Midwest Road Trip - Part Two - Bismarck, ND to Park Rapids, MN

Day 3 - Bismarck to GF, TRF, PR

 Tuesday morning I left Fort Lincoln I found my way back to interstate 90 and cruised east towards Jamestown, ND.  It was about a 90 minute drive to get there.  Jamestown has the world's largest "Buffalo" (Bison).  It's quite a big statue that you can easily see from the interstate.  We stopped here at least once during one of our trips to visit family in Boise.

 Here it is today, along with some of the nearby old west buildings.  I only saw one other car come up while I was there.  I snapped a few pictures, sent a selfie to Elisabeth, and then wound my way back to the interstate and continued eastward.

Dakota Farmland

Interstates are pretty boring to begin with and some of the stretches in North Dakota seem to be endless.  Luckily there are plenty of state highways that are less busy and more scenic.  Twenty miles out of Jamestown I found the exit for ND state highway 1 and turned north.  I kind of zig-zagged my way through eastern North Dakota making my way up to Grand Forks AFB.  I took these shots of the highway to show how much traffic there is out here…not very much.  Eastern ND seems to be all about agriculture.  It's mostly flat farmland with an occasional farm town, or a grain silo, or a John Deere dealership near an intersection or junction.  You can buzz along with your thoughts and not be interrupted very often.  I really liked being out in the middle of nowhere.  The "helmet time" on drives like this can really be relaxing and zen-like.

 Grand Forks AFB

 After a few hours of navigating through remote farmland I arrived at the main gate to Grand Forks AFB.  I didn’t want on the base, but I wanted to get to our old housing area which was across the street from the base.  I knew from snooping on Google Maps that this had been demolished a long time ago.  There used to be a small neighborhood here with 20 or so apartment buildings for military members and their families.  Each building had six 2-story apartments side-by-side with one big common garage underneath it which also served as a tornado shelter.  Every dwelling in North Dakota has to have a basement of some sort to hide from storms and tornadoes.  We used to get thunderstorm watches and warnings quite frequently and had to wait out a couple of tornado watches down in the garage while we lived here.  I remember everyone from our building gathering in the basement and hanging out one night until it was safe enough to go back upstairs. Someone had a radio, others would bring grills down and cook food. It was almost fun sometimes.  Well, all that's gone now, and here's what it looks like today.

Panorama of the entrance to the housing area. The buildings are long gone.

After my stop here I headed east to Grand Forks which was only about 10 minutes away. Grand Forks is a small town still.  We used to drive from Thief River Falls to Grand Forks to go to church every week.  I don't really have much memory of this place other than going to church and the couple friends I had there. One friend and I would skip church (because, why not) and go play video games at the nearby gas station. We both had newspaper routes which means we always had pocket money. We dumped lots of quarters into the Contra video game wearing our Sunday Best at that gas station.  Today I found a different gas station. I fueled up, scraped the bugs off the windshield, and headed towards Thief River Falls.

 Thief River Falls

This picture is along the drive between GF and TRF.  As a family we drove this every week to Grand Forks, weather permitting, to go to church. One time in the middle of winter we slid off the road somewhere along here.  The ditches are pretty shallow and were full of snow, which probably cushioned our impact.  No one was hurt and the van wasn't really damaged.  I don't remember how long it took, but eventually someone with a pickup or a tow truck came and pulled the van back onto the road.  We were shaken up but mom drove us the rest of the way home.  We went through a car wash to knock off the rest of the grime.

Luckily it was a pleasant drive today.

Alrighty, so we lived in TRF from 1985 to 1988.  That's ages 9-12 for me.  When Top Gun released and everyone became Tom Cruise fans I remember passing this gas station every weekend hoping that he really was the owner and the misspelling here was meant to trick people.  I don't think I ever went into this store but I fantasized that Tom was in there running the register. 

This is in a tiny town called St. Hilaire. From here it's just a few more miles north to Thief River Falls.

 Franklin Middle School

One of the things I wanted to do when I got to TRF was walk around the block where we lived and where I went to school.  On most days I walked to school because c'mon it's right there.  On days when it was especially cold or snowy out, like -10 F or so, we would get a ride to school. I remember hearing “Don’t you mess with my toot toot” on the radio. 

This school has a big swimming pool, which was great growing up.  We had swimming classes as part of gym class, and on the weekends they opened it up to the public. Two bucks got you in all day.  Today I parked by the pool and took a stroll from there to our old house, and then around the school itself. There’s now a paved walking path between the school and our old house.  I grabbed these shots but didn't linger too long.

 These may not mean much to most people, but the grassy area had hockey rinks in the winter time that my sister and I would go skate on. We would explore and build little forts in the woods behind our place. We had some friends that had a 4 wheeler (just about everyone here has a 4 wheeler or a snowmobile) and we took turns riding it in this field in the winter time. This was our playground and it was fun.

1235 Edgewood Dr

 I didn't get any of my own pictures of our old house here.  I wanted to but thought better of it when I got closer.  It's currently either in a full remodel or it's just a big redneck mess.  All of the siding has been removed.  It looks like they're trying to build on some additions but they're incomplete.  There was clutter everywhere in the backyard.  I didn't feel like taking pictures of it.  Instead here's a top-down view of our neighborhood and the path I took today.

 Park Rapids, MN

After my reminiscent stroll around the school it was still early in the day.  I planned to try getting a campsite at Mantrap lake, which is also right next to Camp Wilderness.  One of my planned stops for this trip.  At this point I had slept in my truck one night, had a truck stop shower, and slept in my truck the second night.  I kind of really wanted a room tonight with a shower and a bed, so before I left the school parking lot I checked out what was available tonight in Park Rapids.  I found a decent room for a decent deal there at a Super 8 so I booked it. Actually I first booked a room for a month later, realized my mistake, canceled it and rebooked for tonight.  Luckily their website was phone-friendly and fixing that up wasn't much of a problem.  Off we go!

Here are some shots from the road on the way down.  Cruising these highways through Minnesota was really fun and relaxing.  There's hardly anyone else out there, and if you do encounter someone or if someone comes up behind you, they just pass you and continue on.  The roads are wide enough with great visibility that you just don't have long trains of cars all backed up behind some slow fart.  Highways 21 and 55 in Idaho suck serious ass by comparison.

 More than once I had to slow down for deer.  The fawns are out in force now and a lot of them still have their spots.  At one point a mother popped out of the trees on the right with one fawn right behind her. They darted across the road in front of me maybe 25 yards ahead.  I was already slowing down, but the second fawn bounded out of the trees, then hesitated about crossing the road at first… then changed his mind and decided to go for it to catch up with momma.  I was just about stopped and reaching for my camera, but all three were gone just as fast as they appeared.  It was cool to see, and after that I cruised a bit slower for the last 30 minutes or so to Park Rapids. 

Something else I remember vividly was the Book It buttons that my sister and I would fill up with stars so we could take it to the Pizza Hut in Thief River Falls for our free personal pizza. When I got to Park Rapids I spotted this Pizza Hut that boasted the dine-in area. I figured I’d relive this one too, but I bought a large pizza of course. I sent this pic to my sister while I waited for my pizza to share the memory.

I did eventually get a picture of some deer, but that will happen tomorrow in Lake Itasca State Park where the Mississippi River starts. Cheers!