Western Road Trip Day 1

JAMES: Woke up early, packed and got out of the house right at 7:30 am. Headed west on 94 against traffic. A lot of traffic this morning and a lot of lane closures. After about 40 miles, traffic thinned out and we settled in for a long drive. Jack’s birthday. We sent greetings. Did two crosswords and Iistened to two podcasts. Susan and I realized that we won’t have traveled this far by car since our roadtrip to Boston in 2020! I guess it was time. The scenery was beautiful. The fields and woods that we passed through were radiantly green and lush. Initially mildly rolling hills and farm fields. Gradually, as we got to western Minnesota, it started to get a little “bumpier” and less even. We broke the day into two parts. We stopped for gas in Fargo and once again out on the road the speed limit went up to 80 mph! 

SUSAN: Stopped at Fargo for gas and proceeded to Jamestown for lunch- looking for a spot to eat lunch we were driving on the park road and a baby deer was in the middle of the road. It sprang up and got out of the road. There weren’t any picnic tables with a shelter, they were all open air. So we pulled up by one and unpacked for lunch…the weather looked foreboding of rain so I was hesitant. We ate our chicken salad, chips, grapes and veggies and it just spit a little rain, When we were done, it started a little more and we got everything packed before it came down in earnest.

JAMES: Not exactly sure where our trail was, after lunch we popped into the park office to inquire. The inside door to the office was locked but I could see a man sitting at a desk. He saw me and gestured me inside. The door was locked. Not sure why but he let me in. The room was a little bit run down with bunch of moth eaten stuffed animals around the room, all wearing hats of some kind. Things must get lonely up here all by yourself. The man gave us directions and we were off.

We had a nice hike through the fields above the Pipestem reservoir. There aren’t a lot of trees there, just grassy fields on the hills surrounding the water. They have made the park accessible to bicycles by mowing paths through the grass and over the hills. In order to extend the trails they have mowed a series of switchbacks through the grass. Our trail led along the eastern edge and above the reservoir. It switchbacked along the contours of the hills through rows of planted pines, oaks and ashes. It’s a large reservoir. The trail goes out five miles. We turned around after a mile and a half and headed back to the car. It was a nice break. Perfect hiking weather, cool and windy and not another soul around. I guess this is a weekend destination.

On our way to the park through Jamestown, I had spotted a sign with the tourist bait photo and caption of “The World’s Largest Buffalo”. They had me! The giant buffalo was here in Jamestown! So we had to make a stop before continuing on our journey. After getting some conflicting directions we finally made our way to Pioneer Village, a pseudo Old West Town on the edge of Jamestown. This is a hokey tourist trap with the usual ice cream and candy store and gift shop. They purportedly had a herd of buffalo on the grounds but first the Giant Buffalo. It is indeed a grand sight. The Giant Buffalo must be 30’ high and sits on a point of land overlooking acres of hills and pasture. This must be where the buffalo roam? Well, we never saw the buffalo herd but we did get the photo.

SUSAN: It was a sorry looking “Old West” town that looked like it had not been maintained since 1975. But at the end of the road was the mighty buffalo.

Back on the road again, I drove for the second stretch of the day. It was a straight shot across the entire state! We drove in and out of threatening looking weather. It was weird. You could see the rain coming from miles away. You would drive in and out of hard rain and into sunlight in the span of about 30 seconds. The expansive skies were truly breathtaking, and the sunlight reflecting off the green fields next to the billowing blue clouds created a striking visual effect.

Arrived in Dickinson around 5:45 pm. Checked into the “MyPlace” hotel (that I booked through AirBnB). It is a working man's hotel…literally lots of men that you can tell work on the roads. But it is clean and well managed. We had a Brown Butter Lentil Sweet Potato salad and Napa Cabbage salad which I made the day before we left. It was pretty tasty. We were a little numb from the long drive, I had a plastic mug of white wine from a box that initially tasted a little weird but after a few swallows was fine.  Jim wanted to watch the NBA game so we went to a brew pub near the college in town called Phat Fish. It was a large cavernous micro brewery. We had a beer and fried ravioli which was mediocre to gross. 

JAMES: Wanted to catch the end of the Knicks-Spurs Game 4 of the NBA Finals. When we first arrived at the hotel, the Knicks were down by 29 and looked dead. When we got to Phat Fish for the second half, I was kind of half paying attention to the game, assuming that it was essentially over. Phat Fish is a huge place but not many people were there. There were several TV’s on the walls but only two showing the game. Gradually the Knicks started chipping away at the lead and in an astonishing turn of events, tipped in a last second shot to overcome the largest lead in the history of the NBA Finals to win by one. Wow!

SUSAN: When I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, I found a tick crawling on my neck! We did a body check of both of us and didn’t see anymore. (Of course, the following morning Jim had one on him, probably from the shirt he had on the day prior). 
Long day and we went to bed!

Day 1 --  539.6 miles driven!