What a Day is All I can Say!!

Monday July 21, 2014
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Medora, North Dakota

 

We’ve been told TR National Park is a vast place.

 

 

 

And boy is it.  The park is divided into three “units” and stretches over 70,416 acres of Western North Dakota.  We are currently camped in and exploring the South Unit.  It is the easiest to get to and thus the most visited.  We hope to spend some of our time in this park at the “north” unit, an hour’s drive away.  But that’s later. 

 

 

 

 

 

 In the South Unit, because of its size, the park drive is 36 miles long.   We figure that’s an entire day for us and plan to get out early for our exploration.

The drive length is calculated from the Visitor’s Center and since we are six miles from it, it will only be a 30 mile loop for us.

 

 

 

The day starts out with blue skies and clouds but becomes more and more cloudy and  overcast until the sky is actually white.  But the temperature is perfect, the breeze light and NO bugs.  At first my pictures show the beautiful colors quite well but as the sky gets white it is too much of contrast and the colors appear much more muted.   These bad lands in many cases appear to me more like painted lands.  Although if you were riding a horse or walking through here, they would seem very bad indeed.

Of course we have to stop at every pull out and hike every trail along the way.

 

Don’t these look like those little beehive huts that the ancient Celts lived in in Ireland?  But this one has a face .  Do you see it?   Or at least eyes, eyebrows and a nose.  Or am I seeing things?

 

 

Remind anyone of Bryce Canyon?

 

 

 

 

 Our jaws are dropping open at what we see driving around this loop.

 

 

We had no idea this beautiful landscape was in Western North Dakota.   Somehow I thought the state was all prairie.

We reach mile post 10.8 where there is a trail called The Ridgeline Nature Trail so we hop out to take it.  What perfect weather.   But of course ridgeline means up and up.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And up some more. 

 

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But look at these views when we get to the top.   360 degrees of amazement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like the rain is coming early.

While we are sitting at the farthest point on a nice bench and soaking in the views, it begins to spit rain.  Probably time to head back down.   I knew rain was predicted, but I thought it was later in the afternoon.

 

But first the selfie.

 

 

 

 

We love rocks and these along the steps down were really beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The yellow flowers that really do make the grasslands look like gold are called yellow sweet clover.  They bloom July to October and are a sweet scented biennial.  This is an introduced European species so it’s actually an exotic invasive.  I was thinking OH NO when I found this out.  But in checking with the rangers I also found that it is not one of the ones they are trying to eradicate since it has naturalized and adds nitrogen to the soil, is favored by honey producers and is food for bison.

Pretty obvious they haven’t been trying.  It’s everywhere and I think really adds to the beauty of this place.   

 

I’m in no sleeves and shorts for the first time since I cannot remember when.

 

It’s warm, but it isn’t “hot” like it was yesterday.  High today is 85.  Seems perfect!

 

 

 

The rain stops as we descend and we head on around the drive.  We stop at another overlook with a short trail.

 

 

Notice the dark skies.  It has now started to lightning.  What is this man doing standing out there on an exposed surface?  He wants his picture taken. 

 

 

Back in the car, the dark clouds are behind us and more beauty is in front.

 

 

 

 

You’d think that getting rained out would be an “drat” event. 

 

And then the rains come.  It’s been toying with us for nearly an hour but it gets strong and stronger until we can’t see in front of us.   We are at about mile 13 when we have to just call it a day.   We pull over until it lightens up.  It’s dumped a lot of water so any more hiking will be wet and muddy.  We’ll have to come back to do the rest another day.  

 

 

 

 

We are going on down the road and are almost at the end of the drive which is about mile 24 when all of a sudden all the cars in front of us are stopped.   We hadn’t even known they were there until we came up over a slight rise.  We think it’s more road construction.  Oh I forgot to mention that earlier but I’ll catch it tomorrow.   Not road construction but a bison jam.  ALL RIGHT!!  If it hadn’t rained, we’d have totally missed this.

 

Many of these are out the window so they are a bit foggy.  But fun!

 

They are definitely heading our way.

 

 

That’s my side mirror, you can see my smile in the glass if you look closely.  Wonder if he’s thinking “you’d better wipe that smile off your face toots”.

 

 

 

 

This guy is on David’s side and isn’t paying much attention to the car.

 

 

 

Aren’t they the epitome of no nonsense powerful creatures?

 

 

 

Some Great Faces!

 

 

 

 

They keep traffic stopped for quite some time.  There are hundreds of them.  They are up the hill sides and on the ridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They make great silhouettes?.

 

 

By the time they agree to let us all go “for now” the rain has stopped and the sun has come back out. 

 

So Mr. Overdoer wants to do another short hike, the Wind Canyon Nature Trail which is at mile 25.1 about 4 miles from the campground.  It’s another ridge type hike but the entrance is flooded.  Since we have waterproof hiking boots this isn’t a problem for us but when we get up to the ridge we see several other cars stop, the folks come up the trail to this point and turn around and go back.  Thus we have the whole place to ourselves.  It sure pays to have the right gear.

 

 

 

This guy is happily enjoying the new flooding.

 

 

I had asked about kayaking the Little Missouri River which runs through the park and right by the campground.  I was told that it was only about 2.5 feet deep as of yesterday so there would be a lot of portaging on this wide flat river.  When I look out at it, I wonder if this rain has helped things and I might be able to kayak now.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a pretty great day when rocks make you laugh.

 

Not sure who this first one is appearing to slide downhill but the second one looks like Casper the Ghost to me.

 

 

 

When we get to the end of the trail, we are facing what I call bison mountain.  There they are again.  But we also see a wild horse down in the valley and my zoom can pick him up.  On the other side are pronghorn and my zoom can pick them up but the pictures are not good enough to post here.   Just imagine it in your minds.  Beautiful animals and the fastest animal in the western hemisphere. Hope we will get to see them closer.

 

 

Do you see him down there in the painted pasture?

 

 

 

Last glimpses of the Little Missouri and its banks before we head back for dinner.  Boy this is such a beautiful place.

 

 

Oh and another selfie.  Notice we have long sleeve shirts on.  The rain has cooled things down considerably.

 

 

And that’s finally it for today.  I was going to put identified pictures of all the wildflowers we saw today and that was a LOT.  So many things are in bloom.  But this post is way too long as it is so that will have to wait until another day.  

 

 

What a day is all I can say!