|
|
TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
|
|
“After waking Joe from his mid morning passenger nap...” |
The next morning we enjoyed breakfast at Lill’s a local café in downtown Jamestown only after visiting the Walz’s Pharmacy. We spotted the pharmacy as one the self-guided tour stops along the Louise L’Amour Route. Louise L’Amour’s over 120 western titles depict the life and hard times of the folks who settled and survived the west in the 1800’s and sparked the joy of reading into many peoples lives including Joe’s. The pharmacy was part of the route because of the murals along the walls that depict some of Louis’s novels along with shelves and shelves of L’Amour books for sale. The pharmacy was owned at one time by a man named Reese Hawkins who was a “close personal friend” of Louis L’Amour. Reese has carried on the L’Amour name and has written books of his own about his close friendship with the author. He can also be found in the Louis L’Amour Writers Shack in Pioneer Village for book signings during the week. The pharmacy also displayed a hall of fame containing some of the famous people who have come out of North Dakota; Johnny Carson, Angie Dickinson, Barbara McClintock the children’s author, and baseball legend Roger Maris to name a few.
After circling the town and grabbing a few last minutes shots and some gas we were on our way east to Medina. Medina is a spot along Interstate 94 between Jamestown and Bismarck that is home to one of the largest migration areas in the US. This expansive birding area is scattered amongst the rolling and rural farm lands. After waking Joe from his mid morning passenger nap, we retrieved a map of the driving route for the help-yourself visitor center in Medina. These routes would take us from wetland site to wetland site. We found the term map to be used very lightly as it only gave direction of east, west, north, and south along with the miles in-between each turn. On gravel, unpaved roads with no signs along the way to help us navigate, it was a good thing that Joe is a walking GPS system and can find his way anywhere. At Chase Lake the birding sights we spotted flocks of hundreds of white pelicans, Seeing these birds in the middle of all this vastness is a special thing to witness and makes me appreciate the hidden treasures still to be found on the unpaved roads of life. The route provided by us from Medina was rather long though so we decided to move our journey along. The challenge was finding our way out of the maze of farmland and twisting roads that never stopped, curving, going off in the opposite direction we wanted to go or just ending all together. After driving for what seemed forever we found signs of life and pulled along side a house with someone out front. The man who lived there told us to just “follow the curves” and we would find our way back out to the highway. Another 15 minutes of curves and don’t you know, we found our selves on I-94. The bad news was the poor tires on this Dodge Neon had had enough and one blew out just as we ended our search for the highway. From I-94 Joe put the spare on while I made arrangements for a replacement tire to be put on back in Bismarck. We would be arriving back in the Bismarck area within the hour but dispite this momentary setback we still needed to locate the World's Largest Sandhill Crane. So it was off to the farming community of Steele and capture this beauty for our scrapbook memories. Sandy was built as a tribute to the birding route and migration path in the area. We stopped in Steele to see her, laugh about seeing yet another World's Largest... and then headed on to Bismarck for a pit stop.
previous travel blog entry
Would you like to comment or ask a question?
Sign up for a free account, or sign in (if you're already a member).