West 2004 - The Dakotas Unleashed!

Before we get started on our "short road trip", we see a few shots of Baylee in a parade with her dance class.
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And next we see a few shots of their new kittens and the tired mama cat.
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As I said before, this was supposed to be a short trip, to include the Mall of America, a Twins game, Fargo, North Dakota, just because I need to check that state off my list and a visit to The Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. We were unsure of how Baylee, at five years old, would travel in a car, so this trip was to see how she would do. We left on Monday, June 28th at about noon and drove the 400 miles without incident to Bloomington, Minnesota and found a room at the Days Inn across the street from the Mall of America. We took a shuttle to the mall and ate supper there and scoped out the premises. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, the kids playing in the pool while Venus and I enjoyed the hot tub.
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We only had this hotel room for one night and had to move to another Days Inn a little further away in Egan. Thankfully, they had plenty of rooms and allowed us to check in very early, so we did that before heading to the MOA. The park is named Camp Snoopy and that puzzled me for awhile. But after thinking about it, and confirming my thoughts through the internet, it makes sense because Charles Schulz grew up in Minnesota and his first comic strip, Li'l Folks appeared in a Minneapolis paper and was later renamed to Peanuts. You've come a long way, Charlie Brown!
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It really is all about the kids here and Baylee and JJ both enjoyed every minute of our day at Camp Snoopy even though Baylee was initially unsure of the ferris wheel.
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The one thing this them park has over every other park I've been to is the lack of lines. You could literally walk up to any ride and get on without waiting.
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Snoopy and the Peanuts gang put on a little skit for the visitors. Baylee was a little afraid of the characters at first but she warmed up to Snoopy.
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By now JJ is liking the grown-up roller coasters but he feigns interest while riding on one suited for his sister. Baylee bought a diary with her spending money and decided she had to put down some of her thoughts.
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After a full day of riding rides at Camp Snoopy it was time to go to the Minnesota Twins baseball game in Minneapolis. This makes my 14th different team stadium leaving 16 yet to visit. It's only my second domed stadium, the first was Trpoicana Field in St. Pete two months ago. Tropicana Field felt really closed in and small but the Hubert H. Humphrey Dome, aka the Homerdome, didn't feel like that at all. It was much more spacious and airy. The Chicago White Sox beat the Twins, which made Venus and JJ feel good since they were rooting for them. I tend to root for the home team unless they are playing the Cardinals.
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Well Wednesday morning had us driving to Fargo, North Dakota where we arrived at mid-afternoon. We got some great information about things to see in the state from a helpful girl at the F-M (Fargo-Moorehead) Information Center then we ate supper at Space Aliens, an interesting restaurant nearby. We would later see the only other one of these restaurants in Bismark. We got a room at the Sleep Inn nearby and that's when Venus started looking at the maps. Things look closer than they really are on a map, you know. She thought that we could go see things in North Dakota and still be able to go into South Dakota and see the Black Hills points of interest. I had originally said that was too much driving for a six day trip but my daughter is very convincing, so our plan had been altered and our trip became extended; more driving! We visited the Roger Maris Museum which is located in the West Acres Mall in Fargo, where Roger grew up.
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Then we went to a Fun Park and played miniature golf and rode go-carts for awhile.
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Venus had read about the Geographical Center of North America before we went on the trip and we thought we might go there if we felt like driving that far. It was in Rugby, ND, about 250 miles from Fargo in the center of the state and only about 50 miles from the Canadian border. Baylee had been doing good so far so we decided that we would go to Rugby for sure. Vuela was in need of her regular oil change, so I got up before 8:00 and took her to the nearest Jiffy Lube to keep her happy before we started for Rugby.
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Patsy had given me an old picture of Dan Marvel while we were doing Denial letters at work. He's a rugby playing kind of guy so I took the picture along with me in case we did go to Rugby, ND. So JJ held up Dan's picture at the monument for the Geographical Center of North America and I snapped his picture. Congrats, Dan, on getting to Rugby, ND.
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Not only that but she thought we could go to the southwestern part of North Dakota and see the world's largest cow and the world's largest scrap metal sculptures, too. She had wanted to drive by the Albino Buffalo but I nixed that in favor of getting to Rugby faster. So a little bit west of Bismark we stopped and saw Salem Sue, the World's Largest Holstein Cow.
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Then we took the leisurely 30 mile drive off of Interstate 94 on The Enchanted Highway to see the World's Largest Scrap Metal sculptures. This is the idea of one man to lure visitors to this remote part of a basically uninteresting state. There are 6 sculptures spaced a few miles apart along the two-lane road heading into Regent, ND. The first one is right along I-94 and is called Birds in Flight. The next is of a pair of deer.
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Followed by some grasshoppers including several small ones that function as rockers for the kids.
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Then there was a family of birds.
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And then a tribute to Teddy Roosevelt on his horse.
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And finally a Tin-Man and his wife and child. Several birds had nested in this group. This guy has enlisted the aid of many of the locals and plans are underway to produce another 5 such sculptures at least.
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Note to self: If your daughter is reading the map and she says we're only a few miles from Montana and could take this little jog over there and drive for 10-15 miles through Montana and pass through Wyoming and then head back into South Dakota to get to Mount Rushmore, make sure that the road she plans for you to take is really, truly a paved, maintained road! I followed her advice, cause she needed to check off Montana and Wyoming off her list, so what the heck. It's only a half-hour at the most out of the way, right? Well, what looks like a paved road is not always a paved road, maybe it's made of dirt, and maybe it just rained, so it's more like mushy mud and maybe it's very close to sunset, which at this latitude and time of year is close to 10:00, and maybe what looks like 10-15 miles is really about 60, and maybe it takes more than 30 minutes, maybe it takes about 2 1/2 hours instead. There are very, very few people living in Southeastern Montana and the ones that do live there are smart enough to stay home when it rains. My hands were glued so tight to the steering wheel as I drove through this country trying to avoid the hundred or so deer on and along the road and the dozens and dozens of jack-rabbits racing across it. One little critter was not so lucky, as I refused to slam on the brakes and risk us to save him. It was a nerve-wracking couple of hours to say the least til we finally got back to a paved road and all four of us rejoiced out loud. The kids were exhausted and went right to sleep while Venus and I switched drivers at the Wyoming border and paused to take a couple dark pictures. Vuela showed the nasty Montana mud clinging to her the next morning.
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After sleeping a few hours, we checked in after midnight, at a Motel 6 in Belle Fouche, South Dakota, they left the light on for us but there was no coffee pot in the room and they had it turned off downstairs when I got up in the morning. What's up with that Tom Bodette? We drove eastward on I-90 and stopped for lunch/breakfast in Sturgis, SD, home of the annual Harley Bike Rally since 1941. Of course we had to pick up souvenirs.
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After lunch we drove to Mount Rushmore. The place has really grown since I first saw it in 1974 on my very first cross-country motorcycle trip. Then there was just a small parking lot and a small visitor center and that was about it. Much more there now, of course the mountain still looks the same.
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On the other side of Mount Rushmore, somewhere in the black mining hills of South Dakota there lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon. Oops, sorry. I drifted off into song again. There is the ongoing privately funded project of sculpting Chief Crazy Horse throwing a spear while riding on his horse into the mountain side much like Mount Rushmore. This project has been going on for 50 years and they estimate another 50 years to complete it. WOW!
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They have a scale model of the complete sculpture nearby which will be much larger than all the heads on Mount Rushmore when finished.
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Anyone travelling in this area has to visit the world's largest drug store, Wall Drug. Boy has this place grown since 1974! JJ and Baylee tried their hand at sifting for jewels and found plenty. Bags of dirt are stocked with gems so everyone gets something.
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We reached the entrance to the Badlands about an hour or so before sunset and with a gigantic storm off to the south. The Badlands are one of my favorite places, the scenery there is just incredibly beautiful and Venus and JJ agreed.
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We drove off onto an unpaved road, assured by Park Personnel that it was entirely safe, gravel and would not be as treacherous as the Montana mud roads. We were looking for some of the herds of buffalo that still roam free in the pastures there. All we could find were common cows so I decided we needed to get a picture of them at least. They were not real happy with us disturbing their grazing.
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I kept trying to get a lightning picture over the Badlands but the strikes were far apart and hard to catch. Never got one.
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Venus was excited by all the cute little buttes sticking up everywhere.
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She looks so innocent and sweet when she's sleeping. She will have to wake up again soon.
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Venus drove from the Badlands to Sioux Falls, some 300 miles by 2:30 am and she was ready to drop. I said, I'm not tired, so I started driving and got about 10 miles before the rains started. I stopped at the next exit but there was no room at the inn. Nor was there room at the next three places I tried, but the last guy pointed me to a tiny place, the Sunshine Motel, in Luverne, Minnesota. I woke up the proprietor and she checked us in at 3:00 am. We slept til 10:00 got up, showered and drove like hell all day til we got to Dyersville, Iowa at about 5:30. One side of the Field of Dreams closed at 6:00 so we wanted to get there before then. We did, but had to wait for a few minutes for a parade in town.
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The baseball field here was built especially for the movie in three days. For some reason, the property on which it stands is owned by two different families. Left and Center is owned by one family and stays open until 10:00 in summer, I mean the gift shop is open then. Right field and the infield is owned by the people who also own the house, which was not built for the movie. The gift shop there closes at 6:00 but is the place where more visitors were going. I don't know why it is this way but it is. A heavy rain came shortly after we got there so it was a short trip to the field, watched a few people come out of the cornfield then flock to the gift shop to escape the rain and buy souvenirs. They built it and people are still coming.
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Venus finished the driving back to Aurora where we pulled into her driveway at about 10:30 at night extremely tired and glad to be out of the car. Our "short trip" turned out to be 2630 miles in a mere 6 days time! No wonder Baylee was crabby so much of the time. The next day was the 4th of July and fireworks and a cookout and horseshoes were in order.
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