North Dakota

We left Sioux Falls last Saturday, June 30^th, and drove to just outside of Fargo, North Dakota. The RV park we stayed at was part of a Days Inn motel with an indoor water park, an Irish Pub, and a Country Kitchen. Paul and Ying took Connor to the water park before dinner.

On Sunday we headed to Bismarck, the capitol of North Dakota. Paul took and passed his second teaching certificate exam on Monday. We celebrated by going to lunch at HuHot, a Mongolian grill where you create your own stir fry. They had never been to HuHot and really enjoyed it.

Monday night, we took Paul, Ying and Connor to their first rodeo in Mandan, ND just across the Missouri River from Bismarck. It was the 139^th annual Mandan Rodeo and was actually very good for a small venue. The saddle bronc riders and bull riders were my favorite.  

We left Bismarck on Tuesday morning and drove to Medora, ND. We stayed at the nearby Buffalo Gap Guest Ranch and RV Park. It was quiet with great views of the surrounding countryside.
  

Tuesday night we went to the Medora Pitchfork Steak Fondue dinner. The steak was very good and cooked to perfection.

After dinner we walked across the parking lot to take in the Medora Musical. Several people we’d met this past year told us we had to go to the musical if we went to Medora. We took their advice and bought tickets a couple of months ago. The Medora Musical is a western-themed musical variety show, performed outdoors. The professional performers are from all over the country and the show was very good.

Yesterday, July 4^th, we visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The park’s south entrance is in Medora and we enjoyed the 38-mile loop through the south section of the park. We saw lots of bison and prairie dogs. We also saw wild horses for the first time in the wild. We watched the Medora July 4th parade after visiting the National Park. 

Okay, we can check North Dakota off our bucket list and now only have three more states we haven’t visited (Vermont, Delaware and Rhode Island). We were pleasantly surprised on how beautiful North Dakota was, especially the western part of the state.

We drove to Montana today where we’ll visit Miles City, Billings, Great Falls, and West Glacier to visit Glacier National Park.

Steve & Julie Cornelius