Our last stop in this road trip was the TL Ranch in Almont, ND! This has been in my family since 1881! Being able to have my Grandma Lois there as a tour guide was perfect! She was born on this property! The land has changed over the years, but it hasn’t! The highest spot in the county lies on their property. Jay Larson currently owns the ranch. He is the son of Grandma’s brother Jake Larson. The ranch is beautifully maintained by Jay and his wife Tracey. They raise Black Simmental cows. Their hospitality and company is top notch! We appreciated them opening up their home, ranch, and home grown food for us! What a special treat!

  Growing up my family would visit the TL ranch. One of the most memorable times was going during branding season. What an exciting and learning curve that was on the ranch! Especially for this ND city girl! Not that much excitement happening on the this trip! Perfect for us to walk around and hear the stories from Grandma! We went up the hill where you can see most of the ranch! We could see the path Grandma would have taken from her home to school. None of these buildings are still there but you can image it! 

  Jay and Tracy’s daughter, Amanda, and her three kids were there for short time as well! It was great to see her! We haven’t seen each other for 10 years. In fact we have a picture of us 10 years ago with our oldest daughters. Of course we had to reenact the picture with our grown 10 year olds! Fun memories! Hopefully it won’t be another ten years till we see each other!

  After the Ranch we headed to Sims Church. So much family history here! It is the oldest church west of the Missouri. It is in the National Register of Historical Places. My Grandma and her sisters helped restore the parsonage! It was amazing to walk through and see all the hard work they had done. Seeing pictures of family members over the years, and hear the stories of Grandma remembering when she went to church in the parsonage home, because the church wasn’t built yet. She attended bible school up stairs, but not in the winter because there was no heat upstairs!

  

Grandma’s Grandparents were charter members of the church and helped build the church. In face both set of Grandparents attended the church. It is crazy to think of how many years, around 130 years, our family has been attending that church and continues to attend. We have deep roots there! In fact, another family member, Jay’s son, will be married there next fall!  

  Going to Sims church was my favorite growing up. It’s a quaint country church! Every time we would go the family would sing for church. The pews would be half empty because there were so many of them. It was Grandma Lucille’s, Grandma Lois’ mom, favorite when her grandkids would sing at church. Every time I sing hymns I image this country church.  

   We headed up to the Sims cemetery. Fascinating to see all the history on that hill. Walking down memory lane with Grandma Lois was priceless. Hearing the stories of so many family members. So much history recorded in a cemeteries all over the nation. Couldn’t help but wonder if my current generation will use cemeteries to preserve the history for centuries to come.  

   Our last stop before heading west, was a stop at a family, fun tradition! Salem Sue! She is the world’s largest Holstein cow at 38 feet high and 50 feet long! Doesn’t get any better than this!  

Chris Ireland

   I have been wanting to take Greg to Medora, ND for 14 years. This weekend, September 2nd, we finally made it happen. Well, actually Greg did! He planned an amazing cross-country trip that ended in Medora! Thank you Greg! My parents and Grandma Lois met us in Medora. What a treat it was to have them with us! Mom worked in Medora 40 years ago at the Cowboy Cafe. The place hasn’t changed she said, except the guy who owned it is no longer living. Such good food, oh, the caramel rolls!! YUM! Touring this quaint cowboy town was such a treat! Lots of original buildings and a true small downtown feel! The history of the cowboys in embraced everywhere! Love it!

   

      We also toured the Cowboy Hall of Fame. What an experience to go through that museum with Mom and Grandma. We were standing there looking at all the pictures of Cowboys in the hall of fame. Mom and Grandma start talking about when they saw that one in the rodeo. ‘He and his brother were so amazing! I remember watching them!’ Comments like that just kept coming! Makes going to the museum come alive with the stories behind the pictures. We also found my Great Uncle Jake on the wall! In fact that was the last time I was in Medora, was when he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame, ten years ago.  

   We took the scenic drive around Theodore National Park. I didn’t realize how much Greg knew of the history of Theodore Roosevelt or that it was his favorite president! The park is one of the best kept gems in the United States. Part of me wants to encourage everyone to go, but the other part says stay away! Too many tourists will ruin that place! We hope to come back and really explore that national park!

   My favorite part about Medora is the Medora Musical. It’s an outdoor amphitheater that seats 3,000 people, facing the Badlands! The view is incredible, the history is rich, the singing and dancing is topnotch! Oh so funny too! The wit these writers have is incredible! The co-host of the show was a neighbor to another Great Aunt and Uncle! We also, got to meet one of the Burning Hill Singers, Misty, earlier in the day. Looking for Misty on stage was a highlight for us all! After the show we got her autograph and a picture. She even remembered the kids from earlier that day! How cool is that!    

   Oh Medora! The sweet treasure of Medora, ND. My home state! Thankful I got to share this gem with my family!

Chris Ireland

   We went to North Dakota. We went to Medora, ND. We went to the Medora Musical. I really liked it. I thought it was fun. We also went to a ranch. There was some cows ?. We also went to the biggest cow ? in the world ?. My favorite part was seeing the biggest cow in the world.

Jadon Ireland
     I had a really fun time in Medora, ND with Grandma and Grandpa Barrus and my great Grandma Lois. Medora is a very small and pretty town in the Badlands of ND. The badlands are very pretty with all the different colors. My favorite color of the rock is the color red it looks like dust, and it looks like pizza grease when it gets on your hands. We drove though Teddy Roosevelt National Park and saw lots of prairie dogs we drove in the badlands. We also saw Teddy’s cabin that he lived in. We went to chimney park there was a chimney in a middle of a field. In the old days they would burn what they did not want to keep. We walked all around Medora and went in all the little shops. We went to the amphitheater in Medora. There we saw the Medora musical. It was really cool with all the dancing and singing. We all wanted to go back again. After it got done we all went to bed.  

   The next day we went to the ranch where Grandma Lois grew up. Grandma Lois was with us. She told us all the things. Like where she lived and the path where she walked to school. And all those types of things. She also told us about which grandpa built things. It was really hard to think about all that. After the going to the ranch, we went to the church her grandpa built. The church was really pretty. Grandma Lois told us all the things about it. Then we went into the parsonage. In the parsonage, she told us she went to Sunday school there when she was a little girl. Parsonage was really cool and you could see how they lived in the olden days. There was some really old books there. That daddy and me looked at. Most of the books were from late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. Some of the books were written in Norwegian and Swedish. After we saw the parsonage and the church we went up to the cemetery. We saw Grandma Lois’ mom and dad were buried. And a bunch of other people that she knew.  

   After that we went up to New Salem. There we saw the biggest Holstein cow ever. It was so big I could barely touch the utters. We ate dinner there. Then we went to bed.      

We went to the Cowboy hall of Fame there we saw my Great Great uncle Jake Larson picture. Grandma Lois and Grandpa Becky were there also at the Cowboy hall of Fame they were saying things like do you remember this guy or this guy that guy was in the rodeo, he was really good that year.

   The End

Esther Ireland
   We went to Medora Musical. Me and momma went down to the stage. Misty was in the musical. Her danced and sang and her was in a super sandwich. I loved the musical. We got cotton candy. Before the musical we had pizza.         

   We walked around Medora, that was the boring part. I will tell you about the cowboy cafe. First, we got caramel rolls. Then we got pancakes and french toast.  

   We went to the ranch we saw cows and sunflowers. Grandma Lois was born at this ranch.  

   We went to Sims church we saw the bell and the balcony. I liked the upstairs of the house. We saw some dresses. They were pretty. They were like baptism clothes. I liked the church.  

   I loved Salem Sue. It’s a cow that never returned. It’s a statue. It’s the biggest cow on earth.  

   I drove around with Grandpa Tim, Grandma Becky and Great Grandma Lois.  

   The prairie dogs build holes and then pop up. They looked cute! I wanted to take one home! The Grandma’s didn’t like the prairie dogs. We saw them at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We got another ranger book.

Rahab Ireland

*Rahab picked the title!u