So there I was…hiking around on a chunk of land northeast of Bismarck — with the owner’s permission, of course — when I came upon a huge chunk of sandstone. Carved into the sandstone were a lot of words and dates. Take this one, for instance: June 7, 1927.

The other dates go back around 1903 or so, and I’ll probably post pictures of them down the road. This happens to be one of the carvings that has survived the best, so I chose it as my example. Sandstone doesn’t handle weather extremes over the course of eighty-plus years, so many of the words scratched into the side of this rock are borderline illegible.

Isn’t North Dakota history grand? On this particular walk I saw so much cool stuff, it would take a good chunk of my morning to document it. When I’ve got the time I’ll post a full report with photos. There were geoditic markers, initials and other carvings, caves, odd geologic formations…it was a really entertaining hike. Stay tuned!