“It’s super-friggin’ nice out,” Eleven, pink-cheeked from the sun, said to me the other day while gulping down a glass of water, and I couldn’t even get mad for his use of “super-friggin’” because that was exactly the right way to describe our weather. It’s super-friggin’ nice.
It’s been so super-friggin’ nice out that I’ve managed to cajole both of my children into walking with me in the evenings to the gas station and back to get treats, which I know is bribery but I get the walk and the time together and they get the ice cream and so it’s a victimless crime. Fourteen was especially jolly on one of these occasions and spent the walk pointing out the various fauna along the way with comments like, “Hey, chickadees,” and “Man, that’s a big jackrabbit.”
“Check it out, it’s two rabbits hanging out with two geese,” he said, pointing across a field where the aforementioned animals were sitting together in what looked to be a conversation.
“They’re just chillin’ together, just like that,” he chuckled to himself. “W, Nature.”
(Note: As of the time of me typing, “W” is teenager slang for “That’s a win.” If I were to use it in a sentence at work, I’d say, “That report was a W.” Slang changes meaning and use so quickly these days that I have no idea of that will still be the definition by the time I publish this story – but, for now, Fourteen saying, “W, Nature,” was the equivalent of saying, “Congratulations on being awesome, Mother Earth.”)
Fourteen was so enamored by nature and I was so enamored by Fourteen that I decided we would spend one day over the Memorial Day weekend exploring nature together as a family. I made this comment to one of my coworkers, who recommended we head up to Pembina, North Dakota. This was a great idea, as Pembina is home to the Pembina Gorge.
“Pembina Gorge is being turned into North Dakota’s newest state park,” I told Kyle when I pitched the plan to him. “Actually, I think it’s happening this weekend, and I know that because I know almost everything about North Dakota.”
“Sounds great,” he said.
We did not go to Pembina on Saturday because we had a grad party. We did not go to Pembina on Sunday because we cleaned up the garden. We did go to Pembina on Monday.
Fourteen was not pleased.
“I don’t want to go to a park today,” Fourteen, who had a late night the evening before, said. “I just want to stay here and hang out.”
“You can hang out in the car on the ride up,” I told him. “You’ll love it when we get there.”
“I won’t,” he said, but he got in the car.
As a person who knows almost everything about North Dakota, I was confident 1) Pembina was an hour away, and 2) the park was holding a soft opening over the weekend before the official opening next week. However, as we pulled out of the driveway, I said to Kyle,
“We should probably check to make sure that the park is open.”
“Yeah, okay,” Kyle said, looking at his phone. “I don’t see anything otherwise.”
We drove. We pointed out cows, and mooed per cow law. We admired the landscape. We saw a sign that read, “Firewood – free will,” to which Kyle said, “I hope Will gets freed soon.”
Also, we complained.
“I don’t want to go to a park,” Fourteen said. “I want to go to Winkler and get Tim Hortons instead.”
(Note: Pembina is on the border of Canada; Winkler, Manitoba is right next door.)
“You’re going to love this park,” I said.
“I don’t want to go to a park, and I don’t want to drive anymore,” Fourteen said. “How much longer is it?”
“It should be any minute now,” I said, looking at my clock.
Kyle looked at me.
“What do you mean?” He said.
“Pembina’s an hour away,” I said.
“Pembina might be an hour away, but the park is two hours away,” he said.
“Ughhh,” I said in my head and maybe a little bit out loud because I didn’t want to drive anymore and also because I was off by an entire hour.
“Do you want to cut out early and go to Icelandic State Park?” Kyle asked. “It’s 20 minutes closer.”
“No,” I said. “The boys will love the Pembina Gorge.”
We drove some more. We pointed out new barns, and old barns, and houses we would live in, and houses no one lives in any longer. We played “Would you rather,” and learned that Eleven would rather fly for five seconds at a time rather than be able to bend fire. Finally, we reach Walhalla, the town next to the Gorge.
“I don’t want to go to a park,” Fourteen said, now jokingly whining because we kept laughing every time he complained. We laughed again.
“You’re going to love it,” I said.
“Uh, oh,” Kyle said.
North Dakota is wonderful at many, many, many things. North Dakota is terrible at two things: 1) signage and 2) bragging. Both of these are due to the same issue: North Dakotans assume everyone knows everything that is going on. We have a dramatic lack of signs because we can give directions like, “Turn right at the red barn,” and people usually know what we’re talking about. For its part, Pembina Gorge State Park did not have an issue with signage; we saw a million signs leading up and to the park.
It did have an issue with bragging, however – specifically, bragging about whether it was open or closed. Because, when we reached Pembina Gorge State Park, it was closed.
“Are state parks technically ever closed?” You may be wondering, since we were standing at the bottom of a giant hill and the only things stopping us from climbing it were two logs blocking the driving path.
“We could walk it,” I said to Kyle.
“I think it’s two miles to the gatehouse,” Kyle, who apparently knew more about North Dakota than I did, said.
“Let’s go to Tim Hortons,” Fourteen said, instantly cheered.
We drove to Winkler. When we reached the border, the guard asked us the purpose of our trip.
“We were supposed to go to the Pembina Gorge State Park,” I said.
“It’s an American holiday,” the border guard informed me, which I didn’t think is the reason it was closed but I appreciated the effort.
“Oh, okay,” I said.
We got Tim Hortons. The Tim Hortons was located next to a hotel in which Fourteen’s friend once puked in the swimming pool, and so Fourteen happily went to get a photo of that. We took our Tim Hortons and our photos of the puke hotel to a park with an absolutely amazing playground. The playground was filled, inexplicably or explicably, with Hutterite children. The Hutterite children were not interested in playing with my American children – I forgot to mention that Kyle was wearing a t-shirt with a giant American flag and “USA” imprinted on it – and so my boys played together, which was a miracle of its own.
Kyle and I sat in the grass and watched the boys push each other too aggressively on the merry-go-round and then laugh when the other threatened to vomit.
“Even though we didn’t get to go to the park, it’s a nice day and it’s nice to be outside,” Kyle said. “And nice to be together.”
“W, Day Trip,” I said.
Between the Pembina State Gorge and Tim Hortons we stopped at the Gingras Trading Post State Historic Site. This was a self-guided type of landmark with a house and a barn, both locked, and so we read the information signs. I also sat in the grass here and admired the landscape – the photo above does not do the elevation justice; we were pretty far above that field below – while the boys warned me of snakes (“Snakes don’t care about me,” I told them) and Kyle used his metal detector.
“There’s metal all over the place here,” he said. “I don’t suppose I could dig it up?”
“No, Kyle,” I told him. “You can’t dig up a historic site.”
“Okay, then let’s go to Tim Hortons,” he said, and that’s what we did.
I wasn’t on North Dakota Today this week because of the holiday. Last week on North Dakota Today, we talked about Judy Bakken, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a new club for people who want to…darn it!. (Valley News Live)
Ninety-seven-year-old John Bartholomay 1) does not look 97, and 2) continues to volunteer at Bonanzaville, USA. (Facebook)
Book lovers and car lovers = unite! (Grand Forks Herald)
There were so many lovely Memorial Day services – we actually drove by several as they were concluding – and so here is one to represent them all. (Valley News Live)
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will soon be home to an Ernest Wells painting of Abraham Lincoln. (Yahoo)
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