The Road to Medora

Today we drove across most of North Dakota, with two key stops: WalMart (yeah, we don't feel good about either), and Fort Abraham Lincoln.

Many of you know that my hometown on Monroe, Michigan was General Custer's hometown and that I am a recovering re-enactor. I know.. between that and the mullet...

Fort Lincoln holds a special place in my heart... on our very first trip to Montana for the Little Big Horn reenactment, we had four of us, all of our stuff for two weeks, plus a La-Z-Boy chair, plus a BUFFALO HEAD, all crammed into a minivan. We delivered the chair and the buffalo head as gifts from La-Z-Boy and the people of Monroe to Fort Lincoln.

We all enjoyed the tour of the Custer house, and especially enjoyed comparing it to our house which was built at the same time. We also especially enjoyed the tour of the rebuilt Mandan viilage. It was amazing how the "air conditioning" in the hand-built, clay-covered lodges kept them cooler than the electric AC in our own homes. Everyone's favorite part was the "childrens' lodge", which had a display board featuring a Mandan children's story. Now, most children's stories, no matter where you go on Earth, follow the same sort of structure, and have the same sort of morals and lessons to be learned. This story, however, was different. It was about a coyote that angered a potato, and then couldn't stop farting. That's right, I said farting. We all - including the park guides and our own children's literacy experts - stood around for some time trying to discern the point of the story. The best we could come up with is this: If you make a potato angry, it will make you fart until your butt hurts. The entire text is included below.

We have arrived in Medora, which is possibly our favorite one-square-block town in the West. Population of like 100 people, with three ice cream parlors. We had a lovely dinner at the campground, and then walked around town. We finally made it to the World's Greatest Playground, which was enjoyed by all.

p.s. You know you're in the West when... you're driving on a two-lane highway and the speed limit is 75.