State parks in North Dakota continue to impress us. They have nicely laid-out campgrounds, well-maintained/mowed trails, and very clean bathrooms with great showers. This park has recreated three areas: the Mandan village on a slope near the river, the calvary buildings in a field near the Missouri River/park entrance and the infantry buildings up on the hill with a 360-degree view. There are corner bricks put in by the CCC in the 1930s marking the building foundations, with re-built structures to explore. Nothing original survived as the settlers took all of the buildings down after the army left. Most of the cemetery listed reasons for death that would be mostly preventable in modern times, like pneumonia, typhoid fever and freezing to death, but some were unique—suicide by opium being one of them.

On our hike up to the infantry post, we could see fewer grasshoppers than we encountered in our previous parks here in North Dakota. They were especially thick in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It reminded me of doing water testing and pit traps in the fall with students. Some refused to go in the field along the cross country course because the hoppers couldn’t be avoided. They may bite if they actually land on you, but convincing students of their harmlessness was hard.