Travel Journal Views

Happy Thursday or whatever day it is you stop by to visit.  We're in between one warm and humid day and the real heat arriving tomorrow. Sounds like this weekend is going to be very hot, not just for me but for a big part of both the US and parts of Canada. (Stay cool if you are in the heat please.)

I'll warn you, today's post is rather long.

So this week I have been splitting some of my time between working on cleaning out some "stuff" in the basement and making art. One thing I am working on is my travel journal from my summer adventure. Here's a few views.

 This page flips open. I made the background with some cut out from a North Dakota agriculture brochure I picked up (and actually read as I was curious about what was growing in all the fields). I used matte medium to attached the cut outs and then once dry, I gave them a rub with some brown ink. After that I laid out my page and decided where I needed to add a bit of white paint. Then I added some assorted paraphernalia from the stash, as well as some green velvet trim and a long scrapbooking sticker.

And when you flip open this page, you get this map inside.

 I found this map in another freebie travel brochure and after attaching it,  I used Sharpies to outline our routes. I used a few stickers as well as some other travel brochure cut outs. I stamped the pickup truck on the bottom right as added it as it seems white pickups are the thing in North Dakota. (A lot of them of oil company vehicles but I don't think they all are.) I also stamped our little blue rental vehicle and ran off some facts from the internet which I also added.

One place we visited was Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park outside of Bismarck. A woman on the plane had recommended it to us. My page and half spread right below focuses on the US military end of the park, but I am also in process of working on a page that shows the Mandan Native Americans, which this park also has a great learning area about. 

Here's a bit of a background and about why we visited, other than it is there and we were passing by: Many years ago  we had visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana, which was General George Armstrong Custer's last stand in a battle with the Northern Plains Indians for land and freedom back in the 1870's. I have to say The Little Bighorn battlefield was a very moving place for me.  Not because of Custer, but because of the Native American speaker we listened to that day who was an extremely gifted storyteller and also really made the battle come alive. And I'm not even into battles. (Maybe I like this one because the Native Americans actually won this one-although not the war.)

Anyhow, Fort Abraham Lincoln is where Custer and his troops were stationed and set out from before that battle, never to return.  You can tour the house where he and his wife were living, as well as barracks, etc. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this story, the postcard partially covered on the right is a vintage photo of Custer. 

 My spread is a collection of brochure cut outs, the wristband we wore in the park, as well as a few other bits and pieces.

 We also visited a National Historic site called Fort Union which was a trading post right on the Montana/North Dakota line. This page above is about the side trip. The postcard does lift up and I added some written info underneath.

 And here is a couple of tags I made for the book. I showed you photos last week of the Enchanted Highway and below is the back of this tag. I wanted to remember where we stayed just in case I ever need to know that.

And here's a few related photos to my pages and things I mentioned above in the post.

Here is part of the Mandan Indian Village at Fort Abraham Lincoln that I mentioned.

We also drove by the North Dakota State Capitol, which is  shown on this same page. It was lunch time and we were passing through the area so we drove in to find a place to eat and figured we might as well check it out while we were there.

It is the tallest building in the state.

 A view of the inside of Fort Union Trading Post that I mentioned. And below is the outside view. The reason there at Teepees here is that this was a trading fort in the early 1800's with both the Native Americans and the Canadian trading posts in the area.

And this next photo is one of the silly things that I love. Fort Union sits right on the border between North Dakota (this part of the state is in Central Time) and Montana (which is in Mountain Time), making them  one hour apart. Look at the time on my husband's and my phones.

I was in mountain time and he was in central time.

Too bad I had that pop up to cover Maddie's face on mine.

And since I took you on a journey today, I can say we're all going to North Dakota, which means I shall be linking up to Chris' challenge at Art Journal Journey.

OK, enough written. Thanks for reading through all this and hope you stay cool.