My Precious Mom

My young mom

Mom loved her plants

This picture was taken long before any of
us were a gleam in her eye

Mom & my brother Richard

Margaret Ellen John Gano

1916 - 2013

What can you say about a little lady who was always a pillar of your existence? No matter where you went or what you did, you knew she would be there somewhere routing for you. It feels strange that after all these years, she isn't here anymore. Well, maybe not here in person, but I know her spirit lives on in all of us.

I guess the best thing you can say is:

Thank you

Thank you for sense of humor you instilled in us

• Mom used to say that whenever things look their worse, think about how funny this story will be one day.
• Mom found herself in any number of situations that if it hadn't been for her sense of humor, I'm not sure how she would have coped. Traveling across the country and oceans with children of varying ages would try any reasonable person, but mom took it in stride and laughed a lot about it later
• Mom could see funny parts of a movie coming long before they occurred.  
• She would start laughing when everyone else in the theatre was silent.    
• Once it embarrassed my brother Jim so badly that he got up and moved to another seat far away from us. 
• Another time, she and I went to an afternoon showing of “My Fair Lady”. The theater was packed to overflowing and the opening segment showed a screen full of beautiful flowers. Mom leaned over to me and whispered “Boy, Kathy, this is a dark movie”. I looked over at her and said “It wouldn't be so dark if you took off your sunglasses!” You could hear her laughing throughout the entire place! Good thing Jim wasn't with us or he would have had no place to move.

  Thank you for the love of needle art and fine fabric

• Mom loved to sew and do needlework.
  • She made most of the clothes I wore to elementary school and you could normally find pieces of odd fabric and remnants in boxes around the house. This is one trait I definitely inherited.
  • The first time she went to Callaway Gardens for the needlework school, she told me she was envious of a lady who had her daughter with her. So the next year, what did mom do? She outdid that lady when she paid the tuition for Jeanie and me to join her there. She was so proud to have both of us with her that year.

Thank you for the love of good music, theater, and especially ballet

• As we were growing up, about all we heard mom and dad listen to was classical music and show tunes on old 78 rpm records. Then dad built a stereo system and the very first record they played on it was the Broadway musical “Camelot”. One year as an anniversary surprise, I lured them to Miami without telling them why. I was able to get tickets in the orchestra section to see Richard Burton do “Camelot”. Mom sat there with tears in her eyes when the show started. At least she didn't start laughing.
• Mom put me in ballet classes at a tender age. I was never quite sure why but I know Jeanie took ballet when she was about the same age. It may have been to get me out of her hair for a little while or to try to make a young lady out of an incorrigible tomboy. Oh the hours she spent waiting at ballet studios – I will ever be grateful. She also found ways to get to tickets to see any of the touring ballet companies that came our way. But mom was never a pushy “stage mom” and I am ever thankful that she wasn't. She allowed me to dance on my terms and that may be reason I love ballet to this day.
• Besides ballet, whenever a Broadway musical touring group came to town, she would get tickets and we would all get dressed up to troop down to the auditorium to see the show. Without a doubt, her favorite musical was “Oliver” and, of course, we had the record and knew all the songs. I can distinctly remember her putting dinner on the table singing “Food, glorious, food” and if you asked for seconds, the first thing out of her mouth was “Mooooorrre? You want some mooooorrre?

Thank you for the love of history

• I was always awed by mom and dad telling us about their experiences during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I used to ask “Did you really see Japanese airplanes flying over your head?”
• And being in Pensacola was a neat place to live because mom took us to all the old forts where we ran wild through them all.
• Then when we lived in Norfolk, she took us to Williamsburg at least once a year and I think she found the old town as fascinating as I did.

Thank you for your culinary gifts

• Oh, how mom loved to make sweet things. She always ended a meal with dessert. Woe be unto he or she who did not eat their dessert right after dinner – you had to become adept at hiding it! Memorable treats – raisin-filled sugar cookies, Christmas danish, but most of all, cherry pie.           
• Mom also fixed colorful meals. She always said all the foods on your plate had to be different in color. None of knew why or cared, but our plates were sure pretty.
• Another thing mom insisted on was that the television could not be on while we ate dinner. Maybe that is the origin of the “Seven minute meal”? Let me tell you about the “Seven minute meal” - mom worked hard to prepare a very nice dinner, called us to the table, and when everyone got up to leave the table after eating, Jeanie noticed it was only seven minutes from the time she sat down. The “seven minute meal” joined the ranks of family lore.

Thank you for the faith I carry

• One Sunday when I was about eight years old, I went to church with a friend. The service really bothered me and when I came home, I asked mom if we were all going to hell because we didn't go to my friend's church. Very patiently mom looked at me and said, “There are lots of good people in this world and I simply can't believe God would send them to Hell just because they don't go to your friend's church.” Mom was so wise when it came to answering questions from her young daughter.

There is so much more that I can thank mom for but the best thing I can thank mom for is for loving us unconditionally and for allowing us to grow up to be the individuals that we all became. Please join me in wishing mom “God speed.” 

Love you lots, mom.

Move to Gore, OK and The Boys's Ranch

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Rainbow over our RV camp at The Boys' Ranch

Rainbow over The Crossings Building/kitchen

 

We finished the project in Tahlequah on Thursday afternoon and moved ourselves 30 miles south to Gore, OK on Friday morning. Temperatures in the 70s and 80s yesterday, beautiful blue skies. Early this morning, a storm rolled over us and seemed to forget to move off. It rained on and off the entire day. While Bill went to try his hand at fly fishing on the Illinois River, I hung around the RV doing laundry in the building next to where we are parked and sewing down a quilt binding. The quilt is getting finished just in time – temperature right now is 52. Quilt will feel nice while I welcome fall.

Fall also brings other changes to our lives. My mom is not doing too well right now. Most people do not make it to age 97 and it's been amazing how well she has done over the past few years but time and infirmities seem to have finally caught up with her. Not long before we left for Tahlequah, Bill and I went down to Gulf Breeze to see Staci and our granddaughters (Eric was overseas) and also to see mom. The first day I went to see her, she had been up all night and all morning so was asleep when I got there. I sat with her a while and she woke up some when I chatted about her great-granddaughters but I worried about getting her up for fear of her falling. The next day, she was awake but not moving very much. She had become so unstable on her feet that she had fallen a number of times so the staff was keeping her in a chair. Funny, though, she kept trying to get up and showed the spirit I remembered my mom always having. The little lady in that chair was my mom and I loved her but she had moved off to a place I could not follow.

So here I am in OK getting ready for three weeks of working at a boys' home. I am bound and determined to do something worthwhile that I know she would be proud of me doing.

It finally quit raining late this afternoon and I happened to look out the window to see one of the prettiest rainbows I have ever seen. It was a complete arch that reached from one side of the sky to the other side and was so bright. I grabbed our camera and tried taking some pictures through the window. The van was smack damb in the way so I decided to run outside, even though it was still misting rain at the time. Eventually, I took some really good pictures, one of which I will try to add to this message.

Friday – October 11, 2013

Oh, the joys of playing on a computer. I just erased half of the above message, couldn't get it back, couldn't remember what I wrote, so I ad-libed the best I could. Gerrrrrrr!!!

Today the guys went fishing and the ladies went into the metropolis of Gore (population – 900) to have lunch in a cute tea room and stop in the few decent gift shops. Then we wandered down to the quilt shop. For a town this size, it was not a bad shop. Fairly decent selection of fabric with good prices. I found a pattern for a small purse that takes fat quarters then a cute fish fabric grabbed me so now I have the stuff to make it. Too bad I left the sewing machine at home. Lunch was good – had a piece of quiche and salad. I'm not hungry anymore.

We finished our first week of work here. Amazingly, I started the week without a paint brush in my hand! Next weekend is the 50^th Anniversary Rodeo at the Boys' Ranch so we areD spending most of our time helping get ready for it. I helped take some old splintery boards off the bleachers and add some 2x4s to other seats to add support to them. I was all ready to help put the new boards up on Tuesday when (1) the boards had not been delivered, and (2) my edging expertise was needed in one of the houses. Soooo, back the paint brush went into my hand, and back to up the ladder, paint, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, etc., etc., etc. I'm getting so good at this, I may just repaint our bathroom when we get home.

Oh, on Thursday, Elizabeth, Phyllis, and I were asked to paint the 24' bleacher boards. Easier to paint before they are bolted to the bleacher frames. We decided to paint them in the morning before it got too hot. Need boards needed priming so we did that then started with the dark green paint. That first coat of green paint looked awful. Of course, we had to put a second coat on. Stupid boards took us all day to do! And we ended up in the afternoon sun afterall.

The bleachers are down this gravel road right next to the rodeo ring. There are a number of pole barns and closed in barns where the ring is. At the end closest to where our RVs are parked is a swinging gate with a cattle crossing in the ground. There are well over 20 horses at the ranch and people are always donating unwanted horses. Two painted horses were dropped off a few weeks ago – one brown spotted and one black spotted. Larry, our main contact, told us that they weren't sure how the other horses were going to take to these two new ones, so they left them roaming around on their own around the ring and barns and all up and down the road. Elizabeth started calling them Frick and Frack and decided the brown one is the leader. Wherever brown-Frick goes, usually you will see black-Frack following. Sometimes they are in the tractor barn, sometimes around the bleachers, and then other times you see them up the gravel road by the gate. When we were painting yesterday, Frack started over towards us. We've been told they are gentle but curious. Great! The closer Frack got to Elizabeth, the more she moved down the boards towards the other side. I just wanted him to be curious on her side of the boards, not mine. Just like me, she likes horses, as long as they are on the other side of the fence. These two act like two lost puppy dogs, except BIGGER.

I'll have to take some pictures of them and post them next time.

And speaking of lost puppies, the team has adopted this poor lost dog. The guys are working up on the hill top (they call it a mountain here, but it's an awfully low “mountain” in comparison to NC mtns.) on a cabin. Yesterday this young dog wandered onto the site during lunch time. What did the guys do? Feed it, of course. When they left at the end of the work day, they noticed the dog running behind the truck. They stopped, opened the door, and the dog jumped in and made itself comfortable in the back seat. Next thing we know, she has made herself part of our group. Question is – who's going to take it home? She is so friendly but so pitifully skinny with ribs showing and hip bones protruding. But she has clear blue ice eyes and wags her tail at everyone. Larry thinks she's mostly Australian terrier but she looks just like a dingo. Phyllis has a friend in Texas who would like to have her so now she's trying to convince one of our other team members to take her to Texas when they leave here.

The poor-lost-puppy-dog – to be continued.

Nice thing about this project is all the cooking that's going on in the kitchen to get ready for the rodeo. One non-NOMADS couple has been coming to the ranch for 20 years to do the cooking. Donna is this dynamo of a little Oklahoma woman who can cook anything. She and two of our lady team members have made tons of cookies and dozens of cobblers, some of which they ask us to sample and critique. And, of course, there are always cookies that fall apart that need to be eaten. Makes for yummy break times.

Ok, enough said. Bent your ears long enough. Now to try to get this whole message from the word processing program to the Internet blog site and download a picture. Patience, Patience, Patience.

More to follow later . . .

NOMADSing in Tahlequah, OK



Here we are in Tahlequah, two thirds through this project.  My goodness!  Where did those two weeks go? 

 

When we started this project on Sept. 16th, it was down right hot.  Temperature on my little thermometer read 95 degrees one day.  I was never so thankful to be painting inside an air-conditioned house and living out of an air-conditioned RV!  Yesterday, a good rain came through with a cold front - this morning we woke up to temperatures in the 50s and right now at 6:37 p.m., it's 72.  Much nicer.

 

We are working at the Methodist Children's Home in Tahlequah.  It's located on a beautiful piece of property just a block or so from the main high school.  Every morning we wake to the sounds of the high school band practising.  They are a dedicated group of kids to be up playing their instruments at 07:00 a.m.  It's a large dynamic school - they are rated first in football in their class. 

 

The buildings here at MCH are arranged in semi circle facing a huge park setting that has a pool, pond, basketball court, and sidewalks.  It's walled in with a short stone wall and has stone arches at the entrances.  Guess I should take a few pictures of the grounds.

This is our little neighbor - Good Friday.
She's a six-month-old filly who comes over
to the fence whenever we walk that way.
Look at those clear blue eyes!



Evening cloud formation over Tahlequah - we missed
getting this picture with the brilliant gold that was
shining in the center

Belle thinks she's a people - wondering where
her dinner is













                                                                                    And Lexi in her favorite place on my side of
                                                                           our bed


Let's see - what have we done so far?  As is par for the course, a paint brush has become part of my right hand.  Helped get rid of some hideous yellow walls in the director's house and currently painting in one of the homes.  Bill has put in a new toilet, new faucets, fixed a roof leak, repaired gable end of a house, repaired leaky pipes, etc, etc, etc.  We never worry about running out of things to do.  The list grows and grows.

The only thing I had known about Oklahoma before now was driving through it on Interstate 40 and the musical "Oklahoma".  Yes, there are some wide open fields around here but mostly it's forested and green.  This is the area where the Cherokee settled after they were forced to leave the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee and Tahlequah is the capital of the Cherokee Nation.  It is a pretty area and reminds us a bit of our home in N.C. except for the lack of peaked mountains.  There are loads of forests and a huge dammed lake called Tenkiller Lake.  We'll be right next to this lake when we move down to Gore, OK next week for another three weeks of work.  We'll be at the Boys Ranch there.  Lots of fishing, hiking trails, and other outdoor activities.  Bill went fishing the other morning and caught a few fish.  Gore is known as the Trout Capital of the OK.  I'm sure he'll do more fishing while we are there.

About twenty miles from here is a big resort called the Fin and Feather.  It's perched on a hillside that overlooks Tenkiller Lake - gorgeous view of the lake.  This past weekend they had a big craft festival so while Bill went fishing, I joined other team members and went to the festival.  Some interesting crafts and some of the usual stuff.  I bought a red oak woven basket that a man had made by taking a plank of wood and cutting in into strips.  Then he wove smaller pieces of wood vertically down between the strips.  Beautiful work.  I can add this basket to my few other unique baskets.

Last weekend, Bill and I drove over to Fort Gibson State Historical Site.  I was thrilled to see this fort - it looked just like the western forts of cavalry and Indians that I remember playing with as a kid.  Tall spiked wood square walls with high watch towers in the corners, big parade ground inside with buildings surrounding the ground.  Fort was established in the 1830s to facilitate the resettlement of the eastern Indian tribes.  Also played a role in the Civil War with Federal troops stationed here.  There are rock buildings scattered outside the walls.  One two story building was used as a barracks and the officers' dining hall.  Beautiful wide porch was relatively cool even on the hot day we were there.

 

Outer wall of Fort Gibson
 

 

Barracks and Officers' Dining Hall



Officers dined in style

 

Has anyone out there in my blog world ever worked with this blog program before?  As you can tell from the ragged condition of this entry (and some of the others, for that matter), this program and I don't exactly get along!  When I work in the composing section, the Fort Gibson pictures are right next to the text but when I look at the "Preview", there's a huge space between the text and pictures.  I can't get rid of that huge space.  And I can get captions under the first two pictures, but the program won't allow me to put captions under any other pictures.  Computers are so nice when they work right but at other times, . . . well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

 

More later . . .



 

Accident Looking for a Place to Happen

I think I need to stay home, locked in a safe place!

Remember how Bill smashed my hand while putting up drywall?  My hand was doing pretty well until I ran that very same knuckle into the door jam of the RV.  Now, really. I had four other perfectly good knuckles that I could have rammed into that lousy piece of metal but, no, I had to re-injure the same poor knuckle that was trying so valiantly to heal! Boy! Did that hurt. I could feel it all the way up to my elbow and my hand again looked like the Dough Boy.

Okay - I made it through another hand episode. Everything was okay until we reached Sioux Falls and I had to take the sway bar off the RV hitch so Bill could back into our site. It was hot and rainy and, my first mistake, I was hurrying in order to beat the rain and to appease my darling Bill who was drumming his fingers with my slow motion. Any RVer or boater or whoever knows the joys of getting ready for a trip in the pouring rain or dealing with an inpatient spouse. That morning we had pulled out of Custer, SD in the rain. We had dried out on the trip across SD (did you know that SD is a very long state driving from the SW corner to the SE corner?) and I had no desire for a repeat of the wet performance in the evening.

Then my second mistake. Not paying attention to what I was doing. Well, actually, the hitch stuff is Bill's MOS. I take care of the inside stuff and he takes care of the outside stuff so I do have an excuse when dealing with the hitch business. Anyway, I pulled off the wrong securing pin first. When I pulled off the other one, the stupid and very heavy piece of equipment fell on my right ankle. Now that really hurt!

I could have said a few choice words but instead I spent the next few moments hopping around on one foot and swearing under my breath that I would never again in my whole life touch that lousy sway bar. Originally, I thought about swearing that I would never go anywhere again with the RV but I knew I would not live up to that oath. Not touching the sway bar was a better bet.

In the meantime, the running van with Bill still drumming his fingers was sitting in the middle of the road, blocking all traffic, and the campground host was waiting to direct Bill into our site. No sympathy from either one of them.

The RV finally got situated in our space and I limped around getting my jobs done. It wasn't very long before my ankle looked very similar to my hand – except that my ankle was a much darker color.

Today we drove down from Sioux Falls, SD to St. Joseph, MO. I kept my ankle up on the dashboard and admired the scenery as we drove down I-29. I really like this interstate, especially the part of it at the lower part of Iowa into Missouri. You can really see the bluffs off to the east with the flat prairie to the west. And again, lots of green fields.

But there is one thing for sure – tomorrow we are going to the old section of St. Joseph, MO and no swollen hand or purple ankle is going to keep me from wandering around the historical section!

Oh – one neat thing did happen while pulling into the campground in Sioux Falls. With all the airplanes flying over, I realized we were at the end of the airport runway. Then the overhead sounds changed so I looked up – in time to see an osprey fly over in helo mode and banked hard to the left. Obviously, it was coming in for a landing. Bill looked up in time to see it. He told me later that he had never seen an osprey flying in helo mode, only in airplane mode. I quickly called Eric to ask him if there was an AF base up here that had ospreys but he was busy chasing our two little granddaughters out of the parking lot at his squadron building and couldn't talk to me then. Oh well - it was fun seeing the osprey fly over.

This is all I have to say for now. Keep your fingers crossed that the pictures I'm trying to download will load okay. Or else this post will have only words.

And then – more later . . .

P.S. - I tried to download pictures.  No go.  WiFi is too slow.

Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota

A view of the Needles at the top of one of the mountains
and the location of the narrowest tunnel I have ever
driven through - it was 8'4" wide & 12' high

Bill and I arrived here in the Black Hills and Custer, SD a few days ago.  Our original plan was to stay for two days but we were so impressed with the area, we decided to stay an extra day.  Oh for the joys of traveling when you don't have to punch a stupid time clock or answer to some idiotic boss!  I love it! 

This area is truly one of God's gifts to mankind.  The scenery is absolutely unbelievable.  It is another area where you look across rolling green hillsides and the land just goes and goes forever.  Most of the trees are of the pine family and, unfortunately, a pine beetle has invaded the forests and you can see large patches of trees that are brown and dead.  Mixed in with the pines are aspen.  I've never seen them in person in the fall, but I understand the aspen turn a gorgeous yellow.  Anyway, the forests flow down some of the hillsides and run into vast open pasture lands of green, green, and more green.  Breathtaking!

One day we took the famous Needles Highway Scenic Drive.  The map is very specific in warning you about the tee-tiny tunnels that are part of this drive.  The first one we had to transverse was only 8'4" wide by 12' high.  The other one was bigger at 9' wide by 12'3" high.  So Bill pulled off at a trailhead parking area and got out his trusty measuring tape (thank goodness we carry our NOMADS tools with us all the time!) to measure the van.  He decided if we folded in the outside mirrors, we could make it through the two tunnels.  By the time we reached the first tunnel, there were cars parked everywhere and people were milling about looking towards the tunnel.  I heard someone say that a bus was trying to go through the tunnel and it looked like it was stuck.  I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me!"  Since we were stuck in a traffic jam in the very narrow roadway leading to the tunnel, I got out and looked where everyone was pointing.  I honestly could not believe my eyes - sure enough, there was a huge vehicle in the tunnel completely blocking any and all light from the other side.  When I first looked, all you could see were headlights; the rest of the tunnel was dark.  As I stood there for about ten minutes, I could begin to make out the shape of a bus.  A bus!  Not just a little bus, but a full-sized commercial bus!  I stood there dumb-founded as I watched it finally come out of the tunnel.

This is Bill measuring the van to be
sure we could make it through that
ridiculously tiny tunnel

This is the stupid commercial bus that
almost got stuck in the tunnel

Then we sat there for another twenty to thirty minutes as the long line of cars behind the bus followed it through the tunnel.  They must have been backed up for a mile down the mountain road.

And, we thought we were worried about being too big to make it through the tunnel?

This is a picture of the tee-tiny tunnel from the exit side

 

 



Custer State Park is known for its bison herds.  As you drive the Wildlife Loop, you can see some of these herds off in the distance.  The first day we tried to drive the loop, bison had traffic backed up quite a ways so we turned around and decided to try the loop the next day.  Was a good decision because the next day there were very few cars on the road and we saw three or four herds of good size.  I could not help but think about what these small herds must have looked like four and five hundred years ago when the bison were so numerous they completely blacked out the prairies for as far as the eye could see.  What a magnificent sight that must have been.  Then I got to thinking about the Native Americans of the 19th century and the fury and pain they felt as they watched their mainstay of life be destroyed by greedy men.  Apparently, greed was the same in years long before what we have recently experienced.  Regardless, thanks to a number of people, the bison survived and continue to fascinate those fortunate enough to see them in the wild.
 

Bison are not only large animal that lives free in Custer State Park.  We saw lots of white tail deer, many were sprouting fuzzy antlers.  And we saw a fair number of pronghorns also.  One crossed the road right in front of us and Bill got a couple of pictures of it in full gallop.  Pronghorn (aka antelope) are native to the west USA. 

 





Another animal that lives a good life in Custer State Park are the donkeys.  They were once used to pull wagons through the mountains and carts out of the mines, but after they out-lived their usefulness, many of them were left to their own.  They survived in the Black Hills and now live in the state park.  We found a small group of them and watched a couple of them walk up to a car coming the other way.  The two donkeys went right up to the SUV's windows and seemed curious to see what was on the inside.  Then the same two whose picture is just below began grooming each other.  We think the dark one was the mother and the gray one was the colt.  They were definitely familiar with each other and enjoyed each other's company!

 

One of the main attractions in the Black Hills is Mount Rushmore.  As we had been there six years ago, we opted out of repeating that adventure with mass humanity and concentrated on driving through the southern part of the Black Hills.  The picture below was typical of what we saw - these huge rocks sticking up out of the ground with houses built right next to them.  That is some backyard rock garden!

 

We made it down to Hot Springs.  And hot is not an adequate word to describe the temperature down there.  I know the entire nation is suffering under a brutal heat wave.  It definitely was hitting Hot Springs the day we went there.  It was so brutal, I didn't have the energy to investigate the town or even take one picture.  I will probably regret that one day.  The town, though, was interesting.  Most of the buildings were made from red sandstone and had that typical western feeling about them.  Unfortunately, the town seemed very run down and even seedy in places.  I did get into a really nice quilt shop and bought some bison fabric to make a wall hanging with.  I always like to buy one piece of fabric that's indicative of the areas we visit.  One day I will do something with all this fabric.

 

One thing I did learn about Hot Springs is that it was the area where the Native Americans spent their winters.  The warm springs and mountains sheltered them from the brutal cold winds that swept the plains.  And the whole Black Hills was their winter home until gold was discovered in 1874.  You can guess the rest of that story.

 

I can't figure out how to move this stupid picture up a few paragraphs to where it really belongs.  Sometimes this blog site is not very user friendly.  It is an exercise in agravation control.  I think I'm funking that exercise right now. And it's getting very late on Thursday evening and we leave early tomorrow morning for Sioux Falls, SD  so I think I will just say -

 

More later . . .

 



Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, ND

View of the Little Missouri River that flows through and
formed the magnificent scenery in TRNP

Just some of the feril horses we saw - this family came
within about 100 yds of where we were parked

These little prairie dogs were all over the place - loved
to watch them scurrying from one burrow to the next



This is what Bill called "Bison -v- Harley"

End result = Bison - 1; Harley - 0

                                          Early evening clouds in TRNP

                                     Sunset in the park







 

From Minot, we drove down to Medora, ND, located at the far southwestern corner of North Dakota and spent two days wandering Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  It's located in the National Grasslands area and has three different units - the more popular South Unit (entrance is right in Medora), the less visited North Unit (about 65 miles to the north), and the Elkhorn Ranch section (located between the two units on rugged dirt road). 

 

We had been in the South Unit before so this time, we decided to go up to the North Unit.  Halfway there, driving through flat green farm lands for as far as the eye could see, I began to wonder why I agreed to do this.  Two weeks of hard work and one long day of driving had worn me out but being the tireless adventurer that I am, I said "Sure, let's go!"  Not only were there huge fields, we also saw lots of fields with newly baled hay that literally dotted the landscape.  Scattered among all the pretty hay bales were the oil derricks pumping continuously.  Then we would go over a small rise and see a tall structure sticking up in the air - new oil wells being drilled.  All of this among all the green fields and hay bales.  More than one use for all this land makes the owner very rich.  Staci's brother Daniel (our daughter-in-laws brother who we have known since he was born and who now works the oil fields out of Minot) told us that one well he worked on brought in over 26,000 barrels of oil in two weeks; the payment to the land owner was something around $120,000 - not bad for two weeks of sitting back and watching the liquid gold being pumped from your ground.

 

The long drive up to the North Unit was definitely worth it - fantastic scenery was everywhere.  Rugged buttes and mesas formed a stark badland but when you looked closer, the barrenness was broken up by small wild flowers scattered around.  We stopped at one overlook area.  I left Bill up by the road where he was taking some pictures.  I stopped to talk to some people who were looking down through the boards of the deck only to discover they had seen a rattlesnake crawl under the enclosed portion of the deck.  And boy was that snake mad!  I couldn't see it through the boards, but I could sure hear its rattle going crazy.  He was not a happy camper!  So being the prudent person I am, I left it to its own happy devices under the deck.

 

After we got back to the RV that was parked at the Medora Campground, we decided to drive through the South Unit at dusk.  The animals are more active in the evening than they are during the day.  And we were rewarded - saw lots of bison (including the one that challenged the motorcycle), deer, elk, prairie dogs, a lone pronghorn, and, best of all, herds of feral horses.  These horses came from domesticated horses and now roam the park as free range horses.  There were a number of youngsters playing with each other and annoying their mothers.  One mare became annoyed and hauled off and nipped the rear end of her colt.  They certainly lead a good life!  And fat!  You could never get a saddle around these horses.

 

The bison challenge to the motorcycle was funny.  We had been following this old bison for a ways when he came to a bend in the road and this motorcycle rode up.  The guy on the bike stopped abruptly to watch which way the bison would go.  The huge animal kept his course aiming straight for the motorcycle.  Apparently, the guy on the bike got wise and turned around to go back the way he had come.  Just as the guy looked back over his shoulder, the bison decided the joke was on him and wandered off the road into the brush.  As we passed the guy on the bike, he had a very relieved smile on his face. 

 

Oh - Medora.  Strange name for a town.  There's a story here.  A French Marquis married the daughter of a rich New York banker (who was a baron in his own right) and came out to this area with the idea of shipping beef back to the east in refrigerated rail cars.  He founded the town in 1883 and named it after his wife.  They built a hunting cabin (only 26 rooms small) and hunted and entertained their friends and family for three years when the business fell apart, partially due to drought, inability to obtain quality cattle, and his inattention to the business.  They left the area and went back to France but he had a wanderlust spirit and was eventually killed in Sahara Desert by African tribesmen.

 

Finally - the biggest influence on this area was none other than Teddy Roosevelt.  He came out here hunting in 1883, the same time as the Marquis was building the town of Medora.  He loved the area so much, he invested in cattle ranching and spent a lot of time on horseback leading the "strenuous life" that he loved .  When his first wife Alice died in childbirth and his mother died within hours of each other, he returned to this area in hopes of finding relief to his intense grief.  He started a ranch of his own (the Elkhorn) and continued with his partnership with the Maltese Cross ranch.  The hard work and camaraderie he developed with his ranchhands helped to heal his spirit.  And he truly fell in love with the rugged beauty of this land.  He once wrote that if it had not been for the time and experience he had here, he would never have made it to the presidency.  Thank goodness for that - would we have the national parks we have now if TR had not loved this area?

 

More later . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting up drywall

Bill, John, & Gary putting up drywall on the ceiling of
a house that was built in 1907 and was flooded in 2011
up to a foot below the ceililng

Me securing ceiling drywall - that ceiling didn't look
so high before I climbed that ladder!

Steve's house - built in1907

Today we worked on a house in the historic area of Minot.  House was built in 1907 and has been in the owner's family since it was built.  Water flooded almost to the ceiling of the first floor.  We just about have all the drywall in place and roofers came today and were putting on a whole new roof.  They had all the OSB boards on the roof by the time we left at 4:00.

It's a really neat house.  Has a full basement, ground floor is about 800 - 1000 sq. ft. and the small second floor would make a great sewing room.  But if I lived here, I'd be worried every time it rained - for fear of being flooded again.

We did learn today from some people we chatted with at the Bark Park (Lexi and Belle had fun playing with other big doggies) that there were two floods that hit weeks apart in 2011.  The first one consisted of heavy rain and the start of snow melt followed by more rain that sat over the area combined with the release of water from a dam in Canada.  That second episode is what caused all the really heavy damage.  The water sat over this area for quite a while.  A good number of the houses here have been repaired but there is still a significant number of homes either boarded up or in some stage of repair.  Regardless, we are happy to be here lending whatever help we can give.

Tomorrow is our last work day.  It's a good thing - both Bill and I are tired!  Drywall work in tiring to us old (?) people who aren't used to doing that kind of work.  Personally, I need time to recover from working with Bill.  He slammed my hand into the wall yesterday while I was "helping" him with a large sheet of drywall.  He didn't know my hand was holding the side of the drywall when he shoved it hard to get it into place next to another wall.  Unfortunately, my hand provided all kinds of cushioning!  I was proud of myself, though - I didn't say one bad word except for "Bill!"  The knuckle of my left hand swelled up double it's normal size and now it has flattened out and is a pretty shade of dark pink.  Now I know what Mohammed Ali felt like after a fight.

More later . . .

Fort Totten State Historic Site – July 4, 2013

Not long ago, I read a book about wives of the frontier army officers – Army Wives of the American Frontier by Anne Bruner Eales. Fascinating book. It took more than love for their husbands for women to survive the rugged, often dangerous conditions of the West and since we were working in a prime location in North Dakota, I decided to find some of the forts mentioned in the book and see how close they are to here. Ft. Abraham Lincoln (where Custer and the 7^th Cavalry started out for their ill-fated end at the Little Bighorn) was located just south of Bismarck. We will go right past it when we leave Minot and head to Theo. Roosevelt Nat'l. Park – if we have time we will stop.

Then we heard about Ft. Totten. It was not mentioned in the book, but it is reported to be one of best-preserved frontier forts of the western USA. It's only about 120 miles to the east. Heck, what is 120 miles when we already traveled over 1600 miles from home to Minot?



Geographic Center of North
America, Rugby, ND

So, the 4^th of July found us on the road heading east to the Fort Totten State Historic Site. About halfway there driving through some very flat but very green farmland, I began to wonder why we just didn't stay back at the trailer and relax. It had been three long, hot work days and I was tee-totally worn out. But then we drove through Rugby, ND and saw the monument for the geographical center of North America. In Rugby, ND? Interesting. So we kept driving.

Glad we did. The fort is located very close to a beautiful lake and sits on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation. You drive around the lake and then through some marginal housing until you see the backside of the fort. When I walked through the entrance gate, I was immediately reminded of all the years of walking onto the campuses of VMI and The Citadel – parade ground in the center with trees on the perimeter and all the buildings lined up perfectly around the parade ground.



Ft Totten - parade ground on the left with buildings
surrounding on all sides

The original log fort, constructed in 1867, was located about 800 yards from the present location. Contractors then used local raw materials to make the brick and mortar and used locally saw lumber to build the more permanent structures. It was finally finished in 1871.

For the most part, the fort was used by both infantry and cavalry units in police functions. They patrolled the northern border, attempted to control the liquor traffic (were bootleggers running booze from Canada in 1870s?), and protected residents of the reservation and nearby settlers. The less than glamorous existence for the soldiers stationed there included routine patrols, daily drills, and housekeeping, and the boredom led to high rates of alcoholism and desertions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fort was decommissioned in 1890 and was turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs who opened a boarding school for children from the reservation. This school was not the first school in this area for Indian children. The Grey Nuns of Montreal began a school in 1874 for the Wahpeton, Sisseton, and Cuthead bands of Sioux. For the new school, many of the fort's buildings were substantially changed and for the next 45 years, the Indian Industrial School provided coursework centered on domestic skills for girls and on farming and industrial skills for boys. At that time, the idea was to “de-Indian” the children and then assimilate them into the predominate white society by taking them away from their parents and tribes and all influences and support their tribes had provided to them. Both Bill and I found it interesting that one of the aspects of Indian culture that the feds wanted to change was the Indian's lack of the concept of “ownership”. Bill's comment was that the feds couldn't leave well enough alone but had to convert the Indians to the idea of owning things, thereby introducing greed for material items into the native culture. Another aspect of native life the educators discouraged was the children running, sliding down hills, and other outdoor activities. It was viewed as not contributing to their education. But it was further mentioned that the educators failed to realize that these activities had been part of an Indian child's education for centuries long before the Europeans arrived in this land and it prepared the children for the roles they were to have in their tribes.

In 1935, a change in fed policy toward Indian schools brought about the closure of the school. From 1935 – 1939, the fort was used as a “Tuberculosis Preventorium”. We both wondered what the heck this was. Neither of us had ever heard of this but quickly learned that when tuberculosis ran rampant through the reservations, the center was established to isolate people considered at high risk for contracting the disease from the rest of the community and then encouraged them to get outdoor exercise in the sunshine. I thought how ironic – just a few short years before this, the feds had discouraged the free outdoor activities the children had learned from their parents.

Finally, the fort was used as the Fort Totten Community School from 1940 to 1959 which provided elementary and high school education for the community. A new school was built in 1959 and in 1960, the fort was transferred to the State Historical Society for use as a historical site.

Right now, it consists of over 9 acres and contains 16 of the original 39 buildings. The buildings themselves are in great shape and some have been renovated to show both fort life and school life. It looked like a pretty spartan existence. And very cold in the winter. The brick walls were pretty substantial but lacked any insulation. One soldier wrote about a winter that was so brutal, soldiers got frostbite in just crossing the parade ground. Now that's cold!  And during renovations, old children's uniforms were found behind wooden walls, probably used in a vain attempt to block the cold.

We wandered in and out of most of the open buildings and decided we were glad not to have lived in any of the buildings, during both summer or winter! In one of the officer's quarters, the old floor was gone and you could see down to the foundation. In the very back of the narrow quarters, there were big holes in the ground, lined with brick. These were the cisterns that stored all the water that was used in the household – drinking, cooking, bathing, etc. All this water got mixed together and caused a lot of sickness. Eventually, they figured out to keep the water uses separate. Another reason we are happy to live now and not then.

Oops – guess I got carried away with this post. It won't hurt my feelings if you didn't read the whole thing, but I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

 

Driving north from the fort along the lake

                                                              

                                                              Some of the farm fields we see all the time.

More later . . .