Debbie Smyth at Travel with Intent has a Sunday One Word Challenge and this week the word is upright. This is my first time participating in this challenge!

In May, we took a trip to North Dakota, South Dakota, and a little piece of eastern Wyoming.  Our third day in North Dakota, we drove up to the International Peace Garden at the Canadian border. It was a windy, cold day and the place was deserted – the official opening of the tourist season was a week later, Memorial Day weekend. The only employees there were a few gardeners and a U.S. Customs official. Actually there was no one there to check our passports going into Canada and we had only to fill out a small envelope with $20 as admission to the place. It was on the honor system. We saw the border checkpoint U.S. Customs official on our way out, who checked our passports and was very friendly.

Photos below: View of the park from the north; the 9/11 monument, with pieces of metal from the Twin Towers.

KODAK Digital Still Camera

There is a spot where you can put one foot in Canada and one foot in the United States. Looking at the map, there was supposed to be a Peace Tower comprised of four tall concrete towers. Was I going crazy or was it not there?? We later found out it had been torn down recently because its foundation was unstable. They hadn’t issued new maps without it yet.

We visited the things that were open or accessible – the Peace Chapel, the 9/11 Memorial and the Peace Poles.

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t see more, but I was tired due to what I thought was bronchitis and Dale didn’t want to walk the extra way to see the greenhouses.

By the time we arrived in Bismarck that night, I was feeling better and the next morning we took in the North Dakota Capitol building.  Unlike most capitols I’ve seen, the capitol in Bismarck is not a domed building. Built in 1934 in Art Deco style, it is in fact a 15-story building, rather ordinary looking, but it’s the tallest building in Bismarck!

Inside we saw the North Dakota Hall of Fame (I recognized a few individuals, but not the majority) in the main hallway off the entrance, pictures of the first capitol (it didn’t have a dome either) which burned down in 1930, and we rode up the elevator to the Skydeck,  where we had panoramic views of the city.

The photos below show the Capitol’s Hall of Fame and two well-known North Dakotans, the writer Louise Erdrich and actress Angie Dickinson.