PORCH PONDERINGS

A Journey to Bismarck by way of Ft. Sauerkraut

Today we are on a journey. A journey to Bismarck, North Dakota. And why you ask? Seems hubby ordered doors from a company here for our closet in the bedroom we remodeled. Those doors are finally at the hardware store and ready to come home. So we come to take them to their final resting place.

The day was sunny and bright. Blue skies all the way. No snow, thanks be to God since we are pulling a trailer. It took just about 6 hours to get here. Not bad. We stopped twice for gas and potty and once for food. Finally we made it to Bismarck and our room for the night. Ramada had a room for $75, which we thought was reasonable. It has a pool, free breakfast, free WiFi but for some unknown reason there are 2 TVs in this room.
At first neither worked, so the person at the front desk explained the magic and I got one to work. But no sound. I was irritated and finally decided, fine, no TV tonight. No big deal. I would rather internet instead.

So the capitol of North Dakota is Bismarck. Did you know that? It is on the Missouri River. 2nd in population after Fargo, remember that crazy movie?
Bismarck was renamed by the Northern Pacific Railroad to entice German settlers, since they knew the name. Otto von Bismarck, a German politician.

We had dinner at a little steak and seafood place across the parking lot. Great food, called The 40. Wonderful steaks. Actually too much food for us this late at night, but darn it, we deserved a reward for that long journey - fighting the enemy all those 600 miles over that rough trail, whipping those horses, watching for bandits.

Along the way I made note of some fun sights:
truck after truck full of sugar beets headed toward Billings and the sugar beet plant
a large herd of antelope
Bad Route Road - where does that lead
Cracker Box Road - hmmmm
Whoopup Creek Road - wonder what happened there
Home on the Range - name of an exit - is this a town? a road?
Camel Hump Lake - Ha!
Enchanted Highway - oh don't we wish!
Hebron - site of Fort Sauerkraut - great name - and of course, I found a link on the internet: https://everything2.com/title/Fort+Sauerkraut

We crossed from the Mountain time zone to the Central time zone. On the North Dakota map, the time zone skips around. Curious. What if your house is in two time zones? Could this be a thing? What if your town is?

Okay, for now, I have to figure out what time I am prescribed to go to bed tonight. Central time or Mountain time. So confusing. My brain is tired, perhaps I'll just be like the pioneers and sleep when it's dark and be awake with the roosters.