After leaving Dickinson, we headed east towards Jamestown, ND where we got to see LOTS of silos, roads, and one large (38' tall by 50' long) Holstein cow.

 
If you want to read about her...it's a good story.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2716



First we headed north to see Fort Mandan, where Lewis and Clark (and company) stayed during their first winter. This is north of Bismarck. This site, located a few miles downstream from the actual site, is a full-sized reconstruction of the trapezoidal fort. We visited a recreated fort outside of Washburn.

 
Had a great tour guide. He lives there year-round, has worked there for 8 years and was very experienced and knowledgeable.

It was very cold that first winter....here's an excerpt from the journals:
January 10, 1805: "last night was excessively Cold the Murckery this morning Stood at 40 ° below 0 which is 72° below the freesing point, about 10 oClock the boy about 13 years of age Came to the fort with his feet frosed and had layed out last night without fire with only a Buffalow Robe to Cover him, Customs & the habits of those people has them to bare more Cold than I thought it possible for man to endure."  Captain Clark 

 

http://lewisandclarktrail.com/section2/ndcities/BismarckMandan/fortmandan.htm

I called ahead to make sure we could park there with our 61-ft coach and trailer. We arrived right after they opened so we were able to make a U-turn in their tiny parking lot and stopped along the side.

As soon as we stopped we saw Seaman's statue near the Missouri River. Very moving.
  
For many years the name of the dog was thought to be "Scannon". While deciphering the travel journals of Lewis and Clark a mistake was made because of the blurred ink. It was this error that influenced many Newfoundland dog owner to name their Newfs, Scannon. Then while researching the journals Donald Jackson was doing a study of Lewis and Clark place-names in Montana, he found that Captain Lewis, had named a tributary of the Blackfoot River "Seaman’s Creek." After further study he found that the true name of the dog was indeed "Seaman". This discovery didn’t happen until 1916 so there are many Newfoundland dogs that were named Scannon in honor of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
http://lewisandclarktrail.com/seaman.htm

We went to the Lewis & Clark Interpretative Center in Washburn...about 2 miles down the road but were a bit disappointed. The one we visited in Great Falls, Montana was far better.


We stayed at Jamestown Campground. After we left the interstate, you take a dirt road about a mile to get to the park. It was such a nice place, we decided to stay an extra night. Good thing we did because, east of us, was a huge, bad storm that we would've been right in the middle of.


 
Steve and Kim