Paul Broste Rock Museum

We finally got to the Paul Broste Rock Museum.  It was well worth the $5 charge for the tour.  Mr. Broste built the building himself -- its concrete block with natural stone from the area on the outside face.  He made his own equipment to make all the polished spheres that are housed here.  Some of the spheres are the largest of their kind in the world.  Perfect polished clear quartz, tiger eye, rose quartz and the list goes on and on.  He collected from all over North and South Dakota and then went on to acquire rocks from all over the world.  There are also stalagtites and stalagmites from caves which are now illegal to collect. 

There was this beautiful piece of wulfenite from the Red Cloud Mine near Yuma, AZ.  We had met the caretaker of the Red Cloud Mine and we displayed a piece of wulfenite at the refuge.  This rock is amazingly valuable because of how rare it is.  The reddish orange color wulfenite is only found in two places in the world.   The museum curator had no idea that the wulfenite they had on display was valuable.  She told us that several of the rock specimens they had were worth over a million dollars and the Smithsonian had tried to get a few of them.    We looked around at this old building and thought --- they need a better security system!

Birds & Blooms

There are an incredible amount of interesting birds here.  I've seen many new ones that I have never seen before.  This bird is either a brown thrasher or a wood thrush.  I have to see some other pictures in books before I can decide which it is.  Either bird is a treat to see since we've never seen either one before we got here. 

Every time we go to town it seems like something new is blooming in the fields.    The really bright lemon yellow in the background is a field of rapeseed.  It is the plant they use to make canola oil.  Miles of these bright yellow fields are quite beautiful.  Its hard to see in this picture but in front of the yellow is a sea of blue flowers.  The blue is flax.  The fields of blue waving in the wind makes them look like a lake from a distance -- so pretty. 

Thousands/Millions of Years Ago

The land here in North Dakota was once under water and there are fossils in the rocks in the area that show fossilized sea creatures.  There is an island called fossil island -- right now its just a few rocks sticking out of the water -- but as the water goes down we should see more of it.  You can land a boat there and see the fossils in the rocks.  The fossils in the rock in the picture are from outside the Paul Broste Rock Museum.  It was closed the day we went but outside they had this really cool -- big and heavy -- fossilized rock. 

Another era in geological history here had lots of trees growing and there is a lot of petrified wood around.  It isn't brilliant colors like the petrified wood in Arizona.  The colors depend on different minerals being in the soil that are absorbed into the wood over time.  Here there must not have been a lot of pretty minerals.  The wood is still kind of pretty.  This big piece was in front of the offices/visitor center for the Falkirk Coal Mine.  It must have been found as they dug for coal. 

Local Fisherman

We were out fishing and had this pelican hang out with us.  He was obviously used to getting a fish thrown his way once in awhile.  People catch a fish that is fowl hooked and too small to keep so the pelican is there ready to take advantage of the situation.  I actually caught a small bass that I thought I would throw to the pelican but I'm terrible at throwing anything so of course the fish slipped out of my grasp and went safely back in the water.  The pelican finally gave up waiting for a meal and left.

The shoreline along the lake is interesting.  Here it looks like caves were carved out of the shoreline cliffs.  It just the way the soil erodes out -- if you can call it soil -- its hard as rock.  Many times while we are fishing the cows grazing in the fields along the water come down to the waters edge for a drink.  Its kind of funny to be fishing with cows -- although in west Texas we were fishing with goats along the shore. 

We've been catching some walleye mostly small -- 14 inches but I caught a very nice 19 inch fish and Jim lost a really nice one so we keep trying.  Its strange to us that the good fishing is really just  starting this late in the season but that's normal in this part of Lake Sakakawea.  We are more in the middle of the lake so it takes the longest to warm up.