Day 3: North Dakota for the First Time

We left the crowded tangle of freeways that is Minneapolis and found our way to I 94, the northernmost major artery of cross-country road.  We chose this rather than I 90 because I had never seen North Dakota.  I must admit my idea of that state was an endless stretch of flat brown land, unpopulated and dreary.  I was soon to be disabused of that.

Eastern Minnesota turned out to be rolling hills of farmland and belts of trees grown to push back the wind.  Here the sky emerged, dominating the green fields and small towns with its vast blue arc and massive clouds.

Driving through Fargo signaled our entrance into North Dakota, and as we rolled down that long, straight stretch of road that is I 94, I found how mistaken my ideas were.  No flatlands here.  Instead there stretched out rolling prairie sinking and rising in every shade of green and yellow imaginable, crowned with buttes and small peaks, watered by sloughs walled in by reeds.  We drove past houses leaning into the wind, some abandoned, weathered carcasses with empty eyes and sagging mouths.  The clouds in the massive sky were bruised purple, and underneath them fell columns of rain, bent slightly in the wind.  The vast stretches of prairie were lonely and lush.  “So this is North Dakota,” I thought.  “It’s like nowhere else in the States.”

Then we stopped at a Walmart to pick up supplies.  Driving into the parking lot, we could have been anywhere in the US—Mississippi, Utah, California.  Every shopping center looks the same wherever you go.  I suppose this is what civilization has done:  homogenization.  But even while bemoaning that fact, I was glad to shop in a place that had everything I needed at cheap prices.

Within 40 miles of the state’s western border, we plunged into the Badlands, a misnomer for some of the most varied, rugged, and stunning landscapes in the Midwest.  I think the pictures will have to describe what we saw:

We paid $10 for a week’s pass to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, then drove five miles up a dirt road to the southern campground, skirted by a wide river and sheltered with cottonwoods.  We arrived at 5 p.m. and found many sites still open, though the park was mostly filled by sunset.  We set up, fixed dinner, and then explored the campground on our bikes.

Venturing further, we took to the main road and found a trailhead that we vowed to hike the next day.  The start of the trail was set in a vast meadow that turned out to be a city of prairie dogs that probably rivals L.A. in sprawl and population. Their main activity appeared to be making loud noises to warn each other of intruders.  Here's what they sounded like:

**well, can't figure out how to get the video on yet, so that will have to wait.***


So we took the hint and headed home, glad for a screen tent that gave us bug-free repose, and a glorious evening that melted into a sky of brilliant stars.