I received over thirty new iris plants from Pekin, North Dakota over the weekend, and with the help of my sister Gwynne, got them planted in the backyard. They have very intriguing names, such as Chocolate Swirl, Adobe Rose, Purple Pepper, Native Dancer, and Peach Picotee. It will be hard to wait for them to blossom next summer, when they will dazzle us with their beautiful patterns and colors.

Here is another batch of photos from the road trip on July 14th, when we toured Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park, then headed back to Bowman via the East River Road.

Garden near the Bunkhouse Motel

Billings County Court House Museum

Old Wagon at the Circle C Shop

Lyle Glass, Cowboy, Photographer, and Flag Raiser

Cottonwoods near the Little Missouri

Prairie Dog

Badlands Hill in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Buffalo with Filters

Badlands with Filters

Trail at Buck Hill

The North Dakota Badlands

View from the East River Road

The past few days have been spent painting the entire patio lime green, after a bucket of that color was spilled on the cement when a strong gust of wind suddenly blew through. The whole place is now extremely bright and cheerful, and I feel like I could be in Mexico somewhere! That project has kept me hopping, but today I took a  break from it, and got back to processing more of my road trip pictures.  Here’s a group from July 12th, when we took a scenic road from Bismarck to the Painted Canyon, Medora, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Grain Elevators

Old Farmstead

Hill and Cloud

Hill with Coneflowers and Cloud

(More Coneflowers, Less Cloud)

Purple Coneflowers

Painted Canyon

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Here’s a shot of the countryside on the way back from Smith Grove to Bismarck on July 11th. It was on this stretch of road that we were discovering ticks crawling on everybody, which really livened things up! I’d highly recommend preparing for ticks before walking through Smith Grove!

North Dakota Summer Countryside

On July 10th, my sister and I did some errands, then met a friend at a neat little shop that had home and garden decor. There was a small resin horse sculpture there that I thought would look great with my horse drawings. It now occupies the Mexican ranch table in my entryway.

We met our traveling companions, Chad and Rhonda, who live in North  Carolina, at the airport, and did some visiting and sightseeing around Bismarck. The next day, we went to the Double Ditch Indian village site, then to on to Washburn, Fort Mandan, and Smith Grove.

Pastoral Scenes north of Bismarck

Pirogue at Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center

At Washburn, we toured the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, which was extremely well done. They had an example of a pirogue carved out of a cottonwood tree, which was amazing. They also had a large collection of work by Karl Bodmer, a Swiss artist who traveled through North Dakota in 1833 with Prince Alexander Maximilian of Weid, Germany.

We had a pleasant picnic lunch surrounded by wonderful cottonwood trees.

Cottonwoods with Artistic Filters

Fort Mandan

After our lunch, we went to Fort Mandan, which is a replica of the one where the Lewis and Clark Expedition wintered in 1804-1805.

Cottonwood Trees near Fort Mandan

Cottonwood Tree at Smith Grove

Our next stop was Smith Grove, which had a marvelous stand of very old, very large cottonwood trees. They were around 250 years old, and some seven feet wide. I’d never seen cottonwoods so huge, and it was truly awe-inspiring. My sister had heard about the place from a friend, and I’m glad she did. It’s located near Hensler, and is managed by North Dakota Game and Fish.

As we continued along the path at Smith Grove, I experimented with moving my camera during the exposure, and got some interesting results playing with the light. They will be on the next post.