UPDATED

35 miles.

We got to Bismarck after going through our first rain of the entire trip! I got a hair cut!

our Warm Showers hosts, Ron and Joyce have been amazing and have kept us busy. Great meal and a tour of Bismarck including Fort Abraham Lincoln.

no wi fi so this will be short. Photos later.

on to Napoleon tomorrow.

We knew today would be short so slept in a bit  – we crossed into Central Daylight Time Zone (check out on a map where the dividing lines are between Mountain and Central zones and you’ll see they’re a bit crazy in North Dakota) and even though we reset our watches there was a glitch so the sleep-in was inadvertent. A little way outside of town we saw some nasty, dark clouds building up and could see the rain coming down to our left. We tried to outrun it but failed so had to stop and don our rain gear. The shower only lasted about 45 minutes and wasn’t  particularly heavy but we did get our shoes and heads wet. Then the sun came out for the rest of the day.

Ron and Joyce, our Warm Showers hosts, recommended that we stop at the North Dakota Heritage Center next to the State House. It is a great museum showcasing North Dakota history, dinosaur skeletons, a Native American wing and others. We learned, for instance that since the 2010 census, North Dakota is the fastest growing population state in the country. This is due in part to the workers associated with the Bakken Oil fields and that work has more or less stopped once the oil market collapsed. We also watched a fascinating video about chipping flint to make arrowheads.

Coming out of the center we were greeted by another line of dark clouds so beat a hasty path to Ron and Joyce’s house. They welcomed us in after taking our pictures for their album and fed us then drove us out to Fort Abraham Lincoln. This was the fort where Custer was stationed and from which he departed on his way to Little Big Horn. The fort sits high above the Missouri River and commands 360 degree views of the surrounding hills.  It is a little hard to imagine infantry and cavalry living there so far from the river and the city of Bismarck.

Ron also drove us to what is known in Bismarck as the Frank Lloyd Wright house. It certainly bears a Wrightian look from the prow to the fascia and the brick coursing but my web search of Wright houses says there are no buildings associated with Wright in North Dakota.  If anyone at Taliesin has an idea of the provenance of this house, let me know. You can tap on any of the photos to enlarge them to get a better view.

Tomorrow is a long day to Napoleon.