Adventures in North Dakota

Earlier this month we took my Mom along to visit my brother and his family in Detroit Lakes MN. It was a fun, busy few days between two long days of driving and geocaching. Our geo mission was to add more ND counties. That wasn't too hard as we had only six prior to the trip. Mom was a good sport about our frequent stops, looking in trees, and driving through small out-of-the-way communities she/we may or may not have heard of before.

Sandy

World's Largest Sandhill Crane

40 feet tall, weighs 4.5 ton

Steele ND

a fun geocache in Detroit Lakes MN

a parking meter in a grove of trees

a saved steamboat in LaMoure ND

the Redwing was 1 of 3 pleasure steamboats 

on the James River in North Dakota in the early 1900s

wooden benches on either side under the windows

a rather small deck compared to the larger steamboat

pictured on the info board

traveled 16 miles per hour

used 1914-1916 when bridges and low water levels 

brought about the end of the excursion steamboats

after river use, the captain used the Redwing as

part of his living quarters

Hubby was working on the geo road trip to AZ, so I was given the task of selecting the ND geo road trip for the family visit. He added some and took away some of the caches and roads I had selected. The following one had not made his list, but it was on mine. I happened to see the road sign for Prairie Bells and remembered reading about this unusual landmark. I was driving, so I made a U-turn on the highway and headed onto the gravel road to see the Prairie Bells.

Prairie Bells and Shrine

only one of the five bells was ring-able

ropes were off their tracks on the others

sculpture in the shrine

on a hilltop between farms

almost the middle of nowhere

near Linton ND

Mom helped look for the cache

Luckily, I had cell service at the top of the hill and we were able to read the info and get the location for the geocache. Geocaching made it a fun and interesting trip for all 3 of us and added seven more counties to the ND geo map.