We visited our thirtieth state capitol in Bismark, North Dakota. The girls learned that the state bird of North Dakota is the Western Meadowlark, the state flower is the Wild Prarie Rose, and that North Dakota’s state nickname is the Flickertail State. They also learned that North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other state.
We attempted to stop overnight in the Walmart parking lot in Minot, but with 20+ mph winds and temperatures in the teens (before wind chill), we decided not to try to keep warm out in the open, and continued on to Bismark, stopping at a truck stop right off I-94 and making our own North Dakota windbreak by parking for the night between two tractor trailors. It worked quite well, actually!
We wanted to try to stop at the capitol building in Bismark before hitting the road this morning, but upon entering I-94 heading eastbound, and figuring out that we needed to go the opposite way, and the next exit and possible turnaround was 15 miles from where we got on, we decided to leave this capitol for the way back to Montana in the summer, when it’s above zero. So, we continue on, heading across North Dakota and south from there.
Given some family Christmas plan and visiting plan changes due to illness, and with a good weather outlook, we decided to head out a few days early. It was sad to leave our family in Montana, but we hope that they understand that however much we love them, we weren’t sad to leave the cold in Montana. So, we embark on our trip and head into the first state: North Dakota. I’m sure you all can guess how excited we are for North Dakota to be our first state, especially in the winter, but hopefully we can make it a quick and painless visit. We’ll post pictures of our first stop at the state capitol in Bismark as soon as we make it down there.
