Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park

 

Our next stop was just an overnight along the way at Brown County Fairgrounds in Aberdeen, South Dakota.  This fairgrounds has over 1000 RV spots, in three different campgrounds -- and I think there were a total of 7 campers there along with us.  This is much more to my liking than the noisy, crowded KOA of the two previous nights!  But only because we were there when nothing else was going on.  Apparently, the Brown County Fair is actually bigger than the South Dakota State Fair! 

The best campground view -- nobody in sight!

Yup, that's the sun.  Canadian wildfire air quality issues.

Our next stop was Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park.  This, again, was a relatively random stop based on how much travel we (and by "we" I mean "Doug" since he does all the driving) wanted to do in a day.  We had no interest in this park beyond that, yet it turned out to be one of the most thought-provoking experiences of the year.

Fort Abraham Lincoln is near Mandan, North Dakota, across the Missouri River from Bismarck.  In addition to a lovely and large campground along the river, the park is home to "On-a-Slope Village," a re-creation of the extensive earthen shelters created by the Mandan indigenous peoples.  There's a great little visitor's center with interpretive exhibits on this, as well.  

Fort Abraham Lincoln came later, after the Mandan had already left the area.  Home to both US Cavalry and Infantry Companies, several buildings have been reconstructed and lovingly staged, including cavalry stables and bunkhouse, the commissary, infantry watch towers and, my favorite, the house in which General Custer and his wife, Libby, lived.  Custer was commander at Fort Abraham Lincoln at the time of his death.  Apparently, there are many photographs of the interior of the house and the restoration is incredibly faithful to those; it is just beautifully done.  It felt as though the family had just stepped away for a bit -- I can't recall another similarly staged re-creation that felt so authentic.  Many of the furniture pieces and even some of the draperies were original, carefully stored all those years after Custer's death and Libby's return East.  

We paid $5 to take the guided tour, which was worth several times that.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and very impartial; if he thought Custer was a hero or a villain, he didn't let on.   It was surprisingly difficult to learn that a) there are guided tours of both Custer House and of the On-A-Slope Village and b) what time those tours take place.  In retrospect, I wish we'd allocated more time here than we did; there was much we didn't get to explore.

I vaguely knew that Libby Custer was born in the same town as me, Monroe, Michigan, but not that she met George because he was sent there to school.  I have not thought of Monroe as some kind of 19th-century educational Mecca and now need to research that idea! 

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

 From Council Bluffs, we headed north to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Our dear friend, Pat Greenley, had encouraged us to visit there, as she and her husband, Don, had loved it so much, especially the sculptures in the downtown area.  Our plans included visited the falls, the sculptures and maybe even getting together with a friend for some nosework practice.

We checked into a KOA Campground on the north side of town and ran into our first mechanical issue for the trip.  After we unhooked the Jeep, we found out the battery was dead.  When you are towing, there is a small draw on the battery for illuminating the break lights, mostly.  We'd learned on our trip back to Arizona from Oregon last October, when Doug was driving for long hours each day in an effort to outrun some snowstorms in the mountains that towing for a long time without starting the car to recharge the battery could result in a dead battery.  This time, however, the car had only been towed a couple of hours... it seemed likely that the car needed a new battery.  (Don't ask Doug about the battery or the rather unorthodox dealer practices that surrounded its original purchase; it's a very sore subject!)  

So other plans were put on hold and, once Doug found a good Samaritan at the campground office to jump the car, he headed off to buy a new battery and install it.  That pushed grocery shopping and other errands to the next day, so we had less time to spend than we had wanted.

We did get to visit the falls, which is a wonderful area; on this Tuesday, it was chock full of families and other tourists like us, enjoying the unusual terrain, the historic exhibits and the big open park.  And we did visit downtown, although we couldn't find a sculpture map and were unable to find some of Pat and Don's favorite sculptures.

This is only our fourth mechanical issue ever, so we've been very fortunate and it's not like it was anything drastic.  But the traffic noise in the KOA was very loud (foreshadowing, unfortunately!) and, over all, I felt like this wasn't a particularly successful stop. 

The Falls (and a finger, sigh!)

It's a beautiful park and very large

Monarchs of the Plains?

One of the downtown sculptures

A gorgeous piece of glass that was incorporated into one of the sculptures

I just like representational art.  So there.

 

Three days of UKC Nosework in Council Bluffs

This post is all about a nosework trial.  If you don't have any interest in that, I'd suggest skipping on to the next entry.  It explains UKC nosework, so if you're a UKC competitor, it's probably a lot of "you already know this." 

So Long, Eastern Iowa

 The one big drawback to camping in Amana was that it's about 40 minutes away from most anything we wanted to do in Cedar Rapids, whether that was a dog training class or visiting with friends.  Doug returned to central Iowa on several days to work on the EJ&K Railroad there, and I was too far away for anyone to want to drop in.  The problem is that there's only one reservable campground close to Cedar Rapids, Wanatee Park, and even if we had set our plans sooner when sites were available, there is a limit of 14 days out of any 21 to stay at the county campgrounds.  

But we did finish out our Cedar Rapids stay at Wanatee, moving north on May 30.  The next week was a whirlwind of get-togethers with friends, a chance to visit at the new Marion Library with our old Therapy Dog group, and a two-day UKC Nosework Trial where Gabe and Ziva and I had loads of fun that was only slightly tempered by an unexpected attack of atrial fibrillation (and some pretty hot and humid conditions).  

Campsite A13 at Wanatee County Park Campground

Erin Kleinow made noseprint cookies for the trial, so cute (and delicious!)

Rural Benton County, Iowa, on the way to the Nosework Trial.  Can you see the doe glaring at me?

Saturday Trial Lunch Break.  The Trial Secretary brought the food and it was SO good! 

Gabe was a good boy and completed his UKC Elite Exteriors and Elite Vehicles element titles.

Ziva was her usual fabulous self and picked up 11 Grand Champion legs

We imposed on Pat Kramer one last time to do laundry and enjoy her homemade pizza.  She and I hosted a really nice Elite/Master/NW3/Detective Nosework workout despite the fact that anything that could go wrong did.  I will miss that practice group a lot!

On June 6, we took the motorhome up to Independence and moochdocked with our dear friend, Pat Greenley and her faithful companion, Trooper.  We had such a great time, sitting on the screened porch and catching up.  The dogs and we were so tickled when Pat joined us for breakfast the next morning in her tartan flannel jammies.  We didn't get enough time together -- more next time! -- and she'll hopefully come to visit this winter, too. 

From there, we headed west for another Nosework trial, stopping in Anita (Hawkeye Marching Band friends, I miss you right now!) and staying at the State Park Campground.  It's a pretty campground, nicely terraced so everyone has a good view of the lake, although it can make the downhill side of the shoulder-less campground roads a little scary.  Not as scary as the grain truck drivers in town, though, who I thought were going to take off the side of the motorhome!  

June 7, 2023 -- the water lilies were in bloom!

Ziva noticed there wasn't as much goose poop as she expected

Our campsite -- all back-in sites

Mama robin was not thrilled to have us next door.  She huddled on her eggs through several hours of rain and was a very dedicated parent.