Daily Archives: May 6, 2006

See, I told you so! (or, those darn turtles)

Posted on by
Reply

It looks like the rest of the turtles, mostly Western Painted variety, have come out of hibernation in the backwater adjacent to Fox Island Road. As I drove past on other business yesterday I saw a whole pack of ’em lined up along the bank, sunning themselves.

I usually have a camera with wherever I go, so I decided to try my luck with ’em. Even with a 300mm lens I couldn’t get very close before they all dashed into the water. Then they sat there, heads poking out of the water in curiosity, taunting me. As you can see, there are dozens of the little buggers over there. If you look closer, even on a photo this small, you can see some rather large fish poking around in that pond too. They’ll be in big trouble if the water gets low; I saw one dried up on the sand already.

I remember a time in the late 80’s where a whole pack of us made a late night trip out to Fox Island on the motorcycles. We were in a pretty tight bunch and going at a rather brisk pace around the fun curves of the road. When we pulled up and parked at Fox Island, one guy pointed out that one of the turtles was walking across the road as we went by. By a miracle none of us hit him. That would have been bad for turtle AND motorcyclist.

New feature at Sertoma Riverside Park

Posted on by
Reply

If you enter Sertoma park by the amusement park entrance, then take the one-way portion of the park road past the Dakota Zoo, you’ll see this new display near the park exit. It’s a medicine wheel with the traditional Native American colors of red, white, yellow and black. Different tribes ascribe different meaning to the four colors. Some nations use them to denote the four directions, other four elements, and others the four facets of health (spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual).

There are four eagle sculptures positioned radially outside the medicine wheel. They’re pretty neat sculptures, not monstrosities like the big whatchamacallit up near the riverboat dock. The center of the circle has a tile mosaic on it. There are benches in the area for recreation and the whole display adds to the flavor of the riverside experience.

For those of you who have left Bismarck-Mandan and check this blog to see what’s going on in your old home town, the riverside areas have been transformed, mostly in anticipation of tourism due to the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. The walking paths have been expanded and repaved, there are cultural displays such as this one, a lot of signage has been added, and there are other little attractions too. In the future I plan to write some posts highlighting the changes around here…there have been many in just the past year or two.

Lewis and Clark passed through ND, were apparently made out of legos

Posted on by
Reply

Two things that North Dakotans have all certainly heard ad nauseum: John Kerry served in Vietnam and Lewis and Clark stopped in North Dakota on their Voyage of Discovery. These three steel icons have become the face of the Lewis and Clark bandwagon for the 2004-2006 commemoration of that voyage.

The response I’ve heard over the chosen icons is that they’re a little goofy, but they really aren’t that bad. They’re somewhat of a departure from the traditional Lewis and Clark icon that you see on road signs marking their trail through the upper Midwest, though, so they’re going to take some getting used to.

One little tidbit about that whole ’04 and ’06 thing. Has it ever occurred to you that Highway 1804 runs along the Bismarck side of the Missouri River, and 1806 along the Mandan side? A little tribute to the Voyage of Discovery there for you, in case you missed it.