A little History in our lives.

Reluctantly, VERY reluctantly, we packed up and headed over to Fargo, North Dakota, and added another State to our list of states visited.

We had no previous knowledge of Fargo, I had seen that the Elks had a large parking lot and traveling Elks could park there. So off we went. The lodge was very welcoming and not only provided us with a free drink but pins and T Shirts too!

We set off to explore, Fargo appears to be a booming town with lots of new shopping centers and industry. They have several local Breweries and we sampled most of them! Fargo and Morehead are twin cities straddling the border between North Dakota and Minnesota, Morehead is home to a couple of very interesting Norwegian related objects. A Viking ship that was built by a local gentleman and sailed by his son's across the Atlantic to Norway, and a replica Stavkirk, the traditional Norwegian wooden church.

The Viking ship replica that sailed across the Atlantic

The Stavkirk

Fargo has an Air Museum but it was closed for most of our time there due to a special event. The website said it would reopen on Sunday but when we got there they were still working to clean up. One of the volunteers kindly opened the museum hanger for us and let us wander around for a couple of minutes.

Interior of the Stavkirk

All hand carved by one man

We were dry camping at the Elks and we've had a problem develop with our generator where it would fire up but die again. It got worse and now we couldn't recharge the batteries so we checked into a city campground for a night so we could get everything charged and dump our tanks.

The next day we did a dreary 200 miles of I94 which is dead straight and dead flat for most of the way. We took our customary break after 2 hours at Jamestown ND, which just happened to be the hometown of our friend from San Diego Loretta Armstrong. When she saw we were heading this was she told us we had to stop and see the giant Buffalo and the general store she used to hang around when she was younger. 

A 60 ton concrete Buffalo, well why not?

There was a Walmart to park at, a Tap House for lunch and the Buffalo was a mile down the road so we had good break. We bought some DVD's at a Goodwill and snacks at Dollar Tree too.

The day ended at the Bismarck Elks Lodge, again dry camping in a huge parking lot. The Lodge here is proud of it's bar. It dates from 1880 and such dignitaries as Teddy Roosevelt and Tom Mix have taken refreshment at it's counter during it's many travels around the Dakotas before it found it's present home in 1966.

http://bismanelks.com/around-the-club/tr-bar/the-story-behind-our-historic-roosevelt-bar/

Fiddling around with the generator and calling local stores to see if they had a fuel filter for it had me stumble on a free online Owners Manual for it. When I read the trouble shooting section they listed our condition, fires up but dies. Their corrective actions showed low oil as the first thing to check. And that was it! There is an oil pressure sensor and if the oil pressure doesn't get up to spec in a couple of seconds it kills the ignition. When I added about a pint of oil it ran just fine! DUHHH.

The generator, works great when you add oil!

Bismarck and Mandan are “Adjoined” towns. (like Minneapolis/St Paul). Mandan is also the name of the Native American Tribe in the area. Thru this area runs the Lewis and Clark Trail.

Mandan winter house

So where am I going with this??

Life is full of circles and coincidences.

When we moved to San Diego in 2006 it was to work on a new class of supply ships for the US Navy the T-AKE class. Classes of ships are named after the first ship in that class,

USNS Lewis and Clark

The first ship in the T-AKE class? USNS Lewis and Clark!

The second ship? USNS Sacagawea

OK here's where I have to address US History for our European friends and relatives.

In 1803 Thomas Jefferson, the President at that time cut a deal with Napoleon the French Emperor to buy the “Louisiana Territory”. This Territory wasn't just the current State of Louisiana however, It included just about all of the current USA west of the Mississippi!

https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/louisiana-purchase

In order to explore this vast new territory and to find a way cross country to the Pacific Jefferson organized an expedition named the Corps of discovery led by 2 army captains. Merriweather Lewis and William Clark.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition set off from St Louis Missouri and followed the Missouri River by boat and on foot until the winter got near.

https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/lewis-and-clark

They met a band of friendly Indians the Mandan's who helped feed them thru the winter.

Charbonneau, Lewis and Clark

The Expedition hired a French hunter trapper Toussaint Charbonneau. He had an Indian wife who was related to several other tribes along their prospective path and spoke several native languages, her name was Sacagawea.

The ships in the T-AKE class were named after Americans who were first in their field. Hence Lewis and Clark. The legend of Sacagawea taking the lead and translated for that expedition led to the second ship being named for her.

So there is the circle, my working life in shipbuilding, the move to San Diego, and our arrival in Bismarck/ Mandan with it's connections to Lewis and Clark.

Naturally we had to visit Fort Mandan, which is a recreation of the expeditions winter quarters, and to the Mandan Village National Monument.

Entrance to Fort Mandan

With so many coincidences and links going in, it was hardly surprising that when we got to the village there was a special event for school children going on and we were welcomed by the rangers and told to join in wherever we wanted.

Although Tipi's are associated with Indians, the Mandan didn't use them

Beautiful artwork on Buffalo hide.

As we made to leave I spotted a gentleman in Native Dress and we walked over to talk to him. He turned out to be Keith Bear a flute maker, player and songwriter of renown who has played with orchestras all over the world and has been nominated for a Grammy! We were treated to a talk about his flutes and songs and a sampling of his beautiful music.

Keith Bear

https://www.last.fm/music/Keith+Bear