Bismarck, North Dakota

 Arriving on the last day of this road trip, I found Bismarck to be a lot larger than I expected but I could not find interesting places to visit.  The most interesting was North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum which includes extensive exhibits on the history and culture of North Dakota’s Native American tribes detailing the state's Indigenous heritage and history. My favorite exhibit was the When Dinosaurs Ruled. There were so many well lit, interesting dinosaur skeletons. The museum is located next to the North Dakota State Building, but the building did not look like a state capital building. It looked more like an outdated office building built in the 1970's. I explore the Bismarck Downtown Artist Cooperative and Alley 5.5, both were extremely underwhelming. Still wanting to explore, I decided to give the zoo a chance.  I hate zoos, but I was bored and the weather was really nice.  The zoo was exactly as I expected a bit boring and also underwhelming. Zoos are always also a bit sad.  However, some of the monkeys were very active which was nice to see.  Had dinner at Butterhorn, which had very good online reviews, but like almost every other restaurant I ate at on this trip, the food was just average. I ordered: Cheeseburger Orzo Soup (Grandma’s recipe, dill creme fraiche, sesame seed croutons); Dirty Martini Dip (Castelvetrano olives, bleu cheese, cream cheese, lemon, gin, vermouth, toasted focaccia); and Blue Crab Fra Diavolo (Lump blue crab, fettuccine, Calabrian chilies, pasta, vodka, fennel pollen, breadcrumbs).