I-94 makes its way out of the Badlands with long curves towards the prairie. Fields begin to take up the space as it opens, the land becoming flatter and flatter going eastward.
There were more semis on the road today, evidence of the health of the western ND oil boom … and the fact that we were on the Interstate for the first time in a week.
We made a stop south of Mandan at Ft Abraham Lincoln. Custer was stationed at Ft Lincoln for three years up until his death in 1876. A replica of the house he and his wife lived in has been rebuilt in its granduer, including a large parlor, two guest bedrooms and servants quarters. The tour was given by a young woman in period clothing and, as we stepped over the threshold, spoke as if it was 1875.
We toured the barracks where the cavalry slept and ate. Cots line the walls and, in the footlockers there are biographies of some of the soldiers. Also on the grounds of the fort are some Indian Mounds, dwellings that the Mandan lived in for a thousand years.