Day 25 – Wednesday July 10 - International Peace Garden

 

It is a long way to the top of North Dakota, but a trip to the International Peace Gardens is well worth the effort to get here.

We journeyed from Williston across the expanse of prairie with fields of Canola and Alfalfa.  Saw lots of bee hives and wondered if any of them were from the gentleman we saw hauling bees up here a few weeks ago. Pretty soon we saw the Turtle Mountains off in the distance.  Yes, it is hard to believe that North Dakota has mountains, but there they are. They rise 2000 feet on the border of Canada.

Off in the distance you can see the Turtle Mountains

Our first stop after climbing the ridge was to Mystic Horizons.  This is such a cool place.  It was the vision of Jack Olson.  He wanted to build a modern Stonehenge here on the prairie.  It has a commanding view of the prairie below.  There is a large sundial that  tells time on CST, at this time it said around 1pm.  Then there is the Stonehenge structure that has large stone walls that line up to show the Fall/Spring Equinox and the Summer/Winter Solstice.  I would love to be here to see one of these occurrences some day.  The last structure is something that can only be appreciated at night. It is a Polar Tube.  It is set to view the North Star, the only star that is constant in the night sky.

Sundial - Shows 1pm CST

Prairie from on top of the mountain

Polaris Tube pointing to the North Star

Stone structure align with rising sun on Summer/Winter Solstice
and Spring/Fall Equinox

We drove to the International Peace Gardens which is situated on the US and Canadian border.  Exactly half of the garden is in the United States and the other half in Canada.  The formal gardens are enclosed in an iron fence to keep the deer from eating all the flowers.  There are several fountains that grace the  gardens along with metal sculptures.  There were beautiful plantings of annuals in addition to all the perennials.  Some of the flowers I was familiar with and others I was not.  The lilacs were still in bloom along with the peonies.  There were roses and every color of lupine imaginable.

Buck enjoying a refreshing drink

They keep the formal gardens fenced in so that the deer don't eat all the plants

A little library for kids to borrow books

Storybook station

The gardens also has a Conservatory that houses over 4000 cultivars of cactus and succulents.  The plantings were enormous.  It was also extremely warm in here and it was noticeably cooler once we left.

Besides the formal gardens there is a road that meanders around the property and trails to hike to lakes tucked into the hillsides.  Something that took my breath away is something that I have always heard about but never seen.  There is a swatch cut in the woods from the Pacific to the Atlantic to signify the border between the US and Canada.  When I looked to the woods, there it was stretching to the horizon.  This was cool to see.

We decided to camp in the Turtle Mountains at Lake Metigoshe State Park.  The lake is extremely large and had lots of cottages and businesses surrounding it.  Buck and I had a nice evening walk and enjoyed chatting with one of the rangers, Lynn, before heading back to camp.