenance lasted the rest of the way.

Writing Rock State Historic Site

The state says these 2 rocks are inscribed with the thunderbird figure and are clearly the work of American Indians, in contrast to some speculation that they were instead done by Vikings or Chinese or, apparently, anybody who wasn't a Native American.

note prominent thunderbird

called "the smaller boulder"
in one of the signs (below)

[It took 15 minutes for my computer to download these next 4 photos that are my own, and therefore already on my computer. And for some reason, it placed them in the opposite order. I'm not going to take a whole bunch more time just to download them again to reverse the order.]

The stones are protected by this shelter,
which is open on 1 side, where the stones
(above) are visible.

I think this sign is here to provide more
information about the thunderbird motif,
apparently to prove that Vikings didn't
make these drawings.

This is the lower half of a sign - the upper
half is below right.

The top half of the sign that explains
what we see on the stones.

That little stone shelter was weird in that there were so many flies there, I started looking for a dead animal nearby. I didn't find it, but the flies were a real nuisance. We were saved, to an extent, because it was very windy today which made it hard for the flies to bother us as much as they wanted.

This little display is on top of a hill, and from there I had a great view of the countryside. It made me realize just how pretty a state North Dakota is, which I don't think I'd really appreciated before. I'm sorry that my photos don't at all do justice to what I saw.

Back on the road

I passed a few small towns, a few oil wells, a few utility facilities (like electricity generation). Otherwise, today was all cows, horses, and crops.

I saw a set of Burma-Shave type signs:

Cattle Crossing

Means Go Slow

Remember That Bull

Is Some Cow's Beau.

River Confluence & Ft. Buford

I was intending to go to the Fort Buford State Historic Site, but along the road I saw signs for the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center and thought I'd stop off there first - the 2 places are right next to each other. Turned out to be the right thing to do.

The Interpretive Center provides information that's mostly about Lewis & Clark, I think - they charge for a video that explains stuff, and I wasn't interested enough to pay. But there's a walkway along the river with signs, so I took the dogs along there a short distance (it was really hot and I had trouble enjoying the walk). Given the trouble I'm having with downloading my photos, I'll just include these 3.

I'm not interested in the locations of which forts were
historically in the area, but this also shows where the
2 rivers are now, and where they were then.

This account of a milestone having been achieved reminded me of just how hard these
folks had to work. They weren't exactly using outboard motors to get upriver, and
there weren't many hotels in the areas they explored.

You can just about see the walking path, and the informational sign.
Well, just on the other side of that is the confluence of the Yellowstone River
and the Missouri River - you can see the water glinting through the trees.
This was the best view I could get - they say it's easier when the leaves are gone.

I stopped at Fort Buford next. It too charges an admission fee, and it looked to me like it was a reproduction of part of the fort, and I really didn't want to pay money for a synthetic Wild West tour. But I found this sign that explained why this place matters in history.

Incidentally, in 1872 this fort was the location for the 2nd Masonic Lodge organized in the Dakota Territory. The local Masonic Lodge still meets here, to keep the memory alive.

I'd intended to go on to Fort Union National Historic Site only a few miles down the road, but it was really hot and I was tired, so I decided to head back into town. Just as well because I got lost and it took some extra time for me to get found again.

Williston

There's a really nice city park here called Davidson Park - large with a variety of facilities for folks to use - and they were using them. But I came here for the wheat.