Nice park for the playground, a small picnic area, letting your dog run, and a sweeping view.read more

Very nice, quiet recreation area. Trails are beautiful.read more

I spent a week camping there and had a very positive experience…read more If you're looking for a place to camp in Bismarck, you can't beat the price or the location of General Sibley Campground. Location: This campground is in a peaceful, quiet spot in a local park, under a canopy of beautiful cottonwoods and near the river. You could hear owls at night and see other wildlife during the day. But it is also close enough to amenities -- grocery stores, restaurants, downtown Bismarck -- to be convenient. Several times, I picked up takeout dinner and brought it back to the picnic table near my campsite, and the food was still hot when I got it back there. Usually, campsites this close to stores/restaurants are surrounded by freeway noise and polluted air, so this place is a rare exception. Price: If you're familiar with the Bismarck-Mandan area, you're aware that the cost of lodging has gotten insanely expensive in the last decade or so. During my last week-long trip back to Bismarck, I didn't originally intend to camp. I was debating between staying at a motel or camping. But for a last-minute hotel reservation, I would have been paying more than 10x more per night for a hotel room than I paid to camp here. For $13/night (update: I see their website says $14/night now; still a great deal!), this is the best you'll find. Other campground logistics: -You can park right where you pitch your tent, which is really nice. -Another reviewer commented that the bathrooms with the showers are a bit far away. That's true, but I'd rather have 5-minute walk to the shower than be camped right in the middle of bathroom traffic. You could pick a site closer to the bathroom if that is an issue. -Things got a little louder on the weekend I was there, but only Saturday night were people rowdy/loud past 10pm. -Trash cans were overflowing for part of the week I stayed there, so they could definitely use more frequent trash pickup. -The vibe here is a lot more "quiet, travelers minding their own business" rather than "party campground" which was a big reason I stayed as long as I did. I left my tent pitched and drove away to do other things during the day. Nobody entered my campsite or messed with my stuff. There are not many campgrounds where it's still safe to do this. Thanks again to the staff at General Sibley Campground for an awesome stay!

General Sibley Park is top notch!…read more As a campground for RV's and Tents, this place has everything! It is located 4 miles south of downtown Bismarck, North Dakota. So...one moment you can be in the heart of Bismarck, and next thing coming here, you're surrounded by trees, grass, peace and quietness. How convenient. Using the trusty ole app on my phone called CAMPENDIUM, I made a reservation to stay here. The process was simple and stress free and before I knew it...I was setting up my tent in a beautiful park with plenty of green grass all around. It was a terrific atmosphere, and for early June, the campground was barely occupied. If you don't use Campendium, reservations can be made at generalsibley.bisparks.org Or...you can simply show up spontaneously. Btw...one thing I want to say off the top of my head...this place had so much fluffy grass all over the park to conveniently set up my tent...it was a luxury. There's nothing like sleeping on well kept grass making a nights sleep much more comfortable. Once at the park, you have to check-in at the office. Then, you get to pick any campsite/area you want. At this rate...let me do some copying and pasting from the park's website, which has very useful information... Here are the Office Hours... Monday-Friday, 11am-8pm Memorial Day-Labor Day: Monday-Sunday, 10am-9pm Office Phone: 701-222-1844 Camping seasons typically run from early May through early October. Here are the Camping Fees... Tent camping: $12/tent/night - this is an absolute bargain! RV campsites with electricity: $25/night - great price for RV's! Firewood: $6/bundle Ice: $4/bag Ice Cream Treats: $1 - lol, I never tried the ice cream. Extra Notes About Camping... "There is a designated tent camping area though there are no designated sites. Campers are allowed to set up their tents anywhere within the mowed tent area". "No reservations are needed or accepted in the tent area. Campers can register in the office during office hours or use the self-registration box after-hours". "Please know there is plenty of space available in the tent camping area of the park. This area has never reached capacity, even on the busiest of holidays and weekends". - There are over 100 campsites located within the park. That's a lot of space to accommodate people! - Cell phone reception works perfectly. I got to stream a movie in my tent at night. - Each campsite has a minimum of 30-amp electricity. This is always a big bonus for road-trip travelers...to be able to charge electronics. - Campsites also have fire pits and picnic tables for barbecuing. - There's a shower house in the center of the park. I picked a site nearby so I wouldn't have to walk far carrying my toiletries. Hot water was plentiful and you can take a shower for as long as you'd like. There are flush toilets inside this shower house. There were mirrors as well for shaving and or combing your hair. - I will say for visiting in the early spring part of the season, it did get cold at night. In fact, I had to use my Mr. Heater Buddy to stay warm. Lastly, I was trying to think about my fond memories from being here...was there anything missing at this park that could have made my experience better? Could General Sibley be the best campground I have ever stayed at??? ...I just want to say, lol, there was a campground 2 years ago in Houghton, Michigan that actually featured WiFi on their grounds. That was pretty impressive! But, regardless...I thoroughly enjoyed my time at General Sibley Park. In the end, I decided to hang around Bismarck an extra day and stay here another evening. That's how much I liked this place, deserving of 5 stars...overall, as good as it gets.

What a gem of a park! We camped for one night (could have easily stayed longer if we'd had more…read moretime) and enjoyed fishing and the historic sites. Ranger Austin was a friendly wealth of information and my 5 yo really enjoyed wearing the buffalo head dress he brought over. Our campsite faced the Missouri, which was sweet. However, all of the campsites are pretty close together. If I were to go back, I'd opt for site 1, which faces the river and has a little more space to it as it is close to a parking lot, but not obtrusively so. Also, the bathrooms were spotless and boasted the nicest campground shower I've ever had.

For a state with an abysmal and brutal record (in fact to the present day) of encounters with…read moreindigenous Americans (oh wait, that's not very distinguishing among other states is it?) this state park does quite an excellent job of presenting a rebuilt indigenous people's village. The cultural and linguistic explanations about the native people's way of seeing and thinking is especially noteworthy. The reconstructed "earthlodges" sit on the site of an actual, large settlement of a northern plains tribe from the 1700s. If you tour this site, you'll learn about the spread of smallpox from the Spanish populations further south, up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, that weakened the entire population even before contact with the european invaders from the east. There are exhibit narratives about a tribal leader traveling to the east to meet with U.S. leaders, however, these narratives omit the brutal part of the european-native confrontation. Notably, the Whitestone massacre from the 1860s, where 300+ women and children at a big harvest camp were brutalized and killed, not too far from this exact site. (A "genocidal" action of the U.S. Army that provides historical precedent for the likes of Boko Haram.) Yes, history is told by the vanquishers, but in this case, a very dedicated woman of indigenous origin has spoken of her heritage through storytelling over many years, and her painstaking, tenacious work has paid off in the quality and insights available at this exhibit. You'll be enriched by insights into the native peoples' worldview. Additionally, I recommend a stop at the visitors center because the media there really brings alive the structures you see in the native village. The military forts at this state park are so predictable...and deceitful (because right to the present, few european americans want to admit and reconcile with the perpetration of atrocities.)

I enjoy at least one cruise up and down the beautiful Missouri River on this gem of a vessel each…read moreseason with my family. This year we tried the German Cruise and it was excellent. We got the kids pack for the kids and it's a thoughtful touch- with activities and a gift bag to take home.

We joined family and friends on a dinner cruise. Food and service were excellent. A great way to…read moreexperience the Missouri River.

Great way to spend an afternoon (I r day if you have littles). Lovely zoo with lots to see and…read morelearn. It's very walkable but there's a train ride to catch some of the sites but it doesn't "drop off pick up" and somethings such as the penguins require a walk.

Was not impressed with the enclosures here. Most were overgrown and the animals seem…read morestressed/neglected for the most part. There's nothing for engagement or enrichment for the animals. I felt like we stepped back in time to zoos of the past, prior to the movement towards conservation, education and enrichment for the animals. The staff was friendly and we did see two zookeepers, a male who seemed to be in training and a female who was very kind in speaking to the animals she was feeding. Overall though, the zoo needs to really improve the animals environments. We experienced the same as the prior reviewer regarding the penguin enclosure....filthy and stinky. The penguins even looked depressed.

I want to establish my credentials before proceeding, because I think they are relevant…read more I am not a gym person. I want to be precise about this. I am not a lapsed gym person, or a former gym person who fell off the wagon, or a gym-curious person who simply never committed. I am a person for whom the gym existed entirely outside the boundaries of my daily life for the entirety of my adult existence. I work in information technology. I sit. I have sat with great consistency and no complaints for approximately three decades. My body and I had an understanding, and that understanding did not involve barbells...until now. I walked into Proximal 50 with the energy of a man who has made a decision and is now in the parking lot reconsidering it. I had no vocabulary. I had no frame of reference. I had a vague awareness that gyms contained equipment and that equipment had purposes, but the specifics were genuinely unavailable to me. And then I met Lexi Bata. I had expectations about what a personal trainer would be. Those expectations were formed entirely by cultural osmosis and were wrong in nearly every particular. I was expecting someone loud. I was expecting someone who would regard my current physical condition the way a contractor regards a badly neglected house. I was expecting to be pushed in ways that suggested the pusher had forgotten I was a person and not a goal. Lexi is soft-spoken. I want you to sit with that for a moment. Soft-spoken. Calm. Genuinely happy to be there, which I found disorienting at first because I was not sure I happy to be there and assumed that sentiment was shared by all parties. It was not. She was delighted. She remains delighted. Forty-five minutes twice a week with a person who is visibly pleased to be doing what they do is a remarkably pleasant way to spend time. I did not dread it coming in. I do not dread it now. Several people told me I would dread it. Those people were wrong and I intend to tell them so (I'm looking at you, Carl). She explained things. She explained why we were doing things, not just what, which matters to a person who works in IT because we are suspicious of processes we do not understand. When she demonstrated an exercise she made it look easy. It was not easy. This is not a criticism. This is an observation about the gap between watching a thing and doing a thing, which turned out to be considerable. I have been introduced to the Elevated Heel Goblet Squat and the Russian Twist. I want to address these directly. When Lexi first mentioned them I assumed they were beverages. They are not beverages. They are exercises with names chosen, I believe, to keep non-gym people slightly off-balance. I do them now. Without falling over, mostly. This is progress. The warehouse training space deserves mention. Being in a dedicated area separate from the main gym floor made the experience of being a complete beginner significantly less fraught. I was not performing my ignorance in front of an audience. I was simply learning, in a space designed for learning, with an instructor who treated every question as entirely reasonable. I also need to address the music. I do not know who controls the playlist at Proximal 50 but I would like to ask them several questions. In a single session I have heard Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun, a techno arrangement of a Metallica composition I did not know could exist in that form, and Fishin' in the Dark by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Back to back. Without explanation. I find this tremendously amusing and ask that no one change it. Lexi knows when to push. She pushes in the way a person pushes when they know what you have in reserve and want you to find it, not in the way a person pushes when they have forgotten your name. There is a difference. I notice it every session. I came in knowing nothing. Fifteen sessions later I am writing this in genuine surprise at how much I enjoy something I was prepared to merely endure. Go to Proximal 50. Ask for Lexi Bata. Bring your ignorance. Bring your skepticism about the playlist. Be prepared to hear Black Sabbath done by a marching band. She will know what to do with all of it.

This is a really nice hybrid gym concept in downtown Bismarck. They have "crossfit" style classes…read moreas well as a normal gym setup, split into two rooms. One room (the one that usually has the classes) has full squat racks, lifting platforms, and barbells with bumper plates, which is awesome. The other room has more machines and some free weights like dumbells. There is also a squat rack in that room, but I was perplexed as to why the rubber mat that's under it ends so close to it; it makes it hard to squat if you don't like squatting on bare concrete (which has less traction). I got a free day pass from the Radisson, and the checkin process was easy and painless. Bathrooms are large and clean, and there's showers too. One sort of weird thing about this gym were all the signs they had posted around with rules...I'm not sure how strict they are about enforcing them, but I feel like all the rules posted everywhere was maybe a bit much. All in all, a nice option for dropping in if you are in Bismarck and want to get a workout in.

I was shopping for a gym. I want to be transparent about what that process looked like for a person…read morein my situation, which is a person who has never belonged to a gym, has no framework for evaluating gyms, and was operating on the assumption that gyms were broadly similar to each other in the way that parking lots are broadly similar to each other. I was wrong about this. I am getting ahead of myself. I stopped in unannounced. No appointment. No warning. I simply appeared, in the way that people appear when they have made a decision in a parking lot and are acting on it before the decision changes its mind. I was prepared to look at a brochure, take a pamphlet and leave with the information I needed to continue not joining a gym for several more weeks. Christina was at the front. I want to be specific about what happened next because I think it matters and because I have been to places where walking in unannounced produces an expression on the face of the staff that communicates, with considerable efficiency, that your timing is inconvenient. That expression did not appear. Christina was genuinely pleased to see me, or performed genuine pleasure with such commitment that I cannot tell the difference. She offered a full tour. Not a partial tour. Not a gesture toward the general area of the equipment. A full tour, conducted with the calm enthusiasm of a person who likes where they work and wants you to understand why. She showed me everything. The gym itself, which is well-equipped and does not feel like a place that has been arranged to photograph well and experienced differently. The class spaces, which are large enough to suggest that the classes are a genuine offering and not an afterthought. The women-only gym, which is a separate dedicated space and not simply a corner with a curtain. I mention this because the distinction matters and because I was not expecting it and because the thoughtfulness of that decision tells you something about how this particular gym thinks about the people who use it. She explained the programs. She explained the membership options. She explained what each thing included, what it cost and what it did not include, in language I could follow without needing to ask her to repeat herself. There were no contracts. I want to note that I asked about this directly because I am a person who has read enough about gym memberships to know that the contract conversation is where things sometimes become uncomfortable. It did not become uncomfortable. There were no contracts. She said it plainly. I believed her. That was the whole conversation. I did not feel at any point that I was bothering her. This sounds like a low bar. It is not a low bar. It is, in my experience of showing up to places unannounced with questions, a bar that is cleared less often than you would hope. I asked about personal trainers. I was expecting to be handed a list of names and left to make a decision I had no qualifications to make. What actually happened was that she explained a process. Someone would call me. They would talk with me about what I was looking for. They would match me with a trainer who was a good fit for my specific situation. I want to be clear that I received this information with polite skepticism because it sounded like the kind of thing people say when they want you to feel good about a decision you have not yet made. They called. They asked the right questions. They matched me with Lexi Bata. I have now had fifteen sessions with Lexi Bata and I am filling every available review slot on every platform that will accept text, which should tell you something about how the matching process went. Christina told me they would find me a great fit. I did not fully believe her. She was right. I am documenting this publicly because she deserves the credit and because I think it is important to tell people when something worked exactly the way someone said it would. Proximal 50 North is a good gym. Christina is a reason to walk in. The matching process is a reason to stay. Stop in unannounced if you want. I did. It worked out.

Nice, clean, spacious workout studio. The layout is a little weird. I took a spin class and there…read morewas only a speaker in the front and it was hard to hear the teacher. Good workout however. Also The workout room up stairs is very narrow and mirrors are poorly placed. The view is awesome when the sun isn't blinding your eyes. They need to pay attention to a few more details before I think about joining.