Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

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roosevelt had a love of the land and did a heroic job of protecting it. when he lost his wife at a young age, he took solace in the badlands. its been said that time spent there, helped him when he became president.

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this is a very recognizable picture of him on a horse with a shotgun.

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this horse is made of strips of wood

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i guess this is what he hunted

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lorita gave me a lot of these old entrance maps she had when she moved. they sill give you an updated one as you enter. it shows facts and things of interest and the map is on the other side.

this is the one what you get now.

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yes we did see the ceiling tracy. it’s like pinnacle pete’s in phoenix with cut off ties and business cards.

we stayed that night in madora and headed for billings montana the next day. it seemed like we drove all day. we ate at the cracker barrel in billings for dinner, the catfish was as good as ever. we stayed in the parking lot that night. this morning we drove to cody, wyoming stopping at a campground early. we will leisurely drive through yellowstone and the grand tetons tomorrow. stopping only to take pictures.

glad to have you aboard javie.

i’d love for all of you to stay tuned

💗jilly

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or as they call it hereTRND

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it was a beautiful day to see such beauty. and there was much of it to see. since they have raised the prices into national parks, the entrance fee is now $30. but since we have our senior pass, we get in free.

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the visitor center was very informative about teddy roosevelt had a hand in getting this park preserved. it is similar to the badlands but with trees.

i hope some of these pictures turn out and you can read some of the commentary. the horse is made out of strips of wood

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in the great hall there were these 5 flags. luckily they had a explanation sheet handy.

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here are the interesting facts of their different tribes flag.

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on the capital grounds there was a large statue of sakakawa. we should all know about her, if only from the movie ’ night at the museum’.

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also a much smaller buffalo stateue

then we went to the visitor center. they have this special thing they only do for special visitors, like us. any guesses? while we were waiting i bought a few souvenirs. this was of the nicest visitor’s centers iv’e seen. i got you something amy. any guesses

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well here it is….. i hope you get a kick out of it.

if you go to the bismarks visitors center facebook page it should be there too.

we had so much fun with the lady who took the picture. we told her the story of the putting fingers in noses and asked if we were gentle – could we? of course.

they only started doing this a couple of years ago because they kept hearing from visitors, this is my 50th state to visit. and then they would reply, ”you saved the best for last”!!
then we had to exlpain we had already been through 4 times but it was to see mt. rushmore on the way east. but being it was our last capital we qualified.

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we got on the road and ended up staying in a cracker barrel parking lot just out of bismark. we had taken our showers ray, and were good for another 4or5 days😉 we had the worst service and worst meal we have gotten at a cracker barrel ever. we ended up getting our meals free after jerry found a chicken bone in his chicken pot pie.

we made it to medora yesterday and found a nice campground, similar to the grand forks one.

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jerry always finds a dog and people to talk to.

we went through theodore roosevelt national park today. i hope my pictures do it justice.

tonight we are going to a new show titled ‘ring of fire’ about johnny cash. the madora musical has ended it’s 56th season tracy, so we couldn’t see it. this one is in the enclosed theater.

so once again stay tuned

💗jilly

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🌬i look at the clouds a lot on our travels. i can see something in them most of the time. but by the time i get the tablet up and focus it’s gone. i almost saw a face in that center cloud. and i guess google photos saw it too, it put it’s little focus square right on it. we also see these old vehicles in yards and fields everywhere. it seems they just sit there and rot.

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here is the roadside attraction. jamestown, nd. claim to fame, the worlds largest buffalo monument. 26 feet high-14 feet wide-46 feet long-and weighs 60 tons. his name is ‘thunder’. we did not walk down there.

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we got to our 50th capital yesterday. i’m so happy and proud to achieve that dream of mine i’ve had for quite a while. thanks for getting us there jerry💗 this capitol was built in the thirties after the original building from the 1880’s burned down

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this is an interesting old photo of the laying of the cornerstone of the new capital. the dakotas have a lot of indian reservation territories in their states.

They used a lot of wood and white marble. there were a lot of rounded corners.

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The building is 19 floors high and there is an observation deck that is open to the public.

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a lot of state department offices are in all those floors, so there was a very nice cafe to feed them. we think this is the first time eating in a capital.

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when we got our official stamp on a postcard, the nicest lady said we should visit the ’convention and visitors center’. they had something we might like.

stay tuned to see what it was

💗jilly

ps- the trees were ash rosemary

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