We chose to take the upper route home, and are so glad we did. Our travels in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana took us through several National Parks and ended in Glacier National Park, what we feel is one of the most majestic parks in the country.
A visit to Paisley Park, Minnosota gave us a new appreciation of Prince and his amazing talents. He planned for his home to one day be a museum, including state of the art studios and concert halls. It is said that his vault contains multiple unreleased albums and over 50 fully produced music videos that have never been released. Perhaps after the lawsuits end, we will be reintroduced to posthumous new Prince music.
Bloomington, MN holds the prize of being the largest mall in the United States (11th largest in the world). Four floors, 500+ stores, covering 5,600,000 sq ft (129 acres), containing an indoor amusement park with five roller coasters and even an indoor water park.
North Dakota contains Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Once a home and hunting ground of Teddy Roosevelt, the two sections of the park are about 60 miles apart containing a North section (Near Williston) and a South section (Near Medora). After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land.
Bison are free range once again, and managed in the park. From a staggering 30-60 million head in the early 1800’s to just over 500 by 1889, they are being re-introduced to areas that they once roamed freely. A small herd of Longhorn cattle remain, as a memory of when cattle were introduced to the area driven from Texas on the Long X trail passing through what is now the North part of the park.
The spherical stones are described as naturally occurring “cannonball concretions” found only in the Badlands.