NORTHWEST TO MIDWEST: BOZEMAN, MT/HARDIN, MT/WILLISTON, ND/DEVIL’S LAKE, ND/DETROIT LAKES, MN: Blog #8
Being a loyal follower of this furshlugginer blog, you probably know most of our basic rules, e.g. drive no more than 300 miles a day, don’t do laundry on Mondays, etc. But there were three of our rules we had to ignore this week due to the massively long (I’m not saying “boring”) drives across the extremely wide states of Montana and North Dakota. Those rules were: 1) always drive on Sundays; 2) always stay at a campsite for seven days; and 3) never fight a land war in Southeast Asia. If we were to get to Minneapolis by July 1 for the Senior Olympics, we were going to have to drive the 1,512 miles in just 12 days, effectively squelching rule numbers 1 and 2 (more on rule #3 when I think about it) while holding to the “300-mile limit” rule. Therefore, today’s blog will cover 11 days instead of the usual seven and five campgrounds instead of one. This could be a lengthy one. Commence the gnashing of teeth and the tearing out of hair.
Most of all, stay strong.
Departing from Glacier National Park on Saturday, June 20, we made our way south and east to Bozeman, Montana. In our short two days there at the home of Montana State University (MSU), we were slated to visit a relative, a college friend, and a senior softball buddy.
Think we can do it?
Let’s see.
You may blogly remember last year’s sojourn to our stop in State College, Pennsylvania, where we visited the Hershey Chocolate factory, saw a Little League World Series game, and actually touched John Capelletti’s Heisman Trophy at Penn State University (PSU), all the while visiting my cousin, Anne Ready, her husband Rich (a PSU professor), and their kids, Jonathan and Trine. It was a gay old time.
This year, the state and the college have changed, but it’s basically the same game. Rich is now a professor at MSU. Son Jonathan is staying at PSU while Anne and Trine are driving the family furniture across country and will meet up with us later in this blog a state away.
It was also the first day of summer, so we chose to walk the pretty little town of Bozeman. They had a very nice park in the heart of downtown, and there was an old but restored movie theatre that just played classic movies. Alas, we missed last night’s screening of the epic cross-genre flick: “Cowboys vs Dinosaurs” which was filmed in Livingston, MT; I’m not sure, but I think it was an Oscar winner … either that or an Oscar WEINER. Looking back at the previous night, I’m trying to decide, given the option, which one I would have chosen, the Western-giant-lizard movie or Shakespeare in the Park … hmmm … I’M THINKING! I’M THINKING!
One of the fun shops we checked out was an old record store that also featured retro-clothing. Diedre alertly noticed that the retro shirt exhibited in the front window was the same as the one I was unretro-ly wearing that day.
Now THAT was embarrassing!
During lunch, we tossed some ideas back and forth about next year’s RV trip which we’ve thoughtfully titled the “Canada: Does It Really Exist?” tour. We’re really looking forward to it. We first head east to Nova Scotia, then turn left and go all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Our main worry is about learning the language, aay?!
Once back on the road, we made our way to Hardin, Montana. There was not much to do there, but it was about as far as we wanted to drive that day. After some rest and recovery time, we set out on Tuesday for more old-folks adventures, this time in the somewhat bigger nearby town of Billings. Diedre was happy because there awaited another Curves that would allow her a workout.
So, too, like Cyrano, did I thus go into battle, tilting at windmills that so vexed me. Only in this instance, mine enemy was that feared creature from the dark netherworld: “Target Pharmacy.” A blood-thirstier foe you’ll never come upon. (Diedre here - and he dissed Shakespeare???)
See, I had called in a prescription for insulin needles the previous day, as they so like you to do. And Cyrano would have been proud of my efforts once the enemy was met: parry, thrust, feint, retreat, attack, all done with the fellow behind the counter. It seems he wanted me to have a minimum of a 3-month’s supply of needles even though my unscrupulous ally in battle, the evil empire, Aetna Insurance, would pay for no more than a 1-month’s supply. And Target knows this … or at least they should if they’re using any of those new-fangled contraptions called “com-pu-ters.” Apparently at this cow-town-Target, the needles only come packaged for a 3-month’s supply. The Bullseye folks must have feared the wrath of their manager (a 19-year old kid with heavy acne), so they were wary of breaking the box down into a 1-month’s supply. That kind of put me between a rockhead and a hard-ass.
The three-months’ supply cost some outrageous sum that I, just a poor traveling RV salesman, could ill afford. In the end, justice prevailed: I simply went to Albertson’s where they daubed my brow, gave me sustenance, and filled my prescription correctly … like REAL people do!
YAY, ALBERTSON’S!
Pre-game, we toured the park, posing with a statue of local legend and Baltimore Orioles’ star pitcher Dave McNally. Inside the small but charming ballpark, we watched the kids warm up. The Mustangs play in the Pioneer League which is a rookie league. Just a month ago, a lot of these young men were playing college baseball, and now here they are as pros, living the dream of getting paid to play baseball. The team is a Cincinnati Reds’ affiliate, and tonight they were playing the Missoula Osprey, an Arizona Diamondbacks’ minor league team, so our allegiances were somewhat split.
The real test of willpower for DK (I’ve pretty much given up hope of ever sampling any of the following again) was the smell of mini-donuts, caramel corn, and pretzels wafting down to our 2nd row seats behind the first-base dugout, all the while the big beer sign was calling her name. The ballpark is NOT a place to diet.
Some notes on the game:
-it was “Mustangs Strike Out Cancer Night,” so for the first time in 63 years, the Mustangs were wearing purple jerseys to support cancer healing; the jerseys were then auctioned off after the game with proceeds going to the nearby cancer hospital;
-at 9:18pm, the sun finally went down giving us a break from the glare and the 85-degree heat (We’ve had nice, but not warm, weather in Montana, at least up until today);
-pitching for the Missoula Osprey in the 8th inning: Willy Loman. For you baboons out there, he was the lead character in Arthur Miller’s legendary play, “Death of a Salesman,” although we’re pretty sure this wasn’t him.
(“PRETTY sure?” –DK)
-the ‘Stangs lost 3-1 largely due to the fact that they only got four hits. Of course, the Osprey also only got four hits, so that shoots that theory.
Okay, Wednesday, June 24, was an epic day for us, as big as standing on the Civil War’s Fort Sumter or the Wright Brothers’ Kittyhawk. Today we would walk where Custer fell in battle (“Custer’s Last Stand” or “Last Stand Hill”) at The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Amazingly, we were there just one day short of the 139th anniversary of the infamous ”Battle of the Little Bighorn” which was fought between the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians versus the U.S. Army.
In a clash of cultures, the Indians were fighting to preserve their way of life as nomadic buffalo hunters. The Army was carrying out the Grant administration’s orders to remove these Indians to the Great Sioux Reservation in the Dakota Territory. We learned a lot of new things that day that were diametrically opposed to our long-held beliefs about the battle. What we had never before realized was that America was in a depression at the time. Then gold was discovered in the Black Hills. But that land was all part of a Native American reservation. So our fine government tried to buy it from them. But when that failed, the government tried to strong arm the natives off the precious land. From that we got Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse versus Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. Here’s the referee with the coin toss:
CUSTER: Heads.
REFEREE: It’s tails.
SITTING BULL: Okay, we’ll defend the west goalposts and then ride down upon you with every Indian in the world.
CUSTER: Good luck.
Yes, Custer did not choose his battle well as this was the largest Indian gathering ever recorded on the North American continent. We heard the entire story so artfully told by Ranger Michael Donohue, a college professor from Texas, right at the spot where Custer fell. Custer and 262 men of the 7th Cavalry met their deaths on June 25, 1876, while the Lakota-Cheyenne lost 40-100 braves. Two Moons, an Indian chief, described the Native Americans’ route as “circling all around them like water around a stone.”
There are white grave markers scattered about the battlefield, each indicating where a cavalryman died. Similarly, there are also red-granite markers for Native Americans who died as established by an Indian memorial in 1948. The professor’s story and the markers seemed to be a very fair telling of the history from both sides.
There were a lot of things that struck us quite emotionally that day. There was a cavalry horse cemetery, but not one for Indian horses. That was because the warriors led their horses away to protect them while the soldiers killed their horses when they needed cover at the end. One warrior said, “You knew it was over when the soldiers killed their horses. It was as if they knew they would not see the sunset.”
This site was one of those places that really made us feel the emotion of the area. It was right up there with other heartstring-tugging locales such as the Viet-Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC, or the Holocaust Museum, also in D.C. But in fact, of all our travels, DK thought this battlefield was the most powerful of them all, maybe because we were walking right where the fighting took place, right where people died.
We bid farewell to the Little Bighorn and then decompressed back in Hardin at the “Three Brothers Bistro” owned by Greg and Terri, a wonderful couple who also own the old movie theatre next door. Still, it took us a few days to get some of the battlefield images out of our minds.
On to more fun things.
On Thursday, we made the drive across Montana to Williston, North Dakota, state #35 on the pop-chart list of states we’ve visited. Driving across Montana is a “lonnnggg” way. In fact, Montana is so huge that people in the state are numbed to the amount of time they spend on the road. When a Montana guy says, “Honey, I’m going out for a quart of milk,” well, he doesn’t return for at least two days.
Our day of driving Montana was right out of “The Twilight Zone”: 1) we “sort of” ran over a deer. It was already dead in the roadway, but the semi in front of us, screening our view, easily cleared the dead body. Us? Not so much. We had various deer guts on AB1’s underside for a good week, at least going by the smell; 2) not only did our door get blown off its track when we first got out at the rest stop, but then, 3) we left our step ladder at the rest stop after pulling it out to repair the door (somehow, I remembered it just before we got back on the interstate); and finally, 4) mysteriously I lost my glasses case in that netherworld called “Senioritis.”
Other than that, it wasn’t a bad ride.
On the drive today to Williston, after we did a crossword puzzle, read from “The Making of ‘The Princess Bride’ Movie” book, and did 30 baseball trivia questions, we still had a ways to go. After all, it was a 5.5-hour trip. So to break up the tedium (at least for me), I proceeded to relate to Diedre the life-altering story of how, at age 15, my 1966 Babe Ruth baseball team won our St. Louis Park, MN, league, then the district tournament, and finally the Minnesota State Tournament. All that then led us to Williston, ND, site of the six-state regional tournament where we would be competing against five other state champions plus the host Williston team. On our own to a certain extent, those five days in Williston transformed our lives and would be a week I and the rest of the guys would never, ever forget. I made the two greatest defensive plays of my life (being so tall, I was naturally our first-baseman) … playing under the lights (for the first time in our lives) … both in the 2nd to last inning … in an elimination game … to defeat the hometown Williston boys and their 1,100 rabid fans … and in front of the first girl I would ever date. We played four exciting games to finish in 3rd place (losing to the eventual regional champion Iowa team by just one-run) and barely missed making it to the Babe Ruth World Series in Douglas, Arizona. And now, 49 years later, I would be returning to Williston, to walk on the same field where I had the highlights of my baseball career, to visit the same movie theater where I had my first date.
Ahh, what a tale!
Hmmm … that story lasted less than a minute to tell you guys. Somehow on the drive, it took me over an hour to tell roughly the same facts to Diedre Kaye … come to think of it, I did have to wake her twice. Now you can see why my blogs are so long.
Just outside of Williston, we stayed at the Lewis and Clark State Park. The Canadian fires burning at the time were sending so much smoke south that it created purple skies in North Dakota. Also as the newest and biggest oil producing state after Texas, the landscape was spotted with small fires everywhere as oil rigs burned off their excess natural gases right up into the air. There were geysers of flames all across the landscape.
Back to our campground: here’s an Alexx-Fun-Fact about the Lewis and Clark expedition. On August 10, 1806, Meriwether Lewis, not so smartly dressed in animal skins and brown leather, went elk hunting with “Pierre ‘One Eye' Cruzatte.” I’m not sure about the judgement of going hunting with anybody nicknamed “One-Eye,” so I think you can see where this is going. Meriwether certainly didn’t. Yes, the near-sighted Pierre mistook Lewis for an elk and shot him in the upper thigh. The painful injury forced Lewis to finish the expedition on his belly.
That evening was the night of the NBA (pro basketball) draft, so DK dropped me off at a sports bar in town while she went to work out. I mainly wanted to see if local Minnesota boy and NCAA tourney MVP Tyus Jones would be drafted. He is, after all, only a freshman. The bar had the requisite 20-30 televisions, all tuned to different channels and none of them with the sound on as the bar brain trust figured it was important for us to continue listening to 1950’s country music. So, eventually I could SEE on screen that Tyus was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but it wasn’t until a day or two later that I found out that he had been immediately traded to his hometown Minnesota Timberwolves franchise. So it turns out that the TV audio IS important.
After Diedre joined me for a quick bite at the “no audio” nightclub, we made our way through town searching for the baseball stadium where 49 years ago my state champion Babe Ruth baseball team had come so close to winning and going on to nationals. Deep down I figured the ballpark was probably long gone, but to my amazement, the “Ardean Aafedt Baseball Stadium” was still there looking about the same as it did nearly a half-century ago.
Unfortunately for us, it was locked up tighter than a drum, so all we could do was walk around the perimeter sneaking peeks in at the field whenever possible.
But the baseball gods must have been with us that day, because when we got back to where we parked the car by the first-base dugout, magically, the filed gate was now open. And even better, there was no one in sight. So, like two daring teenagers, we dashed onto the field where I immediately took up my position at first base, the same spot where 49 years ago I made the two biggest defensive plays of my life (amazingly in the same inning) while Diedre went wild snapping pictures from every possible angle.
When we were satisfied that every conceivable photo-op had been explored, we then slowly and more brazenly marched across the field to exit the semi-secure ballpark.
And no one was any the wiser.
And then the moment, the EXACT moment that we got off the field, the baseball gods were able to relax. The field sprinklers came on dousing every inch of the playing surface while we watched from outside the fences with huge smiles on our faces.
What a charmed life we lead!
The only other memory-remnant I still had of Williston was the town movie theater where I had my first date. Back in 1966, we saw “Batman: The Movie” with Adam West and Burt Ward. Now in 2015, the theatre looked pretty much the same and their tastes in movies had not changed that much either as they were showing “The Avengers.”
After a little R&B Friday, we bid farewell to the greatest of my “Memory Lanes” and drove on the next day to Devil’s Lake, the largest natural body of water in all of North Dakota, where we would be staying at Graham’s Island State Park. On that day’s long, uneventful drive, DK continued her entertainment duties by reading to me (electronically) from the biography of the talented Dick Van Dyke. One of the very fun-facts we found out about the actor as a youth was that he went to high school in Danville, Illinois, where his classmates included fellow actors Donald O’Connor and Gene Hackman.
What are the odds?
Camping in Devil’s Lake was a lot like being on the 1960’s TV show, “Green Acres” where farm-wife Lisa could only plug in appliances that totaled 7 or less at the same time, i.e., the toaster was a 2, the dishwasher a 5, the refrigerator a 6. She was constantly plugging and unplugging appliances so that she wouldn’t overload the circuit and blow a fuse. In RV-land, we normally use a 50-amp outlet to power AB1, but this state park only had 30-amp usage at our group site, so just like Lisa Douglas, we had to unplug any appliance when we had to use some other appliance or needed to use the air conditioner. It was not easy, but using our good old pioneer know-how, we muddled through.
We reserved a group site here at DL since my cousin Anne (see husband Rich Ready from earlier in this blog in Bozeman, MT, as well as in last year’s State College, PA, blog) and her daughter Trine were joining us that night for a mini-campground jamboree. They were on their way across the country moving their stuff to their new home in Bozeman and were joining us for the night. Also with them was their dog “Chip,” a King Charles Spaniel, who was just way too cute. He’s the kind of dog DK vows to get when we’re RV-less in our 80’s.
We’ll see.
On Sunday, DK made a good old-fashioned campground breakfast of hominy grits, possum belly, and hog jowls for the gals before they got back on the road. We then changed camp sites to get a less “Green Acres” like one that actually had 50 amps.
Since the campground had no wifi, we came up with the brilliant idea of driving into town and using the library’s wifi signal. Only ... it was Sunday.
The library was closed.
But that was no problem for the ever-resourceful Diedre Kaye. She wandered around the building till she found what she deemed to be “a hot spot” in the shade in back of the libe. So like a couple of Clampetts, there we sat on our lawn chairs getting the blog up to date.
For dinner, we ended up at “The Ranch,” a local steak house. Diedre was looking for sushi.
Hmmm … sushi at a steak house?
Good luck with that.
While the Missus was checking out all the exotic draft beers such as “Fargo Scottish Ale” and “New Belgian Ranger IPA,” I went with the $1 drink specials listed under “Grampa Beers” (Busch, Hamms, Old Milwaukee, Schmidt, or Pabst Blue Ribbon). Of course, these were happy hour prices for “cans” of beer.
My kind of place.
They also had “tater tot hot dish” on the menu which consisted of ground steak, corn, green beans, mushrooms, cheese sauces, and a pile of crispy tots.
Even more so, “my kind of place.”
And yes, they DID have sushi at the steak house highlighted by “The Sushi Roll of the Day … market price.” I don’t know … Have you ever been to a “sushi barn”?
Okay, on Monday, June 29, we were slated to crash through the geographical glass-ceiling and finally make our way into Minnesota … “Detroit Lakes” to be specific.
But first, some drive-time excitement …
At a rest stop, we both got out to do part of our daily three-mile walk. We walked in opposite directions. When I later rounded the tourist center after a bit, I was not-so surprised to see Diedre at the rear of the building flat on her back doing what looked to me like some kind of leg stretches. I jokingly announced, “Boy, you’ll do yoga anywhere!”
Now, most normal people, when they see a 65-year old woman lying on the ground, would immediately ask, “Did you fall?! Are you okay?! Can I help you?!” But since I’m used to Grand-Canyon-hiker-super-gal-
Anywho … she glared up at me and, in her best Oliver Hardy imitation, said, “Why don’t you do something to HELP me?!”
Yes, our girl had fallen, tripping over a large uneveness in the two sidewalk sections in back of the tourist center. I mean, this place was just ripe for a lawsuit. So, after a sore hip, an asthma attack, yadda-yadda-yadda, I got our poor girl back to AB1 where she made her recovery while I sheepishly drove on to Detroit Lakes.
We were slated to meet up with two Carleton College classmates of mine that night: Lee and Karin Dostal-Holschuh. Lee had been on the varsity basketball team with me and Karin, a freshman during my senior year, was definitely the “it” girl on campus in 1971-72. We were supposed to meet the Holschuh’s at the town Pavilion on the Detroit Lakes waterfront. Next to it was the city’s baseball park, one of those old, green, wooden grandstand types that every small town had in the day. The Pavilion was the place where all neighboring town Moorhead “Spuds” baseball players went on summer weekends to dance to “The Uglies” and chase girls (or maybe it’s “dance to the girls and chase the uglies”). Either way, Lee told us those were the two places where he struck out, both on the field and on the dance floor.
Moorhead, MN, Lee and Karin’s home, was also the site of the 1966 Babe Ruth Baseball State Tournament where my St. Louis Park team won the championship (“Oh, no!” you’re saying. “Not more baseball memories!” Well, this is MY blog, so just tough it out!)
Lee proudly informed us that Moorhead was recently named the best small city in America. He likened it to becoming a “Jackson Hole type destination.” That may be giving Moorhead a bit much, but, whatever. He also said that “Playboy” magazine picked the Detroit Lakes’ beach as the 10th hottest spot to be on the 4th of July. That story may be apocryphal, but we did spot T-shirts for sale that proclaim it to be so.
We had a lovely dinner with Lee and Karin at a nice lakeside restaurant. I had made Lee bring his Hall of Fame plaque so we could get a picture of it along with my Minnesota Softball Hall of Fame Ring. Lee is in the North Dakota Athletic Hall of Fame in Jamestown, ND; fast-pitch softball was his sport. His picture/plaque at the Hall is near baseball great Roger Maris’s, although it’s actually closer to the North Dakota bowling Hall of Famers.
On Tuesday, June 30, bright and early, my best Minnesota buddy since age four, Steve “Alps” Alpert, arrived early on a wood-recovery mission. Recently retired, he’s taken up woodworking big-time.
“Now that I’m retired from the state attorney general’s office,” he said, “every morning I get up and have nothing to do, but every night when I go to bed, I haven’t got even half of it done.” (Actual quote attributed to Alps’ friend, Jack Ditmar, in case Jack’s the litigious type).
Alps came bearing gifts for us: a huge, hand-made, wooden “bean-bag corn hole game,” and for DK, the world’s largest wine glass that we promptly named “Big Carl” as a tribute to one of our TV shows, “Cougartown.” Alps was also going to be the first person, other than ourselves, to spend a night in AB1. That’s quite an honor.
There were other reasons as well, but I think Alps mainly came up north to join me in revisiting Matson Field in Moorhead, site of our 1966 state championship Babe Ruth baseball victory. Alps played center-field on our St. Louis Park “Coast to Coast” team while I manned first-base. Yes, today was going to be another banner, baseball-memories day. And it only got better when an e-mail from Lee Holschuh came through offering his services as “Fargo-Moorhead Guide of the Day.”
This was an especially generous offer considering that Lee had to take time off from his busy job as president of Midwest Steel to take us yokels on a Fargo-Moorhead tour.
We first went to Matson Field, and just as in Williston, the ballpark looked the same 49 years later. Alps and I re-assumed our positions on the field as Lee ably manned the camera for posterity. It was like we were 15 years old again … although a lot of people say Alps and I are like that most of the time.
From there Lee wanted to show us the Fargo American Legion Ballfield across the river. Highlights there for us old-timers were the “Roger Maris Garden” and public restrooms.
We then had to see “The Roger Maris Museum in Fargo.” Amazingly, it’s in a mall and it didn’t cost a thing. It’s ranked 34th in the travel guide book: “101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out” written by a University of New England “Global Humanities” professor.
Maris’s main claim to fame for you baseball novices is that he hit 61 home runs in 1961 to break the legendary Babe Ruth’s 34-year old record of 60 home runs in a season. Maris’s record stood for 37 years, although some of us feel it still stands (bull-Bonds-S***).
Excuse my cough.
The museum had home run balls number 29, 32, 47-48, 54-58, and 60, from the ’61 season as well as a lot of the bats and his two MVP awards. Of course, home run ball number 61 is at the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown which I saw on last year’s RV trip. Lee and I were actually able to laze around at the museum by sitting in actual Yankee Stadium seats from the Maris era.
You know Lee’s getting old when he couldn’t find his car in the mall parking lot. I mean, this is “Fargo” we‘re talking about. Alps and I were no help whatsoever, although we are much (one year) older than Lee.
And just when you think it couldn’t get any better than seeing the Maris Museum, we then got a whirlwind tour of Lee’s company, Mid America Steel, which started in 1905. We’re definitely going to need naps after all this excitement.
Once back at the Detroit Lakes campground, Alps went fishing on the park’s dock. When we checked up on him, it turned out he was waging a battle of wits with the fish … and the fish were winning. For bait, Alps was using night crawlers, yellow wax worms, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches … with the crusts cut off, of course. The fish seemed to like those best.
For dinner that night, Diedre and I were scheduled to meet up with my St. Louis Park High School classmates (’68) John and wife Marsha (nee Hanson) McEachran. They had been teachers and coaches for years at nearby Perham High. At Park High, John had been the captain of the football team and Marsha was a synchronized swimmer. John was also on the Mets, the Colt League team Alps and I played on when we were 16 and 17 years old. John was the catcher as Alps and I both tried our hands at pitching.
We were to meet John and Marsha at “The Brew” that night, but the surprise was that they didn’t know Alps would be there. Alps set it up with the restaurant staff for him to be our waiter. With head down and hunched over like Quasimodo, Alps limped over to the table and began giving us the specials in Yiddish. John recognized him immediately, but Marsha was aghast at our obnoxious waiter. It was the big laugh of the evening.
Not wanting the reunion to end so soon, John came back to AB1 for some serious beanbag competition. He also got a chance to meet our three kids; he was especially enamored with Charlie. Charlie even let John pick him up, something he lets very few people do.
Okay, if you thought this blog was a lot of trips down memory lane, then brace yourself for the next three-and-a-half weeks of blog. We’ll be in Minnesota where DK and I have a combined 100+ years of friends and family. Get your rest and drink plenty of liquids.
See you next week.
The real test of willpower for DK (I’ve pretty much given up hope of ever sampling any of the following again) was the smell of mini-donuts, caramel corn, and pretzels wafting down to our 2nd row seats behind the first-base dugout, all the while the big beer sign was calling her name. The ballpark is NOT a place to diet.
-it was “Mustangs Strike Out Cancer Night,” so for the first time in 63 years, the Mustangs were wearing purple jerseys to support cancer healing; the jerseys were then auctioned off after the game with proceeds going to the nearby cancer hospital;
-at 9:18pm, the sun finally went down giving us a break from the glare and the 85-degree heat (We’ve had nice, but not warm, weather in Montana, at least up until today);
-pitching for the Missoula Osprey in the 8th inning: Willy Loman. For you baboons out there, he was the lead character in Arthur Miller’s legendary play, “Death of a Salesman,” although we’re pretty sure this wasn’t him.
(“PRETTY sure?” –DK)
-the ‘Stangs lost 3-1 largely due to the fact that they only got four hits. Of course, the Osprey also only got four hits, so that shoots that theory.
In a clash of cultures, the Indians were fighting to preserve their way of life as nomadic buffalo hunters. The Army was carrying out the Grant administration’s orders to remove these Indians to the Great Sioux Reservation in the Dakota Territory. We learned a lot of new things that day that were diametrically opposed to our long-held beliefs about the battle. What we had never before realized was that America was in a depression at the time. Then gold was discovered in the Black Hills. But that land was all part of a Native American reservation. So our fine government tried to buy it from them. But when that failed, the government tried to strong arm the natives off the precious land. From that we got Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse versus Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. Here’s the referee with the coin toss:
CUSTER: Heads.
REFEREE: It’s tails.
SITTING BULL: Okay, we’ll defend the west goalposts and then ride down upon you with every Indian in the world.
CUSTER: Good luck.
There are white grave markers scattered about the battlefield, each indicating where a cavalryman died. Similarly, there are also red-granite markers for Native Americans who died as established by an Indian memorial in 1948. The professor’s story and the markers seemed to be a very fair telling of the history from both sides.
This site was one of those places that really made us feel the emotion of the area. It was right up there with other heartstring-tugging locales such as the Viet-Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC, or the Holocaust Museum, also in D.C. But in fact, of all our travels, DK thought this battlefield was the most powerful of them all, maybe because we were walking right where the fighting took place, right where people died.
On to more fun things.
On Thursday, we made the drive across Montana to Williston, North Dakota, state #35 on the pop-chart list of states we’ve visited. Driving across Montana is a “lonnnggg” way. In fact, Montana is so huge that people in the state are numbed to the amount of time they spend on the road. When a Montana guy says, “Honey, I’m going out for a quart of milk,” well, he doesn’t return for at least two days.
Other than that, it wasn’t a bad ride.
On the drive today to Williston, after we did a crossword puzzle, read from “The Making of ‘The Princess Bride’ Movie” book, and did 30 baseball trivia questions, we still had a ways to go. After all, it was a 5.5-hour trip. So to break up the tedium (at least for me), I proceeded to relate to Diedre the life-altering story of how, at age 15, my 1966 Babe Ruth baseball team won our St. Louis Park, MN, league, then the district tournament, and finally the Minnesota State Tournament. All that then led us to Williston, ND, site of the six-state regional tournament where we would be competing against five other state champions plus the host Williston team. On our own to a certain extent, those five days in Williston transformed our lives and would be a week I and the rest of the guys would never, ever forget. I made the two greatest defensive plays of my life (being so tall, I was naturally our first-baseman) … playing under the lights (for the first time in our lives) … both in the 2nd to last inning … in an elimination game … to defeat the hometown Williston boys and their 1,100 rabid fans … and in front of the first girl I would ever date. We played four exciting games to finish in 3rd place (losing to the eventual regional champion Iowa team by just one-run) and barely missed making it to the Babe Ruth World Series in Douglas, Arizona. And now, 49 years later, I would be returning to Williston, to walk on the same field where I had the highlights of my baseball career, to visit the same movie theater where I had my first date.
Ahh, what a tale!
Hmmm … that story lasted less than a minute to tell you guys. Somehow on the drive, it took me over an hour to tell roughly the same facts to Diedre Kaye … come to think of it, I did have to wake her twice. Now you can see why my blogs are so long.
Back to our campground: here’s an Alexx-Fun-Fact about the Lewis and Clark expedition. On August 10, 1806, Meriwether Lewis, not so smartly dressed in animal skins and brown leather, went elk hunting with “Pierre ‘One Eye' Cruzatte.” I’m not sure about the judgement of going hunting with anybody nicknamed “One-Eye,” so I think you can see where this is going. Meriwether certainly didn’t. Yes, the near-sighted Pierre mistook Lewis for an elk and shot him in the upper thigh. The painful injury forced Lewis to finish the expedition on his belly.
After Diedre joined me for a quick bite at the “no audio” nightclub, we made our way through town searching for the baseball stadium where 49 years ago my state champion Babe Ruth baseball team had come so close to winning and going on to nationals. Deep down I figured the ballpark was probably long gone, but to my amazement, the “Ardean Aafedt Baseball Stadium” was still there looking about the same as it did nearly a half-century ago. 
But the baseball gods must have been with us that day, because when we got back to where we parked the car by the first-base dugout, magically, the filed gate was now open. And even better, there was no one in sight. So, like two daring teenagers, we dashed onto the field where I immediately took up my position at first base, the same spot where 49 years ago I made the two biggest defensive plays of my life (amazingly in the same inning) while Diedre went wild snapping pictures from every possible angle. 
And no one was any the wiser.
And then the moment, the EXACT moment that we got off the field, the baseball gods were able to relax. The field sprinklers came on dousing every inch of the playing surface while we watched from outside the fences with huge smiles on our faces.
What a charmed life we lead!
The only other memory-remnant I still had of Williston was the town movie theater where I had my first date. Back in 1966, we saw “Batman: The Movie” with Adam West and Burt Ward. Now in 2015, the theatre looked pretty much the same and their tastes in movies had not changed that much either as they were showing “The Avengers.”
What are the odds?
Camping in Devil’s Lake was a lot like being on the 1960’s TV show, “Green Acres” where farm-wife Lisa could only plug in appliances that totaled 7 or less at the same time, i.e., the toaster was a 2, the dishwasher a 5, the refrigerator a 6. She was constantly plugging and unplugging appliances so that she wouldn’t overload the circuit and blow a fuse. In RV-land, we normally use a 50-amp outlet to power AB1, but this state park only had 30-amp usage at our group site, so just like Lisa Douglas, we had to unplug any appliance when we had to use some other appliance or needed to use the air conditioner. It was not easy, but using our good old pioneer know-how, we muddled through.
We reserved a group site here at DL since my cousin Anne (see husband Rich Ready from earlier in this blog in Bozeman, MT, as well as in last year’s State College, PA, blog) and her daughter Trine were joining us that night for a mini-campground jamboree. They were on their way across the country moving their stuff to their new home in Bozeman and were joining us for the night. Also with them was their dog “Chip,” a King Charles Spaniel, who was just way too cute. He’s the kind of dog DK vows to get when we’re RV-less in our 80’s.
We’ll see.
On Sunday, DK made a good old-fashioned campground breakfast of hominy grits, possum belly, and hog jowls for the gals before they got back on the road. We then changed camp sites to get a less “Green Acres” like one that actually had 50 amps.
Since the campground had no wifi, we came up with the brilliant idea of driving into town and using the library’s wifi signal. Only ... it was Sunday.
The library was closed.
But that was no problem for the ever-resourceful Diedre Kaye. She wandered around the building till she found what she deemed to be “a hot spot” in the shade in back of the libe. So like a couple of Clampetts, there we sat on our lawn chairs getting the blog up to date.For dinner, we ended up at “The Ranch,” a local steak house. Diedre was looking for sushi.
Hmmm … sushi at a steak house?
Good luck with that.
While the Missus was checking out all the exotic draft beers such as “Fargo Scottish Ale” and “New Belgian Ranger IPA,” I went with the $1 drink specials listed under “Grampa Beers” (Busch, Hamms, Old Milwaukee, Schmidt, or Pabst Blue Ribbon). Of course, these were happy hour prices for “cans” of beer.
My kind of place.
They also had “tater tot hot dish” on the menu which consisted of ground steak, corn, green beans, mushrooms, cheese sauces, and a pile of crispy tots.
Even more so, “my kind of place.”
And yes, they DID have sushi at the steak house highlighted by “The Sushi Roll of the Day … market price.” I don’t know … Have you ever been to a “sushi barn”?
Okay, on Monday, June 29, we were slated to crash through the geographical glass-ceiling and finally make our way into Minnesota … “Detroit Lakes” to be specific.
But first, some drive-time excitement …
At a rest stop, we both got out to do part of our daily three-mile walk. We walked in opposite directions. When I later rounded the tourist center after a bit, I was not-so surprised to see Diedre at the rear of the building flat on her back doing what looked to me like some kind of leg stretches. I jokingly announced, “Boy, you’ll do yoga anywhere!”
Now, most normal people, when they see a 65-year old woman lying on the ground, would immediately ask, “Did you fall?! Are you okay?! Can I help you?!” But since I’m used to Grand-Canyon-hiker-super-gal-Anywho … she glared up at me and, in her best Oliver Hardy imitation, said, “Why don’t you do something to HELP me?!”
Yes, our girl had fallen, tripping over a large uneveness in the two sidewalk sections in back of the tourist center. I mean, this place was just ripe for a lawsuit. So, after a sore hip, an asthma attack, yadda-yadda-yadda, I got our poor girl back to AB1 where she made her recovery while I sheepishly drove on to Detroit Lakes.
We were slated to meet up with two Carleton College classmates of mine that night: Lee and Karin Dostal-Holschuh. Lee had been on the varsity basketball team with me and Karin, a freshman during my senior year, was definitely the “it” girl on campus in 1971-72. We were supposed to meet the Holschuh’s at the town Pavilion on the Detroit Lakes waterfront. Next to it was the city’s baseball park, one of those old, green, wooden grandstand types that every small town had in the day. The Pavilion was the place where all neighboring town Moorhead “Spuds” baseball players went on summer weekends to dance to “The Uglies” and chase girls (or maybe it’s “dance to the girls and chase the uglies”). Either way, Lee told us those were the two places where he struck out, both on the field and on the dance floor.
Moorhead, MN, Lee and Karin’s home, was also the site of the 1966 Babe Ruth Baseball State Tournament where my St. Louis Park team won the championship (“Oh, no!” you’re saying. “Not more baseball memories!” Well, this is MY blog, so just tough it out!)Lee proudly informed us that Moorhead was recently named the best small city in America. He likened it to becoming a “Jackson Hole type destination.” That may be giving Moorhead a bit much, but, whatever. He also said that “Playboy” magazine picked the Detroit Lakes’ beach as the 10th hottest spot to be on the 4th of July. That story may be apocryphal, but we did spot T-shirts for sale that proclaim it to be so.
We had a lovely dinner with Lee and Karin at a nice lakeside restaurant. I had made Lee bring his Hall of Fame plaque so we could get a picture of it along with my Minnesota Softball Hall of Fame Ring. Lee is in the North Dakota Athletic Hall of Fame in Jamestown, ND; fast-pitch softball was his sport. His picture/plaque at the Hall is near baseball great Roger Maris’s, although it’s actually closer to the North Dakota bowling Hall of Famers.
“Now that I’m retired from the state attorney general’s office,” he said, “every morning I get up and have nothing to do, but every night when I go to bed, I haven’t got even half of it done.” (Actual quote attributed to Alps’ friend, Jack Ditmar, in case Jack’s the litigious type).
Alps came bearing gifts for us: a huge, hand-made, wooden “bean-bag corn hole game,” and for DK, the world’s largest wine glass that we promptly named “Big Carl” as a tribute to one of our TV shows, “Cougartown.” Alps was also going to be the first person, other than ourselves, to spend a night in AB1. That’s quite an honor.
There were other reasons as well, but I think Alps mainly came up north to join me in revisiting Matson Field in Moorhead, site of our 1966 state championship Babe Ruth baseball victory. Alps played center-field on our St. Louis Park “Coast to Coast” team while I manned first-base. Yes, today was going to be another banner, baseball-memories day. And it only got better when an e-mail from Lee Holschuh came through offering his services as “Fargo-Moorhead Guide of the Day.”
This was an especially generous offer considering that Lee had to take time off from his busy job as president of Midwest Steel to take us yokels on a Fargo-Moorhead tour.
We first went to Matson Field, and just as in Williston, the ballpark looked the same 49 years later. Alps and I re-assumed our positions on the field as Lee ably manned the camera for posterity. It was like we were 15 years old again … although a lot of people say Alps and I are like that most of the time.
From there Lee wanted to show us the Fargo American Legion Ballfield across the river. Highlights there for us old-timers were the “Roger Maris Garden” and public restrooms.
Maris’s main claim to fame for you baseball novices is that he hit 61 home runs in 1961 to break the legendary Babe Ruth’s 34-year old record of 60 home runs in a season. Maris’s record stood for 37 years, although some of us feel it still stands (bull-Bonds-S***).
Excuse my cough.
The museum had home run balls number 29, 32, 47-48, 54-58, and 60, from the ’61 season as well as a lot of the bats and his two MVP awards. Of course, home run ball number 61 is at the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown which I saw on last year’s RV trip. Lee and I were actually able to laze around at the museum by sitting in actual Yankee Stadium seats from the Maris era.You know Lee’s getting old when he couldn’t find his car in the mall parking lot. I mean, this is “Fargo” we‘re talking about. Alps and I were no help whatsoever, although we are much (one year) older than Lee.
And just when you think it couldn’t get any better than seeing the Maris Museum, we then got a whirlwind tour of Lee’s company, Mid America Steel, which started in 1905. We’re definitely going to need naps after all this excitement.Once back at the Detroit Lakes campground, Alps went fishing on the park’s dock. When we checked up on him, it turned out he was waging a battle of wits with the fish … and the fish were winning. For bait, Alps was using night crawlers, yellow wax worms, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches … with the crusts cut off, of course. The fish seemed to like those best.
For dinner that night, Diedre and I were scheduled to meet up with my St. Louis Park High School classmates (’68) John and wife Marsha (nee Hanson) McEachran. They had been teachers and coaches for years at nearby Perham High. At Park High, John had been the captain of the football team and Marsha was a synchronized swimmer. John was also on the Mets, the Colt League team Alps and I played on when we were 16 and 17 years old. John was the catcher as Alps and I both tried our hands at pitching.
Not wanting the reunion to end so soon, John came back to AB1 for some serious beanbag competition. He also got a chance to meet our three kids; he was especially enamored with Charlie. Charlie even let John pick him up, something he lets very few people do.Okay, if you thought this blog was a lot of trips down memory lane, then brace yourself for the next three-and-a-half weeks of blog. We’ll be in Minnesota where DK and I have a combined 100+ years of friends and family. Get your rest and drink plenty of liquids.
See you next week.
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