North Dakota: Theodore Roosevelt National Park

 Days 60-61: July 22-23, 2021

We’re in North Dakota!

After a rather short drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South), we are spending two nights camping in the park itself. $14/night for two nights and seniors get half off! BUT, there is no dump station, no water hookup, no electric hookup. So we’re practicing our “off the grid” technique….and unless we pull out and hook up and power up the generator, we have lights and water from our fresh tank, and a propane-powered refrigerator (I can’t for the life of me figure out how THAT works!), but that’s about it. 

We set up camp in 99F temperatures, but we saw rain for the first time since we left Illinois on May 29; it was not unwelcome! The temps after the rain? 68F—a drop of 31 degrees! MUCH better for my temperament! 

This area is “Badlandslike”. Amazing formations. Little Missouri River flows through, carving the canyons and, along with rain and snowmelt, carving the hoodoos and other rock formations. It’s weird and wonderful. After dinner tonight we saw a bison (up close!) and a couple across the valley, bellowing at each other; prairie dogs, and a coyotes who wanted one for his dinner!  I can’t wait to see what awaits us tomorrow. I promised Dan that I would get up early so we could hike when it’s cooler and get the early morning sun for colors on the formations.

In general, I can’t figure out what made TR think this would be a great place to ranch. A respite from losing his mother (typhoid fever) and his wife (after childbirth) on Feb 14, 1884, a place to recover oneself, yes, that I can see. It was such a diverse and interesting place. I would love to see it in spring!

Landforms—wild and wonderful

I’ve included a lot of photos of different scenes, different times of the day, taken over the two days of our visit. The first day, right after we set up camp at the Cottonwood Campground, it started to rain and we kind of stayed indoors.  When we did go out, Thursday photos have more clouds, more filtered light. We started out on Friday before 7 am, so Day 2 photos have earlier morning light and then sunset time at Wind Canyon overlooking the Little Missouri River.

Enjoy the jumble of scenes from our hikes and drive throughout the South Unit of the Park. 

Note the black striation in the mounds: coal

If you look really really carefully, you can see hazy smoke in the bottom of the photo, on the left. A coal seam caught fire quite a while ago and there’s no way to put it out. At times, when conditions are right, it will flame up. If it flames up, it needs to be reported, but the normal coal fire that just simmers along, signs everywhere told us not to report that. It was smelly.

Plants that were interesting to me

I still don’t have enough of a cell signal to be able to use my PlantNet app. I can add the IDs later!

Let’s just call this one Burr plant—yikes

Prickly Pear and sage?

Animals

We saw a bunch. No pictures of the bunnies and no charming prairie dog photos either, just what I could get when someone was close to the road. Those things aren’t too smart; they sit right on the road and we witnessed more than a few prairie dog carcasses to prove it.

Coyote on the prowl for prairie dogs

Prairie dogs were nowhere to be seen when the coyote was out. I got one to pose the next day!

Wild horses: two grey mares (one facing us is more difficult to distinguish).

Bison

We saw so many, all over the place. Only a few were with others. They are so …B I G.

Up close! (Not personal. No eye contact. Phew.)

Good night from Theodore Roosevelt NP; tomorrow we head to Fargo!

We were just up there: the end of the Wind Canyon Trail