Saturday June 15

Today we felt closer than any day so far to the experience of the Corps of Discovery. The day began with thunderclaps, lightning , and rain. we outpaced the storm as we rode north, and the skies cleared. As we passed from the treeless, rolling, grassy plains to the tree-covered banks of the Mandan's territory, the weather suddenly changed again. the sky was covered with rolling black clouds that threatened high winds, torrential rain, and maybe a tornado. Amazingly the sky cleared enough for us to tour the 1876 home of George Armstrong Custer at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. And we were able to take a dinner cruise aboard the paddle wheeler Lewis and Clark -- our first time on the Missouri. We were relieved that we didn't have to pole or tow the boat. Diane & John Dalsimer
Although Lewis and Clark is the focus of this trip, there are many other stories to tell, like Sitting Bull's graves.
A hilltop overooking the Missouri River near Mobridge, SD (Chuck Gaul with our flag.)	And his original grave in Fort Yates, ND (John & Diane Dalsimer with our flag.)
There are also many personal interests and goal being pursued on this trip. We have several avid bird watchers and amateur naturalists looking for personal sightings and also to correlate with Lewis and Clark sightings
Nature Notes Patricia writes: Although Lewis and Clark feasted on venison every day, we have only seen 4 deer in the fields around our motel (plus 2 concrete decorations -ed.). We are still looking for elk, pronghorn antelope, bears, prairie dogs, buffalo, and wolves. we will keep you posted. We have seen tall cottonwoods with soft cotton drifting to the ground & sycamores with peeling bark towering over trees laden with sweet mulberries to eat. and thick grapevines hanging deown into tangles of poison ivy.
Bill & Ginny Young and several others were excited to see their first Ring-necked Pheasant during our super dinner cruise on the Missouri at Port of Bismarck. Earlier, back at Fort Osage, we saw a Red-Tailed Hawk.
One of our ladies has pictures of herself at thirty-some capitols, so we drove by the Capitol building at Bismarck and got these shots. Tomorrow we head for Medora, ND with a stop at a recreation of fort Mandan, and the Knife River Indian Villages.