Lewis, Clark, Welk, & Kevin
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Day 36: July 21, 2016 Lewis, Clark, Welk, & Kevin Comment via blog |
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I started today with a thirty mile drive north (i.e., away from home) to
visit Fort Mandan
and the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. Of course the fort is a
reproduction but drawings and descriptions of the original allow it to be
quite accurate in structure and dimensions. Significant guesswork and
plain old creativity was involved in setting up the individual room
interiors though they are certainly representative of of what once was.
The exact location of the original is unknown. When the reproduction was
built, it was thought to be located fairly close. However, more recent
discoveries indicate that the original was probably several miles away.
This concludes my unofficial quest for Corps of Discovery forts. They built three. The winter of 1803-04 was spent in preparation at Fort Dubois near Saint Louis. I visited there in 2004. The winter of 1804-1805 was spent here and the winter of 1805-06 was spent at Fort Clatsop near Astoria, Oregon. I was there in 2008. |
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The interpretive center is a couple of miles south of the fort. It is
fronted by twelve foot tall statues of Lewis and Clark meeting with Mandan
Chief Sheheke and filled with well done interactive displays.
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I didn't need this sign to know that
Lawrence Welk's birthplace was near by. I'd already
picked up on that via the Roadside America Garmin app and had it plugged
in as my next stop. The sign is on US-83. The Welk homestead is a couple
of gravel paved miles away. I figured the stop would yield a corny joke or
two but instead heard a pair of success stories. Ludwig and Christina Welk
were fleeing an oppressive Russia when they reached the end of the
railroad and bought a pair of oxen to reach this North Dakota homestead.
Lawrence may have been fleeing a less than happy childhood when he hit the
road with an accordion and little else. By all accounts he never looked
back after departing on his twenty-first birthday.
Of course, a failure to find laughs at the farm won't keep me from bringing up that Lawrence Welk show performance of a "modern gospel". Check out One Toke Over the Line. |
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Crossing a state line is an event worth reporting but it's not nearly as
cool as what I learned when I stopped here. Whenever I pull over, I
usually check my phone for messages, email, etc. I did that here and
found a Facebook notification with a long story behind it. Several months
ago I noticed a Facebook post from a former coworker saying that an
Alaskan cruise was planned for this summer. I saw no more (Which doesn't
mean there weren't any.) but was aware of a knee operation with on-going
recovery. I assumed the operation had scuttled the cruise. Then, two weeks
ago, Kevin commented on one of my Facebook posts from Anchorage saying
that he and his wife, Cheryl, would be in Alaska in a week. They were
doing a cruise that would be followed by a four day bus tour. They would
surely be in Anchorage. I didn't know exactly where they would stop and
couldn't have done much with the information if I did know. It was my last
day in Anchorage and I was at my last stop of the day, the Alaska Native
Heritage Center. That seemed like a place that might be included in a tour
so I scribbled "Hi Kevin" on a businessless card and looked
around for a place to hide it. I stuck it behind a sign near the entrance
and posted this picture with hints to help
find it if they even got there.
On the nineteenth I learned that they would in fact be visiting the Center but now I worried that the elements or a curious tourist had destroyed or removed the card. Nope. Shortly before my stop at the line between the Dakotas, Kevin had reached the Center and the sign and posted this picture. |
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I realize that a dome is generally wasted space and that domes and columns
cost money. I really don't want to criticize North Dakota for being
practical and conservative with taxpayer money but the truth is that the
South Dakota capitol in Pierre clearly looks the part while the one in
Bismarck could be any space-for-rent office building.
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