Trish & Anne RV Adventures

We rented a car for this portion of the trip, so we started our ND adventure on Thursday, 8/31 with golf at the Heart River Golf Club.

Trish had a par and beat me by 2 strokes. It was a nice, well-maintained course along the Heart River. We enjoyed the round. We then went back to the RV to get some lunch.

Then it was off to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The park was not established by him, but in 1947 as a National Memorial Park to keep at least part of the ND badlands as he had seen them when he first came here in 1883 to hunt bison. He came back in 1884 to recover and renew himself after his wife and his mother died on the same day. He often said “I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota.” It finally became a National Park in 1978.

There are several sections to the park that are over 60 miles apart. We didn’t go to his actual ranch site, but did drive the scenic drives through the other two units.

Here are a couple of photos while we were driving to the visitors center for the South Unit of the park.

One of the things at the visitor center is the Maltese Cross Cabin, which was moved from the original location, but was one of the places where Teddy lived. It was pretty roomy for a two room cabin.

The vest, chaps, saddle and reins in the left photo were all used by Roosevelt. One of the things that he did while he was in ND was start one of the first Stock-men Associations. They banded together to herd the cattle and process them. Part of this was to develop brands so the cattle could be separated by owner.

Then we started the scenic drive, and one of the first things we saw was more prairie dogs. So cute!

There were plenty of bison along and on the road.

Same goes for the wild horses.

And lot’s more incredible badlands scenery.

We spotted this lark sparrow.

Then we went back to the little town of Medora, which is the gateway to the South Unit of the park.

We ate at Medora Uncorked where I got the biggest bottle of North Dakota Peach Cider while Trish had a ND beer. Then we found a pair of wings.

We had heard about the Medora Musical, both by reading about it and from one of our waitresses. We had decided to give it a try. It’s done in a huge outdoor amphitheater, with singers/dancers, horses, cars, fireworks, a band and more.

Here are some shots of the stage before the show started,

The stars of the show arrived in a truck!

That’s a stagecoach pulled by real horses and then the other horses and the singes/dancers.

They invited all the children in the audience up on the stage while they sang a song by Dolly Parton called Paint Your Dreams. All the kids looked out at the audience except this one who was fascinated by the painting bear/sheriff.

The comedian was Michael Palascak – don’t ask me to pronounce that. That T-shirt says “Not a Stalker,” which was the point of one of his stories. He does have a Comedy Central special and has been on most of the late night shows.

Then, because this is Roosevelt country, there was a reenactment of Teddy’s charge up San Juan Hill.

Complete with horses being ridden down the hill in the spotlight and ending up charging onto the stage.

It was also the night of the blue moon and the night ended with some fireworks.

On Sept 1 we headed to the North Unit on TRNP. On the way we saw a tire that was way too big for this truck, lots of hay field and several stands of natural gas pumps.

There is a scenic drive through this part of the park too – and there was lots more interesting landscapes.

Some of the most interesting were the “cannonball concretions.” They sure look out of place. I found this description of how they are formed. “When mineral rich water seeps down through the porous layers that make up the badlands, it can deposit those minerals in spaces or gaps in the sediments. The minerals act as a kind of glue, holding these sediments together, often forming around a core. As more and more layers are deposited, the concretion builds outward like a pearl, before being exposed by erosion.”

Eventually they erode right out of the butte and can be used as a resting spot.

The only birds we saw were pigeons. I don’t think there is anything special about them, except that they are not in a city where I normally see them.

That’s another CCC shelter at the Riverbend Overlook. The river is the Little Missouri.

We were able to hear a ranger talk about Roosevelt. This is where I learned about the Stockmens Association. The ranger told a great story about Roosevelt and his ranch hands chasing these boat thieves for three weeks in the middle of a late spring snowstorm. They finally caught them and delivered them to be prosecuted – which took another two weeks.

Then it was more great scenery. Maybe this video will give you an idea of what it was like: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rgnx6yr5wu4qdyoqfq3d0/2023-09-01-14.21.22.mp4?rlkey=khhz6x57kqux05g2mqpk86rx9&dl=0. (It took a second to get the phone oriented for this one.)

There were also more bison.

After dinner at JB’s BBQ and doing some grocery shopping we went to the Painted Canyon Scenic Overview to watch the sunset.

We stopped at the same overlook the next morning, looking for wild horses and bison – we didn’t see any. But we did catch a last look at the National Park and finally snapped a picture of the sign.

Next time you’ll hear about our time in Montana.

Til then, safe travels.