Peanut's N.D. Post

Peanut's post about North Dakota in her own words:

"When we went to North Dakota we had to drive such a long way and on the way we saw this lightening. It just kept flashing across the sky. I wanted to get a picture of it but I couldn’t. There was a really nice Police Man and mom almost got a ticket but he just warned us not to drive so fast. All the people are so nice in North Dakota.

We got to stay in this really nice house. It's a Lodge or you can call it a B&B. They gave us a really nice dinner and even cleared our spaces for us! But me and Little Man and Doodle are used to clearing our own spaces at home and the people here were so surprised when we kept doing that! They served us cereal and waffles with choke cherry syrup. They have to pick TONS of berries just to get a little bit of syrup. I liked it only in moderation for dipping. They also gave us pizza and mac’n’cheese and cereal and they even had to drive 15 miles to town to get some apples for us but they had to drive to town anyway so it was okay. In North Dakota they don’t really eat fruits or vegetables very much.

We went on this golf cart drive and it was really hot. I feel that it is VERY hot and it’s fun and when I ride in a golf cart dust blows in my eyes so I have to squint my eyes. We went down this real cliff and got to climb this big mountain of dirt, but it was really steep and high and slippery. I climbed up it with no complaints. Mom never lets me do anything dangerous and I finally got to. We saw where the river used to be, but now there’s a dam so it’s far away now. Then we went on another tour and we went through this HUGE sprinkler that was more than 15 feet! It was really for watering the crops, but it seemed to be watering us in our golf cart! Then we went on another ride and we went to that river, the Missouri River, and it was completely covered with coal on the bottom. Some were huge and some were tiny. I got to bring some home.

One of my favorite things is this girl kitty named Bubbles. She’s 9 years old, and really lovey and when you pick her up she purrs. And there’s a tire swing, but the tire is carved out so it’s different. It’s hanging from a big tree. And they had a real -live gecko!

We went to this festival about the Native Americans here. They're called Hidatsa. There were all these animal skins with noses on them and we could try them on. Here are some of the names: bison, skunk, muskrat, black bear, wolf, beaver. They used all the parts of the buffalo because they were really respectful of animals. They used the hooves as a doorbell! They hung them all together on a leather string so it’d jingle when you moved it. They used buffalo skins for blankets and for these round boats. They’d go steal enemy horses so when the enemies wanted to come attack their tribes they couldn’t because they wouldn’t have any horses.

Besides hitting buffalo with bows and arrows or spears they also had this trick. One person would wear a buffalo skin and hide atop a cliff. The other tribesmen went around and started aiming at the buffalo with their spears. The scared buffalo would run toward the man wearing a buffalo skin to escape with his friend. The dressed up guy went and hid quickly and the buffalo thought he had run ahead, so he kept running and went right over the cliff and then broke all his legs. And that was a great trick they used.

We earned another Junior Ranger Badge. I’ve earned 4: Glacier Bay National Park, Kenai Fjords National Park, Glacier National Park and now the Knife River National Park.

I love my dad and tomorrow I get to see him after a long, long drive!