Two Roadside Behemoths – Dakota Vacation Blog post #3

          The second day of our road trip to the Dakotas, we wanted to get an early start. We had four hundred miles to cover that day and a whole long list of things I wanted to see.

          But stopping at 7:30 in the morning to see the World’s Largest Buffalo Monument, means you’re gonna have the rising sun in the way. 

           Though he was built in Jamestown, North Dakota, in 1959, he only received his name – Dakota Thunder – in 2010.  

        And what huge bison would be standing out in the middle of nowhere without having a museum within sight.   

Which was of course closed due to the early morning.   

       And the frontier village. There was one of these in probably 75% of the towns we drove past on the freeway. 

Down Interstate 94 from Jamestown some 130 miles is New Salem.

  And Salem Sue, the largest statue of a Holstein cow in the world.

The brochure we picked up told the story of how she came to be.

          But the thing that bugged this Dairy State native is that I didn’t see a single Holstein in the entire state of North Dakota. All I saw were herds of beef cattle.

  

         So, as amazing as Salem Sue was, I left her hillside shaking my head in confusion. 

          Here’s the facts about these two behemoths.  

 Dakota Thunder – 60 tons         Salem Sue – 6 tons

                    26 feet tall                       38 feet tall

                    Built in 1959                   Built in 1974

                    Made of concrete             Made of fiberglass