A warm welcome in Dickinson

Tuesday: rain mixed with snow, clouds hanging really low, when we drove from Minot to Dickinson. Since we were staying at our friends' Terri's and Dale's ranch - Terri is the tourism rep of Dickinson and that's how we got to know her many years ago - we were really looking forward to this (4th) visit in town.


Dickinson (17,000 population) is considered the gateway to ND's only National Park, the Theodore Roosevelt NP, and it became a boom town a couple of years ago thanks to oil production (fracking - "hydraulic fracturing"). Also, an artist's monumental scrap sculptures (like the one on the picture) and the "Enchanted Highway" make the town interesting. We were following our itinerary, of course, including a visit to the Dickinson Museum Center with the Dinosaur Museum, where life-sized dinosaurs and an array of fossils are on display, and went to the auction hall, where a lot of cattle is being sold and bought (we are in cattle country!). Also, got a tour and tasting in the new Fluffy Fields Vineyard and Winery with their own vineyards. They produce grape wines and wines produced with locally grown berries, honey and (!) carrots. The latter were the better ones, since ND not really is a top grape-growing region.

Well, for the rest we had a very good time. Our friends have a gorgeous ranchhouse on top of a hill surrounded by nothing but wide open grassland, pastureland for the 140 cows + 140 cattle + 5 bulls + 3 horses they own. We had wonderful T-bone steaks on the first evening and melting-in-the-mouth beef-roast and walleye (fish) from a nearby lake the next one. All cooked from scratch by our friends and accompanied by plenty of wine, beer and whiskey. We toured the ranch in their truck before sunset, unfortunately it was cold and cloudy most of the time, and took shooting lessons with Dale.

Again, we recognized how different lifestyles, problems and points of view can be. We compared over dinner: Germany as a whole would fit into the area of North and South Dakota, but whereas Germany has 83 mio. people the Dakotas have about 1.6 mio. Selling their calves next week our friends were planning the round-up (mainly horseback), hoping for good weather and good cattle prices. A calf, being born in March/April, weights roughly 600+ pounds now and is sold for about $ 600+. From the auction hall it goes to a feedlot (in Illinois or Minneapolis) and is slaughtered after another couple of week. Since our friends can't go shopping every day, they have half a cow and half a pig in the freezer. And, they drive big gas-comsuming trucks. With the dirt road to the ranch and the snow coming up soon (and for long), they couldn't drive anything else. The next neighbor lives about 1,5 mi (3 km) away, and, the view from their livingroom or porch is unlimited. At nights coyotes are howling and dear shows up in the backyard to eat the buffalo berries off the shrubs.



Left Dickinson on Thursday morning at 18 deg. F (-8 C) reluctantly after a delicious breakfast, but - finally! - the sun was out. Wish we could have stayed a little longer, but had to head east to Bismarck, only about 1,5 hours.