O to P: Turtle River State Park, ND to Malta, MT

8.8.10

After coffee, a shower and throwing away Buzz's litter box (sad), we drove straight to Rugby, ND to take a photo of Emily in front of the monument claiming that spot to be the Geographical Center of North America. Emily's father had sent us a photo of himself at that very spot in 1965, so we did our best to recreate the moment. Emily's great-grandfather had homesteaded property not too far off of US-2, so in Minot (rhymes with why not) we cut south of 85 and then headed west on 23 towards Keene, ND to do a bit of family history touring. The homestead itself is now part of the Charlson National Grasslands, but the First Lutheran Church that they attended and were buried at is still standing. We continued to Watford City to the Long X Trading Post Museum and Liquor Store to see if we could find Emily's great-grandfather's sheriff's badge that was supposed to be on display. No badge, but we did find a brief biography on him in the 50th anniversary Jubilee book and learned a lot from the surprisingly well organized and informative museum. Pretty neat. We headed back north on 23 and crossed over into Montana. We were hoping to eat dinner at the well-reviewed Great Northern Hotel in Malta, but their kitchen was closed that night so we settled for decent burgers and delicious peach frozen yogurt at the Quick&Tasty in Glasgow, MT. We continued onto the $3/night Trafton City Park in Malta, MT, which seemed perfect due to its cheapness and close proximity to a town, which had been quite rare so far on our trip. After settling in, we walked under the train tracks to the Mint Bar, met almost everyone in the bar, played pool, learned about the government program that pays people to not grow wheat, and began to miss the small town we live in. At home we don't have giant mosquitoes and there isn't a loud buzzer that goes off at 10pm informing all minors that curfew is now in effect.

Links: Geographical Center of North America, Long X Trading Post Visitor Center, Watford City, ND, Quick and Tasty, Trafton Park, Malta, MT

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