Damp and Beautiful

August 14, 2006 (2:37pm)
76º F, Sunny and nice, NW wind 14 mph.

Good afternoon,

So .... I will try this again. I had it mostly written during the noon break, then hit the wrong button and it went bye-bye! To make matters worse, the program also asked if I wanted to save it before dumping and I clicked "No!" I was trying to put the pictures in and had one I didn’t want. Thought that was the series of buttons I was clicking - oops!

After leaving Sue and Don’s, the idea was to visit some historical sites in southeastern North Dakota on the return home. First on the agenda was White Hill Battlefield southwest of LaMour. When we arrived, after a very long gravel road, we found it was closed, only open on the weekends. We were able to walk around the grounds and did learn a bit about the significance - but not much.

The first picture is taken from the small museum, not open, shows the wide open space of the area. It was a long, but not unpleasant walk up to the monument, with a small rest shelter near the top. The museum was in a small shelter, built of logs and stone, by the CCC in the 30's. It is in surprisingly good shape for it’s age, but does look old. We really would have liked to see in the museum. Maybe next time we will plan to be there on the weekend!

The monument itself is rather impressive and dedicated to the Iowa and Nebraska Calvary which fought the Indians at the site. I don’t know what the fight was about. Maybe someday we will learn about it. There sure could be better care take of the monument. There are all kinds of green/gray/blue things growing on the stonework. I suspect it is some kind of lichen, fungus, or some such. Irregardless, it needs a good cleaning. The stone work is also showing it’s age and maybe some kind of stabilized/preservative could be applied. Don’t really know much about those kind of things.

As you can see from the last picture, the green crops have been replaced by open grasslands, more or less, and the trees have been replaced by cattle. While the countryside changes all along our trek from FISKLAND, it seems there is almost a line where the crops end and the cattle begin, for the most part. If you look closely at the water hole, the water seems to be about four feet below "normal." We saw many water holes, ponds, and rivers either dry or with only puddles in them and a lot of mud. It is entirely a different world for sure. For us, it is a nice thing to see, but would not really like to live there by choice.

We went to two other historic sites, but they too were closed. One we could not even walk around. We gave up on the fourth site, as we assumed it too would be closed and the price of fuel was rather high. We had put on a lot of miles (not hard to do out there) between sites already - enough is enough. We did enjoy the views along the way, so I guess it was worth the ride. The state power companies are also putting up wind turbines to produce electricity on the grasslands. They have a lot more there than here, but the system they are using looks very much as the systems here. Wisconsin will have a lot of them in the future as more and more are being built. Some are talking of putting them out in Lake Michigan too.

Green Bay experienced their first death of a firefighter on the job yesterday afternoon. It is an old fire department too. Apparently two were battling the blaze inside of a house when they fell through the floor into the basement. One, a gal, managed to scramble out, but the other didn’t. He was a 20+ year veteran, scheduled to be promoted on Thursday Lieutenant. The department will bring forward the promotion which probably means a boost in the benefits for the widow and his three daughters. The chief said they are in the habit of saving folks, not losing them. It has really hit the rest of the department hard.

Church was pretty filled yesterday. It was ice-cream Sunday with all kinds of build-it-yourself sundaes being built and eaten after the service. I don’t think that really was the reason for the good sized crowd though. I think Pastor enjoyed it most of all there though. I did have to chuckle at his sermon. The trip to the Holy Spirit Conference caused him to hear part of the message I tried to give him several months ago. He refused to listen to me then. Guess you really do have to be 50 miles from home before folks really will listen to you! Anywho, mission accomplished.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><