Scenic Inconvenience

We spent the night at Dad and Beverly's last night after getting home from Rachelle and Jason's wedding. Dad and Beverly are moving to a house in town, so Susan helped them start packing knick-knacks and photographs from the living room, and I stacked the boxes in the corner for moving day. We also ate: Susan made a big breakfast, and Beverly made a big dinner, so we were very full by the time we left to drive back to Dickinson mid-afternoon.

A month ago, I wrote here about wanting to go to Lund's Landing on Lake Sakakawea for some of their juneberry pie. Today we took an out-of-the-way route home solely for the purpose of enjoying some juneberry pie this afternoon. I had checked out Lund's Landing's Web site ahead of time to see that the restaurant's "hours are 8 AM to 9 PM daily" (double-check for yourself; I'm not making it up, am I?). Imagine our bitter, bitter disappointment, then, when we found Lund's Landing, parked in the lot, approached the restaurant door, and found a handwritten sign announcing that they're closed on Sundays and Mondays (not open daily, as advertised) and that their hours the other days of the week end at 8:00 P.M. (not 9:00 P.M., as advertised). Due to the inconvenience and shattered expectations that Lund's Landing caused for us today through false advertising, I don't believe that we shall ever return to give them a second chance.


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One good thing did come of it: we ended up on a very scenic stretch of highway that we hadn't taken before (because of its being miles out of our way--yes, I'm still upset, Lund's Landing!). Well, Susan and the girls haven't driven on it before, but I have, having travelled it to go to my aunt and uncle's lakeside home and to Lewis and Clark State Park while growing up in northwest ND. I kept pointing out scenic elements to the girls as we drove along the curves and hills of Highway 1804: clusters of trees in the valleys, peeks at the sprawling lake, majestic buttes overlooking the water, bright pink/orange scoria roads winding up the hillsides, fields laid out in patchwork quilts in various shades of green, etc.

I drove us to the entrance of Lewis and Clark State Park so that we could get some photos of the beauty surrounding us:

We continued on Highway 1804 into Williston to refuel and then drove south, pulling over again for some more photos just before Highway 85 crosses the Little Missouri River south of Watford City:

Can you see the bridge in the middle of the photo? It spans the Little Missouri, and we drove across it just minutes after this picture was taken.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is a lot of beauty to behold in ND! It's sad that so many people who pass through the state via the Interstate highways draw inaccurate conclusions about the state as an unpicturesque place. The Interstates pass through flat expanses (well, except for through the Badlands of southwest ND) that are ideal for speedy, unimpeded interstate travel but that don't show off the waterways, trees, wildlife, hills, and other features that fill the rest of the state! Maybe our state's beauty is just meant to be our own little secret.

So, curses upon you, Lund's Landing, for false advertising that inconvenienced and disappointed us. We'll look for juneberry pie elsewhere, I guess. But, in a way, thank you for causing us to take another scenic route through beautiful western ND.