We hiked out of Lake Maria and hit the road again. This time to North Dakota. The girls and I had never been to North Dakota so I had tried to find some fun things to do as we crossed this new frontier. I happened upon the Enchanted Highway. In 1989, Regent ND resident Gary Greff decided to do something to help his dying town and give people reason to get off of I-90 and down the 32 miles of road to Regent. He began by making a gigantic scrap metal sculpture. Through the years as he can buy land along the route, he has added sculptures. There are now 8 huge sculptures along the road, each with a pull out and picnic areas. Two of the sculpture has playgrounds as well. Geese in Flight is pretty impressive, and is the only one that can be seen from I-90. The girls favorite was Fisherman's Dream. I think they liked the playground boat that they could climb up in.
Mr.Greff did indeed get people to take a detour off of I-90, but there really wasn't anything in Regent for people who made it there to see or do, or a place to stay. So he bought the town's closed high school and converted it into a hotel, The Enchanted Castle. I wish all hotels were like this one! I was pleasantly surprised by how very nice the rooms were, with nice linens and decor and new HD tvs. What is even better is that they kept the school gymnasium! And it's open for guests to go in and play ball. There are ping pong tables too! And the locker rooms are now hot tub rooms. Bonus!
The hotel even has its own restaurant. And Mr.Greff will make just about whatever you'd like to eat. He prepared it himself the night we were there.
In the morning the girls couldn't resist playing on the school playground that is still out front. I love the old-school high metal swing set. It's the kind you can get real high on and then jump out for that moment of weightlessness. There's a rockwall and all kinds of obstacles, so naturally the girls started playing Ninja Warrior. I was the timer. It only took three rounds before someone got hurt. In this case it was Gwyn, twisting her ankle. It was pretty bad too. Thankfully, one of the cleaning ladies was also a nurse. (I guess in a small town like Regent many people play many different roles) She didn't think anything was broken, so we fixed Gwyn up with an ice pack and set off again. At least she had a few hours in the car to keep it elevated and iced.
From Regent we took small highways south into South Dakota. This was a very cool way to see the countryside. It's much more interesting than the interstate. And I saw so many pheasants that I thought they were trying to get in our car with us. They were running across the road the whole way out of North Dakota. Maybe they were trying to get us to stay. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment