A Tour of North Dakota - the "Rough Rider" State

Back in October we took a trip to North Dakota, which is America's least visited state. It is kind of out of the way - you don't just happen to pass through, you have to specifically plan a trip to go there. We saw an airfare deal to Fargo, so we jumped on the chance to visit Paul's 49th state and David's 42nd state.

The headliner attraction in North Dakota is Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Beyond that it wasn't immediately obvious where else to visit. The North Dakota Department of Commerce sent us a plethora of brochures, including information on the world's largest catfish. While that was an enticing option, we opted instead to try to explore as much of the state as possible. So we got a rental car and hit the open road, driving about 1,000 miles total.

Our  driving route

We started in Fargo, which is a cute little city. It has a surprisingly active downtown. We had some dinner and beers and walked around for a bit, enjoying the nice evening weather. Fargo is a nice urban counterpoint to the rural nature of the rest of the state.



Downtown Fargo

Some local beer in downtown Fargo

It was a little rainy, but then it cleared up for a great sunset

The next day we hopped in the rental car and set out to the West on the first leg of our journey. Most of the state is farmland and gently rolling hills. It's actually quite attractive and very bucolic. We would occasionally leave the interstate to explore some of the country roads and small towns. It was amazingly quiet. North Dakota is the 4th least dense state (only Alaska, Wyoming, and Montana have fewer people per square mile). It was interesting to stumble upon scenic farms, dirt roads, and rusty old Ford pickup trucks. Oh, and the world's largest buffalo statue. Obviously.

Typical North Dakotan landscape

Just going for a short walk in rural North Dakota

Wheeeeeee

Paul rode a buffalo!

David with the world's largest buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota

We stopped for lunch in Bismarck, the state capital. We drove around town a bit and visited the capitol building, which is quite unique. Unlike most neo-classical domed state buildings, this was an art deco skyscraper. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside, and the state museum was also mostly closed for a major renovation. Bismarck as a city isn't very exciting, but it's worth a brief stop, and the plans for the expanded museum sound interesting.

Fleischkuechle at Kroll's Diner. It's a Russian/German immigrant dish that is popular in North Dakota.

Art Deco North Dakota capitol building

Continuing our journey west, we stopped by the town of New Salem, 30 miles from Bismarck. Not to be outdone by the giant buffalo in Jamestown, New Salem features "Salem Sue," the world's largest Holstein cow. At 38ft tall and 50ft long, Sue is one voluptuous fiberglass bovine. Kitschy Americana at its best! The weather for this part of the trip was fantastic. Sunny, brilliant blue skies, and slightly chilly. Perfect fall weather, and a nice escape from the continuing warm weather in Atlanta.

We took a slight detour after seeing a sign for "Fort Sauerkraut," and ended up getting stuck in the mud. After some pushing, a few tense moments, a pair of extremely muddy shoes, and a torn sweater (David's favorite) we made it back to the main road. We never did find the Fort! But we did find a car wash and a new pair of shoes for David at a JCPenney in Dickinson.

Salem Sue, the world's largest Holstein cow

Scenic farmscape

A nice little side road. What could possibly go wrong?

Just before reaching the cute little tourist town of Medora, there's a scenic overlook along the interstate that's a bit separate from the rest of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We stopped to check out the view, but unfortunately the entrance gate was closed due to the government shutdown that was occurring at the time. But it was easy enough to park our car, slip through the gate, and check out the view. There was one other couple doing the same. It was actually pretty neat to be at a basically deserted national park. Sunset over the badlands was breathtaking.

The two other people at the park took this picture for us. I guess we're at "ODORE EVELT" National Park.

Government shutdown can't stop interpretation of interpretive signs

The North Dakota badlands

Prairie grasses and badlands at sunset

We continued on to Medora, arriving at Rough Riders Hotel just before dusk. The hotel was originally built in 1884, and named after Roosevelt's Rough Riders (the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry) and their service in the Spanish-American War. We were able to book the exact room that President Roosevelt stayed in. Yay for history! The room also had an adorable eponymous Teddy bear. Of course we bought him, and he now sits in our living room.

The town of Medora is neat. While certainly a tourist town, it's positioned dramatically next to the hills and bluffs at the entrance to the National Park. The buildings maintain a strict wooden "old west" aesthetic, and just manage to avoid being cheesy or Disney-esque. Because we visited in the off season and during a government shutdown, the town was pretty quiet. It's probably hopping in the summer, when hotel prices peak and the National Park gets crowded. Most of the staff at the hotel and restaurants in town were foreign workers, which was pretty interesting. We think our bartender at the hotel bar was from Russia and our waitress at a restaurant in town was from Vietnam. I guess it's hard to attract enough people to live here permanently!

We spotted a mule deer as we approached Medora

Our historic hotel. Our room is the window just above the sign!

Presidential suite... literally!

A local beer at Theodore's bar in Medora

A few more drinks with dinner in Medora

We woke up early the next day and took a driving tour around part of the National Park. Because part of the loop road is a through road, it was still technically open. The gate was half closed, with a big sign indicating through traffic only. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, including wild horses and lots of prairie dogs and bison. The landscape is beautiful, with rocky hills and badland canyons. It was sunny but cold, so there was a gorgeous layer of frost on the ground, and even on some of the buffaloes. We only saw a few other cars the entire time. It was surreal to be in a National Park that was so deserted.  Unfortunately, since it was a shutdown, we weren't able to hike any trails or get out and really enjoy the majority of the park.

We're local through traffic, right?

Prairie dog on the road! We saw a ton of these guys.

Buffalo on the road!

It was still really cold in the morning

Baby buffalo

A 1,500 pound buffalo is a few feet away from us. Stay calm.

Just relaxing on a sunny fall morning

Because we knew we would have limited access to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, we searched for a nearby park for afternoon hiking. We chose Makoshika State Park, about an hour away in Glendive, Montana. It turned out to be a good decision - it was a beautiful park with a lot of neat rock formations and a fun hiking trail. It was also David's first time to Montana. Bonus state (#43)!


America's 4th largest state!

Interesting advertisement for Montana

Neat formations at Makoshika State Park

A natural land bridge

Fun layers

In the late afternoon we drove back into northwest North Dakota. This area is one of the fastest growing areas in the country because of the Bakken shale formation. Technological advances allow hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to release oil from the rock. This lead to an economic boom, with the town of Williston at the epicenter. The small city has grown rapidly, and has an unemployment rate of under 1%. But the town is pretty much a disaster. Heavy machinery and trucks clog the streets, new developments are ugly and scattershot with no connectivity, a housing shortage means a lot of people have to live in hotels and makeshift trailers, men outnumber women 10 to 1, and the landscape is dotted with industrial structures and oil well flare stacks. It's a carbon economy cautionary tale if there ever was one. We ended the day in the city of Minot, in the North Central part of the state.  Fun fact about Minot; there are no doughnut shops!  (>_<)

Welcome back to North Dakota!

In the museum at the Missouri-Yellowstone confluence

We did find a place with local beer and pizza in Williston!

The industrial landscape around Williston. Ugly contrast to the rest of the state.

On our final day in North Dakota, we drove past the Geographical Center of North America in Rugby on our way to Grand Forks, continuing on to Fargo. Most of this day was spent just staring at dull farmland along the highway. Overall, the northern route back to Fargo was much less exciting than the southern route, with fewer interesting things to see along the way (no giant roadside fiberglass cows).

We made a quick stop-off in Grand Forks, North Dakota's 2nd largest city, to check out the downtown and buy some local candy. Paul went into Ralph Englestad Arena, home of University of North Dakota hockey. It's definitely the fanciest college hockey arena, with a price-tag of $104 million. Grand Forks was cute, but smelled like a farm.  Maybe it was just bad luck with the wind direction.

When we got back to Fargo we still had a few hours to spare before we needed to head to the airport. We visited the Hjemkomst Center, across the Red River in Moorhead, Minnesota. This center is a museum and interpretive facility dedicated to Nordic culture, which made a strong mark on this region of North Dakota/Minnesota thanks to a wave of immigration in the late 1800s. Today one in three North Dakotans has Norwegian heritage. The facility hosts the impressive Hjemkomst ship. The ship is a replica of a viking vessel and was sailed from Minnesota to Norway in 1982 to prove that Vikings could have reached North America with the technology they had available. There's also a very impressive recreation of a Nordic wooden stave church.

Our last stop was the Fargo Visitor's Center, where we got our picture taken with the woodchipper from the movie Fargo.

On our last day it was cold and raining and generally unpleasant... but hey, we're in the center of North America!

"The Ralph"

The gift shop was good preparation for our trip to Sweden a few months later

Hjemkomst Stave church 

Inside of the church

Hjemkomst Viking ship and the museum's roof (built specifically to cover the ship)

The wood chipper from Fargo!

We had a fantastic time exploring North Dakota. While there may not seem to be any obvious major tourist draws, that's part of the charm. Our road trip was unhurried, full of discoveries and plenty of opportunities to pull over and enjoy the scenery or check out a small town. We both love little road trips like this and look forward to discovering some more of America's least-visited states in the future (South Dakota and Idaho we're looking at you!).