The One That Got Away

As soon as we got to Grand Forks, we immediately began asking what there is to do outside Grand Forks. Everyone talked about the white buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota. They have three of them now on a preserve with other bison. They are sacred in the Native American culture, and to have three of them is pretty amazing.

First we went to the museum,

where we saw:

a bison head

 the world's worst petting zoo

a picture of a mountain of bison skulls, used in the refining of sugar (yuck!)

another huge bison head that freaked me out so much, I made Josh take the picture while I hid in the other room. Wall-mounted heads are freaky.

a full-bodied bison

The museum also had an observation deck that overlooked the preserve where the buffalo, literally, roamed. We did catch a glimpse of one of the white buffalos, but we didn't realize what we were looking at until it was too late to take a picture. 

this is an artist's rendering of what we might have seen

We found out later that albino buffalos tend to prefer the shade because the bright sun can be too much for their unpigmented eyes. Unfortunately, we were there at 2pm on a very sunny Saturday, so   we only got that one glimpse of the white one, but we saw tons of brown buffalo:

We also lived it up in the gift shop:

We bought our own white buffalo:

this one will never get away

She made many guest appearances in our pictures:

Jamestown is also the home of the "World's Largest Buffalo":

26 feet tall, 46 feet long, and weighs in at 60 tons

This sculpture was commissioned in 1959 by a local businessmen and was completed by art students from Jamestown College. This led to Jamestown being known as "The Buffalo City."

family portrait

Josh is braver than I-- that particular part of the buffalo leaks water

our buffalo is bigger than your buffalo

relaxing after a long day of buffalo-watching

we even enjoyed their nod to the Haunted Mansion graveyard

If you are ever passing through ND, I definitely recommend stopping in Jamestown. It includes a replica wild west town and everything, except the museum, is free.

This was our last trip before Josh moved back to Oregon, but don't think that just because Josh isn't here I won't continue to have Adventures in North Dakota! 

Things I didn't know about Grand Forks #21

People in the midwest love their vanity plates. And why not? They only cost $25 in North Dakota. We have seen all sorts, but I never remember to take a picture. But on the way home from church the other day we were behind this:

There are also a large amount of vanity plates parked in my apartment parking lot, like this:

Driving home from work the other day, I saw this one:

I know vanity plates aren't an isolated midwest trend (my best friend's husband had the plate "IM007" when we were in high school), but they do seem extraordinarily prevalent. I see one at least every time I go out in public. I never would have guessed that this was a thing.

Our PurSIOUXt of the Falls

Josh came up with the title. I just had to say that first.

On our way back from Omaha, after our overnight stay in Sioux City, we stopped in Sioux Falls, SD because we had stayed overnight there on our way to Grand Forks, but never went sight-seeing.

from the observation tower

The falls are in the middle-ish part of town. The city of Sioux Falls has done a wonderful job with the park and I felt supremely jealous of all the running paths. 

in case you missed the falls, I'll point them out

We are getting a little obsessed with buffalo/bison (as you will find out when I write about our most recent adventure), so we had to take a picture with the "Monarch of the Plains":

I got a little overexcited after spending too long in the car:

Here is a view that doesn't include us:

And here is one that does:

this has quickly become my favorite picture of myself because it encapsulates my thoughts of my current state so well

Sioux Falls also has the gorgeous St. Joseph's Cathedral. It sits on the side of a hill. I wish we had time to go inside, but we still had a lot of driving to do.

It is possible that one or two of you may get a very belated postcard from us from Sioux Falls. We always intend to send them, but then always forget. So it goes.

Frozen in Carbonite!

Remember when we went to Walt Disney World and got 3D images of our heads taken so we could be made into action figures?

Well, we got them and they look like this:

complete with our own packaging

full body (well, Han Solo's body with my head)

close up (I like the flat-chested look)

Josh, full body

close up Josh's figure looks a little wistful

I had grand plans for displaying mine in my office, but apparently "carbonite" is more like sandstone, so they are pretty fragile. Josh has ferreted them away somewhere out of the way so they don't accidentally break in half. Still the geekiest thing I have ever owned in my life.

NebrASKa how our trip went!

I've been trying to write this post for awhile, but there's just no way to make our trip to Nebraska seem exciting. We went to Nebraska to go to temple #50, but we thought we should do other things as well. The Mormon Pioneer Museum is literally across the street, so there we went.

I like visiting church history sites because they are generally manned (womanned?) by Sister missionaries and/or senior missionaries, who are very willing to chat and usually think we're pretty interesting.

a model of what the Winter Quarters camp looked like

a model log cabin-- I'm sad we didn't take pictures inside, but we got distracted by the soundtrack

crossing the ole Mississip'

replica wagon

replica front half of the SLC temple

A major thing I liked about this visitor's center is that they talk very frankly about the turmoil the church faced following Joseph Smith's death. Sometimes people gloss over that. We told her about how, when we took the Community of Christ tour in Nauvoo, our tour guide made a big deal out of how much of a jerk Emma Smith thought Brigham Young was. I don't think our sister missionary knew how to respond, so she showed us a video about eternal families (which wasn't quite a punishment, but for a married couple without kids it didn't feel like much of a reward either).

Then we doubled back and went to the pioneer cemetery, which is right next to the temple.

at the entrance gate

There are not many gravestones that still exist, but there is this huge statue of a couple who have buried their child (at least, I'm about 98% certain that this was what the statue meant). 

The statue is surrounded by the names of the people who were buried in the cemetery, scriptures, and song verses.

on the ground around the statue

Then we continued our church history tour by going across the river (on the Mormon Bridge, no less) to the Kanesville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Brigham Young was sustained as the second president of the church.

us with the second First Presidency

Inside the visitor's center we got to talk for a long time with the senior missionaries, as well as see a video about the Mormon Battalion and their influence on the move west. 

a replica Mormon Battalion uniform

There are many things I didn't know about the Mormon Battalion, and there are many things I still don't know, but I look forward to learning more.

the replica Kaneville Tabernacle from the outside

the replica tabernacle from the inside

Finally, Josh wanted very badly to get a good Omaha steak, so he did his research and we ended up here:

The history of the restaurant is interesting, but the ambiance was very Italian Family. I can imagine that many of the people who work there are related. The absolute strangest thing, and I have such a hard time getting over the weirdness of it, was that we were seated near-ish to the women's restroom and apparently that was also the unofficial "break room" of the employees. So anyone who wanted to use the restroom had to weave their way through a bunch of servers and busboys who were hanging out, shooting the breeze, and watching us eat. Creepy.

We were only there for one full day. That night, we drove back to Sioux City, Iowa, and started another adventure-- coming soon!

Temple #50: Winter Quarters, Nebraska

It was Josh's idea to make Winter Quarters temple #50. We are crazy, I know. I can only say that we didn't really set out to go to so many. It just kind of happened over time. When we got married, we talked about all the temples we wanted to see before we had kids. And then we kept not having kids, so we kept going to more temples. I've probably told this story before.

the temple sign-- to the side of, not in front of, the temple

The Winter Quarters temple is on this big hill and it was built right next to a pioneer cemetery. In fact, if the Celestial Room window had not been made of stained glass, it would look right into the cemetery. Symbolic? Obviously.

from the front of the temple

This is a similar design to the Snowflake, Arizona temple, which means that when you walk through the door there is a stained glass window behind the reception desk, behind which is the baptistry. To get to the ordinance rooms, you take a staircase to the right.

the front doors

This temple has a few stained glass windows, such as this one (I think, though I'm not entirely sure, that the baptistry is on the other side):

The first ordinance room doesn't have landscape murals, but does have two landscape paintings. One was of chimney rock, which fans of the Oregon Trail game can appreciate. Otherwise, it is white walls with gold painted trim (except for one or two features in the upstairs waiting area, which I will get to).

The Celestial Room was small and had two green, overstuffed couches that reminded me of something my sister Tasha would buy (or possibly owns). Then the room is ringed with more chairs of different types, mostly moss green and beige. The stained glass window had the Tree of Life (I assume). The room also had a puzzling grape motif. I know that when I think of Nebraska, the first thing that comes to mind is grapes. Go figure.

The final, really interesting part, of this temple is the waiting area on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs. There is a beautiful painting of the settlement of the Saints at Winter Quarters. There is also a painted stained glass-ish window with multiple scenes and people that are important to Winter Quarters and the Mormon Trail. We got to meet the temple president and matron and told them that this was our 50th temple in a little over 5 years of marriage. They seemed much more impressed than people were when we had only visited 49 temples. They were extremely nice and wished me luck with school (I told them I am going to need it). 

I have decided to include our other Omaha adventures (the Mormon Trail Visitor's Center, Kanesville Tabernacle, Italian steak, and Sioux Falls) in the next blog post. Right now I just want to revel in the fact that we actually, weirdly, have now been to 50 temples. (It probably goes without saying that Josh has already planned our next temple tour, but it will have to wait until the summer and the end of my internship). 

We Accidentally Attended a Shriner Parade

Josh and I have to wait until basically right before sunset before we go running because it is crazy hot in The Forks during the day, but last week there was an unseasonably cool(ish) afternoon. I was excited because it meant we could run, eat at a reasonable time, and I could get to bed at 10pm.

We even had enough time to run over the bridge and run/jog/walk in Minnesota.

But when we got back to the DeMers bridge, which is where we cross back over from Minnesota to North Dakota, we came across this:

 

We had some indicators that a parade was in store for the town, but when we parked the car I rationalized that it takes us around an hourish to run/jog/walk and any imminent parade would be done by then. So we parked the car in the riverside parking lot, which has only one escape... on DeMers street where the parade was in full swing at the end of our run.

We had absolutely no choice but to wait until it ended. So we saw things like:

one of many only mostly racist old, white man bands

a Viking ship

lots of clowns

horses with bejeweled hooves

lots of white dudes on motorcycles, go-carts, 4-wheelers, etc. Josh said he suspects that's the biggest draw to being a Shriner

the "culturally-appropriate" steel drum band

and, the coup de grace, a bunch of old, white guys dressed... well... like this (the dragon spat out fire extinguisher foam from its nostrils. They aimed for me, but I was behind a bridge beam)

We had to wait for an hour, so our early start on our evening run was completely pointless because we got back to the apartment at the same time we normally do and I didn't get to bed until way after 10. But we got to see this Shriner parade, which seems to be the most Midwest thing we have done so far.