We moved to the Denver, Colorado, area recently and shortly thereafter I won a “staycation” to Golden, CO.  We were given tickets to several attractions in Golden.  Since Golden is just a short drive for us, even though we haven’t really used many of our free tickets, we have visited Golden several times and loved our experiences.  I know I’m supposed to list 11 things but that’s almost impossible to do for Golden – there is so much to do there!

Golden, Colorado

Here are 11 things to do in Golden, CO:

1. Visit the beautiful downtown – it has a wonderful downtown area with lots of shops and restaurants.
2. Enjoy Clear Creek – the creek flows by the downtown area and has a great path along it.  In the summer you can grab an inner tube and tube down the gentle rapids.  You can sit at the tables on the bridge on Washington Street and enjoy the water.
3. First Fridays – On the first Friday of every month the main downtown street is closed for a fun night of food, entertainment and a relaxing, fun time.  You can also find your way to the park for music and a movie.  There are free horse and carriage rides also.
4. Farmers Market – Saturdays from May through September.  Right along the river and right next to the library – lots of great fresh produce and other fun stuff.
5. Buffalo Bill Days – We got to enjoy a GREAT parade and other festivities – put this one on your calendar!
6. Coors Brewery – free tours of this huge brewery (right next to Clear Creek near the downtown area.)  The tours are at your own pace with an audio guide.  You get free samples of beer at the end of the tour.
7. Colorado Railroad Museum – this was one of our free tickets.  We got lucky and went on Buffalo Bill Days and road the steam train and were there for the “great train robbery”.  Tickets are more expensive on special days, but it was fun to be there on that day.  There are many trains outside on display and a nice museum inside with a model train set up in the basement.
8. Woody’s Wood Fired Pizza – on the east end of the downtown area.  Great pizza (buffet or to order) and a fun atmosphere.  They also have sandwiches and other foods.
9. The Alley – we found this little gem on a First Friday.  We wanted to have some ice cream, but the line outside the big ice cream shop was huge.  We almost walked past this narrow little deli when we saw their ice cream sign – really cheap, yummy and not too much wait – even on a busy Friday night!
10. Golden History Museum/Astor House/Clear Creek History Park – these are on our list of things to do.  There is a wonderful history in the Golden area.  These places also offer special events with reenactments etc.
11. I can’t quite keep it to 11, so I’ll just add the rest of the places we won tickets to.  We’ll hopefully get to these places soon!  Heritage Square, American Mountaineering Museum, Foothills Art Center. There’s also a nice little quilt museum right downtown.   A great first stop would be the visitor’s center on the corner of Washington on the west side of the creek.

As you can see there is so much to do in Golden, CO.  Today we planned to go to one of the museums and we showed up there and got to go to the farmer’s market, a safety fair at the fire station and even saw a small Homecoming Parade.  There are a bunch of great little shops and restaurants – we’ve only had the opportunity to try a few of them so far.  Every time we visit we have a better time than we even thought we would.  We will be visiting here many more times – hopefully you will get a chance to visit this great little town!

Learn more about the Golden, Colorado attractions Laurie mentioned at Uptake, or visit the Golden Chamber of Commerce.

Previous 11 Things:

• 11 Things in Decorah, Iowa
  

What do you think?

This is what we saw:

Compare with Grant Wood’s Young Corn.  See any resemblance?

How about Near Sundown?

We also drove to Stone City, Iowa, where coming in from the south still looks just like Grant Wood’s Stone City, Iowa, if you can see past the trees that have grown up along the road.  And, while not entirely accurate (as the real American Gothic house is somewhere else in Iowa), it’s fun to stop and have your picture taken at an American Gothic replica.  Unfortunately, we forgot our pitchfork on this trip.

Grant Wood buffs ought to take a nice drive around Iowa.  Visit his studio in Cedar Rapids, or some of the many art museums around the state (Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Davenport, and others), and then explore the countryside to see where Wood’s inspiration came from.  You just may see it come to life, as my son did.

1. Sugar Bowl Ice Cream Shop- very awesome, the kids loved it. My fav flavor is Lemon Meringue! Love the Keep Calm and Carry On WWII Poster inside.
2. The Vesterheim Museum. Of course this is all Nordic, but still may be… of interest to non Norwegians. One of the churches they have out back is from the Northwood (ND) area.
   
3. The Oneota Food Co-op. They have awesome food. We’d pick up some foccacia bread, hummus and a bottle of wine and head to our hotel (the Winneshiek).
   
4. Seed Savers. Out of town on North Winn Road if my memory serves me. They have ancient white park cattle, apple orchard and other cool stuff if you are into gardening. There is also a really nice nursery out of town but now I can’t remember the name. Worth asking about.
   
5. The Porter House Museum. Right in Decorah and is fun for the kids (bugs, rock wall etc)
   
6. All the wonderful places to eat downtown. Decorah seems to be too small for the typical “chain” places so there are great little bistros downtown. Craig’s fav- Mabe’s Pizza!
7. Thursday nights in the summer (maybe not now) is lawn chair night by city hall. They have all sorts of entertainment those nights. We always seem to catch the children Nordic dancers. It is very festive.
   
8. Historic home walk, especially good after eating lots at Mabes!
   
9. Wine tasting at the winery (out of town). We liked the rhubarb wine!
   
10. The entire downtown area (water street, I think).
    
11. The Blue Heron Knitting store- I love yarn, so this is pretty good for me!
    

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head! I hope you enjoy the area- it is so beautiful and everyone is so friendly.

Thanks, Missy, for kicking off the 11 Things series!

Do you have a favorite spot to share with the readers of Travels with Children?  See how to have your 11 Things showcased.

Iowa, however, is not the land of Robert Frost.  It is the land of Grant Wood.  Most everyone recognizes American Gothic, Grant Wood’s famous painting of a woman and a man with a pitchfork in front of a Gothic Revival-Style farmhouse.  Although some of his works are sculptures or other media, Grant Wood most often painted what he knew best:  Iowa.

In driving through Northeast Iowa, we found rolling cornfields with grassy waterways that help to prevent erosion.  Sure, we could have taken the straighter road, but we opted for the “scenic route.”  It paid off when our 9-year-old said, “Guys!  Look!  Do you see all of those hills?”  The hills around Decorah were exciting for him.

Northeast Iowa is also where we found that our 4-year-old is disappointed if someone else spots a barn quilt while sailing down the road and she misses it because her head is turned the wrong way.

It’s where we all stopped to ooh and aah at the World’s Largest Strawberry.

It’s where we took some time to play on the Field of Dreams and to see what really is out there in that cornfield.

It’s where one of the most scenic roads we found, US 52 northeast of Dubuque, is not even designated as an Iowa Scenic Byway or the Great River Road or any other scenic destination.

And it’s there that our 7-year-old, looking down at the rolling hills and cornfields from atop the ridge, said, “I’m seeing a Grant Wood picture, only in real life.”  Yes, Grant Wood painted what he knew:  the landscape and the people of Iowa.  And my kids seem to have figured out that a road doesn’t have to be labeled as “scenic” to be interesting and beautiful.  An attraction doesn’t have to be big or expensive to be fun.

Is this heaven?  No, it’s Iowa.  We’ve enjoyed it.  And that has made all the difference.

It was a Christmas treat for us, then, as we drove across Louisiana, to see rice fields.  We’re used to seeing corn and soybeans and wheat, but rice was new to us.

Some fields were flooded.  We could often see the mechanisms that controlled the water for the fields.

A truck hauling rice even passed us on the Interstate.

I’m sure not everyone takes photos of farm trucks while on vacation!

I apologize for the quality of these photos; they were taken on-the-fly while driving down the Interstate (with my husband at the wheel).  If you’d like to see exactly where the fields were located, click on the photos; they’re geotagged in Flickr.

If you happen to be a rice farmer and can give more information or insight into growing rice, please leave a comment.  We’re always eager to learn more!

Just outside of Mankato, Minnesota, lies Minneopa Falls.  Part of Minneopa State Park, a park permit is required to view the falls.  There are two parts to Minneopa:  the upper falls are smaller and wider, the rush of water through the creek.  These falls are accessible by a paved path.

Crossing the bridge and continuing down the path, it is also possible to see the larger falls from the top, and those with a stroller or with mobility difficulties may wish to make this their vantage point.

For those who can navigate stairs and a short hike, however, continuing down to the creek offers a closer view of the falls.

Once at the bottom of the staircase, a bridge crosses the creek, and you can choose a path on either side that has been made by previous explorers.  Although not a developed path, it’s well-worn, and children will probably be able to navigate it more easily than grandparents.  If the water levels are particularly low, you may even be able to walk on the creek bed itself.  At these times, the falls will be a mere trickle.  After a rainy summer, the water will rush over the falls.

The falls section of the park also includes a picnic area, and a campground is located down the road in another part of the park.

If you like waterfalls and are in the Mankato area, you’ll also enjoy Minnemishinona Falls, just off the Judson Bottom Road near North Mankato.

We started at Golden Gate.  Our family has seen the historic marker before, but we stopped again anyway.  Can you see that the interest in history runs in the family?

The inset of the marker shows a detail of the area.

I’ve explored the road from the north before, but I’ve always been curious about the other road, the one with its curve sign

and hill sign

that still stand, although the road has obviously been closed for many, many years.

It was a great day for a walk down this abandoned road.  At the bottom, it branched into several different directions.  We explored the creek and looked for remnants of the bridge, wandering up and down the hillside and old paths.

We were almost ready to leave, but decided to look in one last place, and there we found the ruins of the Golden Gate Mill.

We walked back up to the car, making memories along the way.

Next we headed to Iberia, south of Sleepy Eye.  Iberia’s history is detailed on this historic marker.

Better yet was the old directional sign that still stands, even though the road now dead-ends in two directions and the paved road passes by on the edge of town.

From Iberia, we went cross-country to Lake Hanska County Park, which has not only historic markers but a log cabin that is open seasonally.  We wished we’d had more time to explore the park.  Don’t be surprised to read about a camping trip there someday.

From there, we drove into Hanska, where there’s a replica of a Norwegian stabbur in the city park,

an old garage with cool artwork on the front,

and a marker commemorating the town’s centennial in 2001.  Hanska has strong Norwegian roots, and one day I’ll get there for its Syttende Mai parade.

Our Sunday drive took us to new places not far from home and allowed us a chance to see both history and natural beauty.  Have you ever explored new roads near your home?  What have you found?

Sometimes time is of the essence–like when the combine is broke down, there are still 20 acres in the field, and rain is predicted in a few hours–then the necessary parts are needed immediately.  But at other times, time is less important, and I am merely saving my husband the chore and time of the run.

And so it was that this week, I was asked to go to Sleepy Eye.  My four-year-old daughter was the only one at home, so I promised her a treat at the Dairy Queen while we were in town.  Since my only time constraint was to be home before the older kids got home from school, I grabbed my camera and decided to enjoy the drive on the first nice spring day of the year.

I’ve been intrigued with Golden Gate, a Minnesota ghost town that now consists only of a cemetery and historic marker, but in its day it was bustling with a mill and several businesses.  A few years ago, I’d wound my way down to the creek to try to see the mill ruins, and nearly gotten myself into trouble as the road wasn’t really fit for a minivan and there wasn’t much of a turnaround at the end.

This time I noticed that there is a “road closed” sign hidden in the trees on the side of the road, as if it’s a merely a suggestion.  This time, I decided to heed it. I parked at the top of the hill and my daughter and I headed down the hill and over the ruts on foot.

I remembered that there had been a colony of bees at the bottom of the hill, but (correctly) surmised that they were still in their winter home.  We walked down the hill and around the bend, looking for signs of spring.

The flooded Minnesota River was only a few miles away, but this small creek had passed its spring high and was running nicely in its banks.  It was too early for anything green to be showing, and I had no good vantage point of the mill ruins, so I was a little disappointed in the walk.

On the way back to the car, however, my daughter began to notice things–a piece of bone in the road, raccoon tracks, and then a “really big worm” that she had accidentally stepped on.  It was a baby snake of some sort, I suppose a garter snake, and the first she’d ever seen in the wild.  (It was, in fact, the first snake I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve lived in Minnesota, and I was glad that it was far from my house.)

I didn’t find what I was looking for at Golden Gate, but I may have found something better–the wonder of a child in seeing a snake and a raccoon print for the first time, in taking a walk with just the two of us, in enjoying the beauty of the spring day even though everything was still brown and dry from winter.

You never know what you’ll find on the road less traveled by.

We returned last weekend, when the temperature finally reached 40 degrees for the first time in 3 months and we left our jackets behind, to take a peek at the falls in winter.  This is what we found.

The falls are beautifully frozen, stopped in time.

Minnemishinona Falls in Winter

My husband could hear something, though, and when he quieted the kids, they could hear it as well.  Under all of the ice, the sound of running water, behind the falls.  The creek at the bottom of the falls presented a beautiful wintry scene.

We also pointed out to the kids a large crack in the ice, and wondered aloud what a magnificent sound it will make when the falls break in two.

It’s such an easy thing, to take a different route home and stop for a few minutes to see something familiar look so different because of a change in the seasons.  It’s something we need to remember to do more often.

More things to do in Mankato, MN, via Uptake.

While the Lincoln Highway enjoys some recognition, the Old National Road, Old Red Ten, and the Jefferson Highway are less widely-known.  Route 66, though?  Everyone’s heard of it.

The portion of Route 66 we traveled was in Kansas.  Kansas only has 13 miles of the famed road, but they connect the rest of the pieces together.  The Mother Road was instrumental in guiding us turn-by-turn on our Kansas Route 66 adventure.

The highlight of our short Route 66 tour was the “rainbow bridge” north of Baxter Springs, Kansas.  This old bridge is still accessible to one-way traffic, and the kids thought it was fun to drive across it, just as they enjoyed driving across an S bridge in Ohio.

The history of the bridge is marked at the site.

It is the only remaining “marsh arch” bridge on Route 66.

Someday I’m going to drive these old roads from end-to-end, but for now I’ll have to settle for bits and pieces as we come across them. I’m enjoying the ride.

On our day driving in Texas Hill Country (which wasn’t nearly enough time to spend there), we spotted a sign that said “Historical Marker ahead.”  Always game to stop and snap a photo of a historic marker, we turned off the road, and then saw the sign:  Polly’s Chapel–3 miles.

Since the aim of our day was to see the countryside, we kept going.

Over the clear, clear Privilege Creek…

Past beautiful rock cliffs…

Through potential loose livestock…

Over the river again…

And not worrying that the rains of the previous day had washed the car clean.

It was perhaps one of the most interesting and picturesque three-mile stretches I’ve driven.

Finally, we arrived at Polly’s Chapel.

It was built in 1882…

by one man.

You never know what you’re going to find when you venture down a back road, but if you have your eyes open, you’ll almost always find something interesting.

To view more travel photos, visit Photo Friday at DeliciousBaby.  To see more Texas Photos, check out Wandering Off.

What is interesting, though, is that all of the places we visit are home for someone else.

Today, then, I present what might be unusual, interesting, or just plain different from what a person living in another state or country might normally see. The view from my windows is one of my favorite parts about where I live. Today, I share it with you.

Days like this make braving the cold completely worthwhile.

What is the view out your window? Please share a link in the comments.

We had detoured off I-10 at Sulphur, Louisiana, because it was a decent day weather-wise and we didn’t know what the skies or temps would be like when we reached our planned beach outing in Galveston.  We also had plenty of time to get to where we were going that evening, and no scheduled stops along the way, so we decided to follow the road that edged the Gulf Coast on the map.

Driving south from Sulphur, we saw things that are unfamiliar to us who have homes with basements:  cemeteries whose graves seem to be only partly underground, and houses on stilts.  These were our first signs of a different way of life.

A few miles down the road, we saw a yard sign:  House for Sale.  No Hurricane Damage.  Later in the day, we would find that claim hard to believe.

We drove the Creole Nature Trail, through the Sabine National Wildlife area, and saw little more than fishermen and oil company stations.  Then we arrived in Holly Beach.

It was definitely not what we expected.  Instead of a charming beach community, with picnic areas for eating our lunch, we saw this:

Rows and rows of streets, with a few RV’s parked on lots,

lots for sale,

a handful of newly-built houses,

and of course the beach.

Noting that a picnic area was marked a few miles west on our map, we naively headed in that direction, attempting to find a picnic table.

We never found it.

Instead, we ended up at another slowly-rebuilding community, parked our car at the end of the road, ate our sandwiches, put on our parkas, and headed out to look for shells.

We found the beach,

but it wasn’t as pristine as we’d imagined it to be when we began our journey that day.

We found shells,

but also debris.

New homes have been built,

but instead of having unfettered beach access, they have a seawall in an attempt to protect them from future devastation.

This wall appears to have served a dual purpose in helping with the cleanup from the last round of disaster.

We thought this damage was from Hurricane Ike in September of 2008, and understood, after seeing how long it took to rebuild things after the flood in Grand Forks, that disaster recovery is not quick.

That night, however, in trying to learn more about the Holly Beach area, I came across this New York Times article about the community.  It was there that I learned that the destruction of Holly Beach was caused not by Ike, but by Rita three years earlier, in September of 2005.

Wikipedia has a photo of what Holly Beach looked like before Hurricane Rita.

We from the north understand extreme cold and blizzards and tornadoes and even floods, but hurricanes are something we’ve only heard about.  To see the devastation of an entire community and the long-term after-effects was very powerful.  How long will it be before Holly Beach is rebuilt?  Will it ever return to its pre-Rita state?  I don’t know.

What I do know is this:  Holly Beach opened our eyes to the devastation of hurricanes.  Veering off the Interstate onto the backroads can be a real education.

My husband thinks I’m crazy, but he hasn’t seen what I’ve seen.

Driving through Iowa, I found a lot of surprises along the way.

Barn quilts were one of them.

You see, I’d read about the barn quilts awhile ago, but I’d never actually seen one.

Until Sunday.

And now I want one.

If you think I’ve lost my marbles and am planning to buy an awful lot of fabric in an effort to keep the barn warm, don’t worry.  It’s not that kind of quilt.

It’s this kind of quilt.

One quilt square on one barn.  Another quilt square on another barn.  And so on and so forth until the entire area is a patchwork of barn quilts.

I thought the idea of barn quilts had originated in Iowa several years ago, but the Fairmont, MN, Sentinel, reports that barn quilts have been around for hundreds of years.  It’s just that Iowa has recently done a good job of promoting this project as a part of their state’s agricultural heritage.

While driving in northern Iowa, I saw several barn quilts.  And then, crossing the state line, I found some in Minnesota.  If I get a barn quilt, it would probably be the first one in my county, but then, I’ve done unusual things before, like writing a travel blog when I live in the middle of nowhere and opening a twitter account when few around me know what twitter is.

So I think a barn quilt would do quite nicely for me.  After all, I already have a barn.

I just need a quilt for it.

I decided to do what I enjoy doing most:  getting in the car and driving.  At first my destination was Winterset, where I figured I’d have time to see three or four of the covered bridges of Madison County.  I headed south out of Perry a little before sunrise.

As the sky lightened, I began to see that there would be no sun that morning, and I didn’t think covered bridges on a cloudy gray backdrop would be very photogenic.

Instead, I turned when a sign pointed to the town of Adel, not sure of my plan any more.  I came into Adel from the west and, lacking any other signage, followed the truck route into town, not sure of what I’d find.

What I found was the beautiful Dallas County courthouse in a town square.  Iowa seems to have several towns with these traditional town squares, and to me, they create a perfect small-town air.

Across the street from the courthouse I spotted “Cool Beans” with its neon OPEN sign lit.  I stepped inside for a cup of something warm and caffeinated, and as I waited for my hot drink to be prepared, I noticed a black-and-white panoramic photo on the wall.

Such a unique photo, I eyed it to find the perspective, and then, looking more closely, I saw that it was from the Library of Congress photograph collection, taken in 1907.

I stopped at the car and traded my beverage for my camera, then headed out into the nearly-deserted downtown district.  I saw that Adel, like Perry and many other small Iowa towns, still has a lot of its original brick downtown buildings.  The storefronts and signs have changed, of course, but overall the streets look much the same as they did 100 years ago.

The streets in the old photo were dirt, but now the roads surrounding the courthouse square are of a beautiful red brick.

I did not manage to capture the same angles as the panoramic photo of the old days of Adel, but I hope you’ll enjoy seeing that Adel’s downtown area still looks much the same as it did in 1907.

Even on a cloudy, gray day, I found something interesting in Adel, Iowa.

I was on a north-south road, Iowa Route 144, in the not-so-grand town of Grand Junction when, to my great surprise and delight, I saw this:

Do you see what I see?  Yes, there, next to the arrow and the 144 marker.  It’s a Lincoln Highway sign.

What I didn’t notice as I was mapping my route was where I would cross U.S. 30, which now has replaced and/or parallels the mostly east-west Lincoln Highway across the central United States.  In Grand Junction, the new U.S. 30 is a busy road that passes just north of town.  Route 144, however, for about three blocks, shares the road with the original Lincoln Highway that runs through the midst of Grand Junction.

I circled the block and stopped to snap a photo of the sign, since when we traveled parts of the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, it was hard to stop for a picture along the busy road.  As I got closer, to my delight, I saw something even better than the modern Lincoln Highway replica sign.

There on the pole, can you see the old paint?  The red and blue stripes, the blue “L”, and the white arrow indicating where the Lincoln Highway route goes?

You might think me crazy, but I was excited as can be.  I continued down the main street of Grand Junction, ignoring where my intended road once again turned north, and found several other indications of the Lincoln Highway in this small town.

It was all I could do not to follow the road east out of town.  For the rest of my trip, I dreamed of the day when I can travel the Lincoln Highway from coast to coast.  There’s just something about the road–the narrow, winding lanes, the small towns it passes through, the history that it’s seen–that intrigues me.

I’ll save that longer journey for another time, but for now I have memories of a pleasant surprise that I found in Grand Junction, Iowa.

For more information about the Lincoln Highway, I recommend Brian Butko’s Lincoln Highway News site, which includes links on books he’s written about the Lincoln Highway as well as current happenings along the historic route.

Here’s a closer look. Do you know what it is?

It’s tobacco, something I never thought of as being a crop in the fertile flatlands of Wisconsin. I had always thought of it as a Southern crop, until my husband showed me tobacco fields along the Mississippi bluffs of southeastern Wisconsin a few years ago, but near Milton in south-central Wisconsin, there were also some very large tobacco farms.

The shed is where the tobacco is hung to dry after harvest.

This is yet another thing we wouldn’t have seen from the freeway, but since we were traveling the back roads, we learned something new on our Sunday drive in Wisconsin.

To see more travel photos, visit Photo Friday at DeliciousBaby.

The snow stuck around for most of the day, making for some interesting photos.

Now we are in a winter storm watch for the coming days, and hoping we still see some sunny and warm days this fall. Almost all of our corn and soybean crops are yet to be harvested, making an early arrival of winter more than just an annoyance.

But for today, it was kind of fun.

This is why they call it Big Sky Country.

We then returned to visit Fort Union, and found that the parking lot is in Montana, but the site itself is in North Dakota.  It was fun to walk back and forth across the state border and explain to the kids that half of their body was in the Central Time Zone and the other half in Mountain Time.

To see more travel photos, visit Photo Fridays at DeliciousBaby.

I grew up just outside the Red River Valley, a fertile glacial valley that produces such crops as potatoes and sugar beets, as well as the more conventional wheat, corn, and soybeans.  Perhaps the most notable thing about the Red River Valley is how flat it is.  You may recall the floods that required the evacuation of the cities of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks in 1997; once the water breached the levee, it just spread and spread and spread.  The city of Grand Forks, except for one or two neighborhoods nearest the river, is completely and absolutely flat.  (This is a good thing for anyone who likes easy bicycle rides or had to learn to drive a rear-wheel-drive vehicle in icy winter conditions.)

The Red River Valley looks like this.  This first photo was taken about 20 miles west of the Red River.

The second is just a few miles from the river.  The trucks that you can see are on the Interstate, over a mile away.

As I said, I am quite accustomed to the flat lands of eastern North Dakota, and I had visited the rolling hills and the Badlands before.  When we were traveling in western North Dakota, south of Williston, however, I was surprised to see this.

The Yellowstone River Valley is every bit as flat as the Red River Valley!  This is only about 40 miles from the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

If anyone tries to tell you that North Dakota is boring and never changes, please remember these posts that tell a different story, that of the varied landscape of North Dakota.  Better yet, visit North Dakota and see it for yourself.

To see more travel photos, visit Photo Fridays at DeliciousBaby.

And perhaps most striking is the fact that I never would have seen these places, or heard their stories, if I’d traveled I-94 from Bismarck to Dickinson.

My plan for that day was to take I-94 west, stopping to snap a photo of New Salem Sue, drive the Enchanted Highway, and end up in Dickinson to see some things there and spend time with friends.

While in Bismarck, however, I came across a brochure for the Old Red/Old Ten Scenic Byway.  The route roughly paralleled I-94, but instead of zooming around the small towns, the old trail went through them.  Its mention of the ghost town of Sims piqued my curiosity, and our alternate route was set in place.

Known in days gone by as the Custer Trail, the Old Red Trail, Highway 23, and then U.S. 10, the byway is now a series of county roads and city streets.  This newest designated Scenic Byway in North Dakota officially opened on July 4.  We drove it on June 2, 2009.

With a rough map from the brochure, I moved to Google maps to find the actual route.  It wasn’t too hard to find if I followed the road from town to town, and I made notes to myself about what the new county road names were.  (The byway route was not marked when we drove the road, although I hope this is done in the future.)

We started out in downtown Bismarck, just a few blocks from our hotel, then crossed the river into Mandan and drove through the heart of that city as well.

Out in the country, the road was straight and well-maintained.  Only one section, from Almont to near Glen Ullin, was gravel.  We drove through several small towns:  New Salem, Glen Ullin, Hebron, Richardton, Taylor, Gladstone.  Each had its own personality.  Sometimes we drove right through, and sometimes we pulled off to snap a photo or explore the business district.

Along the way, I learned things I hadn’t known about my home state.  A brick factory remains in Hebron, but other communities had brick-making facilities as well.  Fort Sauerkraut tells of a feared Indian attack that never happened.  And of course, Sims, the “ghost town” that First Lady Laura Bush visited in 2008.

The terrain is varied and beautiful, from hills to grasslands to buttes.  Sometimes the route crosses creeks and rivers, and at other times it parallels railroad tracks, which were so essential to the life or death of a frontier town.

Yes, it took twice as long to drive the Old Red Trail as it would have to drive the Interstate, but that’s because we took time to explore.  For those with limited time, it’s easy enough to jump on and off the old road at any of the nearby I-94 exits.

Interstate highways are good for making time, but they do nothing for learning of an area’s history, culture, or beauty.  If you’re driving through North Dakota, pull off I-94 and take some time to explore Old Ten.

Below are my notes for following Old Red/Old Ten from Bismarck to Mandan.

• Bismarck/Mandan:  Memorial Highway across Missouri River.  West on Main Street in Mandan.
• When 25/Bus Rt 94 turns north, keep going straight (west).
• Detour to see Salem Sue in New Salem, then return to road.
• Turn south at North Almont. (Stop sign; grain elevators used to be here, but there is no other marking of the town.  Interstate exit to the north.)
• If you want to visit Sims, turn left at Sims Road.  It’s the first or second left turn after going south at North Almont.
• Return back to the paved road and continue south to Almont.  There’s a museum in Almont, as well as a gas station and a few other businesses.
• From the north side of Almont, go west on the gravel road CR 138.  It curves into 52nd Ave, then becomes 45th Street.
• Turn left at the T road to Glen Ullin (CR 139 to CR 87).
• Hint:  follow “business district” signs to see the towns.
• Go straight through Glen Ullin; parallel the railroad tracks west of town.
• Cross I-94 to Hebron.  Time change to Mountain Time Zone.
• Hebron has brick company and Fort Sauerkraut.
• Continue through Richardton and Taylor.
• To detour onto the Enchanted Highway, turn left (south) at 100 1/2 Ave SW.  (I think the actual road sign said something like 100M.)  You can see the “Geese in Flight” sculpture to your left as you approach the turn.
• Return to the road and continue into Dickinson.

Have you veered off the Interstate to explore the Old Red Trail or another scenic byway? Tell us about it in the comments.

My favorite part of Glen Ullin, though, was the Roller Mills building.  Roller mills grind wheat into flour, and like creameries, used to be a part of many small towns in rural America.  Today, few remain.

To view more travel photos, visit Photo Friday at DeliciousBaby.

I finally posted the picture last Friday, only to find that the elevators had been demolished a week earlier.  Annika Nelson, a native of Sims with whom I’ve been corresponding, alerted me to the fact that they’re no longer standing.

It’s the loss of a landmark for people in the area, who have seen the elevators standing for all of these years.

And it’s a reminder for me to stop by the roadside and snap that photo instead of waiting for the next trip.  Take advantage of a free day to visit something I haven’t seen before instead of waiting for next year.  Some things will still be there tomorrow, but others may not be.  You just never know.

As a farmer’s daughter and a farmer’s wife, I have a special place in my heart for old grain elevators, but this is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen.

To see more travel photos, visit Photo Friday at DeliciousBaby.

Learn more about the North Almont elevators, and see Rob Reeves’ beautiful photo of the North Almont Elevators.

Curlew is several miles west of Almont, ND. Almont is just south of Sims.  How many other towns in this area are gone and possibly forgotten?

To see other travel photos, visit DeliciousBaby’s Photo Fridays.