First weekend in Bismarck - Day 680 (Yr 2, Day 335)

Bismarck, ND

As of Friday, the team pretty much got on track.  MDU (Montana-Dakota Utilities) is closed on Fridays, so Mitch will be working 10 hour days, 4 days a week.  I guess having a 3 day weekend (at least for him) is a good thing so he has an extra day to catch up on his sleep.

Thursday night we did go out for dinner with Bill & Phyllis; a very lovely couple with a lot of interesting stories.  They have a s&b house in MO and only travel/work 6 months. We went to Paradisio - a Mexican place that had a LOT of vegetarian options, including faux steak & chicken strips for the fajitas!  It's next door to a Hawaiian/Sushi/Thai restaurant. We'll have to try that some time -- sounds interesting. We haven't really figured out the food culture here yet.  Someone told me German, but I haven't seen any German restaurants.  So far, mostly the "big box" chains.  Interestingly, there are quite a few bagel places which have pretty decent bagels.  Ok, still not NY bagels, but not half bad.

On Friday afternoon (Mitch had 1/2 day - see above), we ventured out to Walmart to shop and were pleasantly pleased to see that they had a fairly decent selection of our faux meat products, as well as a nice and well priced produce department.  As much as we hate patronizing Walmart, unfortunately it seems to be the only place so far that has what we need. There's a Sam's Club nearby which may also have those products, but we really don't have the space to buy in bulk.  We also haven't discovered a state farmer's market, although during the summer there will be plenty of local (tail gate) ones.

The weather had been pretty miserable and very cold until Sunday, when it finally broke 60 degrees and the sun came out.  Today it is about 70 and will go up to 80 by Thursday.  There's always a wind which makes it bearable.

Friday night Shabbat was quiet and pleasant as always, with a special dinner and "converting" the dining room and kitchen.  Candle lighting wasn't until 9:00, but we started an hour earlier; 8:00 is late enough!  Here is a photo taken outside last night at 9:15 pm, which is our bed time!  Hard to go to bed when it's still light out.

 We did a little extra Torah study beforehand to "get in the mood," and a tradition I'd like to keep (actually, it involved watching some great videos on Alephbeta.org).  On Saturday, we forced ourselves to get up at our normal Shabbat time (8:30), have cold cereal for breakfast, get dressed in somewhat nice clothes and say our prayers at the time we would have gone to shul. We then took a walk, had a nice lunch, took our weekly nap, then spent the rest of the day reading or walking around the campground.  In fact, we walked to the other side and discovered a much larger, better equipped playground.  I didn't get the swings into the picture, but when we went out on Saturday, we both swung on the swings!  I had some fun, but Mitch was too tall for them!

Another photo of the park.  It's a nice place to walk around.  All the trees are in spring bloom.

Even got a photo of a western meadowlark, although it's too far away so you can't really see the bright yellow:

There are also a lot of lilac bushes all over the property.  Some of them are in bloom, but it'll be nice when they all are.  Imagine the scent!  The color is much more vibrant than in the photo.

On Sunday, the plan was to explore the downtown area in a spontaneous way -- just drive to the general vicinity, following the skyline for direction (see photo below) and just seeing what was in the area. 

View of skyline from the campground (about 5 miles away):

En route, we passed a large classic car show at the Elks Lodge, so we decided to stop in and take a look.  This was my favorite license plate and one of my favorite cars (1940s Bel Aire), although I also love the 1920-30 Fords.

For one thing, we discovered that the state capitol building (the only skyscraper one can see) is not in the business area at all. 

State capitol up close, which you can see from miles away.  There's a whole plaza and park that surrounds it, which we plan to visit again soon, as well as the neighboring Heritage Center/History Museum.

 When we did find the business area, pretty much everything was closed (not sure if there are Blue Laws -- I doubt it as there are places that are open -- or if it's just a seasonal thing.  Side note: we found the Visitor's Center but they, too, were closed until the summer).  I wanted to park somewhere in the business district and explore the stores with the urb-es but Mitch felt it was a waste of time if nothing was open, not even the restaurants.  By then, he was getting very tired and hungry, so we went to the nearest place we could find, which was across the street from a large (Kirkwood) mall - Epstein's Bagels.  Afterwards, he suggested we take our urb-es to a nice park and ride around, but by the time he got to the car, his tiredness caught up with him and he desperately needed to go back home and nap.  Afterwards, we did some household projects such as trying (not successfully) to wash the accumulated squashed bugs off the front of the RV which we collected during our drive here, and then to work on recovering the chairs (also not successful as we're not sure we have enough fabric.  We need to visit a JoAnn's and have them help us cut it).

Having driven a bit more around the area, here are some more observations:

• unlike Asheville, it is very truck friendly; most people here drive trucks and even tractors.  The roads are wide, mostly straight, and smooth.  The parking lots are fairly empty and easily accommodate us, and even the downtown (business area) had pretty wide streets.
• like Fargo, and pretty much "anywhere USA," there are big box stores and malls being built all over the place.  They are very new; apparently this area was nothing but wheat fields until about 10 years ago or less.
• unlike "anywhere USA," instead of townhouse developments, there are numerous and large mobile home parks.  They do look very nice, though with lots of space and new construction.  Wherever we passed residential, non-mobile home areas, the houses were mostly ranch style, new, with a decent amount of land between each one.
• There are a LOT of RVs which you can see for sale at any of the several large dealerships, parked, or driving around.  I guess a lot of folks probably like to leave this area and head towards warmer climes during the winter, and it's a cool destination during the summer.
• Despite what they tell you, it's not all flat and there are trees!  Of course, the trees could have been planted at the time the developments and stores were constructed.
• Regarding visitors of this campground - especially over this weekend - there are a lot of overnighters.  They pull in during the afternoon and then leave the next morning.  Perhaps it will be different during the summer if people make this a vacation destination.  I suppose it makes sense because this really isn't a very touristy area, especially during off season, so this would be just a nice place to stop for the night.  Then again, there are several other RV parks in the area.  They aren't as nice - are more like parking lots - but they're also a lot cheaper, which I would think one would want for an overnight stay.  But who knows?