What a wonderful surprise! We kind of figured Theodore Roosevelt National Park would be good because, hey, it's a national park ... but I don't think we expected this. Friends, there are badlands here too! And so many animals! We saw herds of wild turkeys, bison, and horses. Heck, when we pulled up to the visitor center, we saw a deer right outside the door, just munching away on some leaves!
Because we are gluttons for punishment but we also understand the finite nature of time and our capacity to keep on driving, we only explored the southern unit of the park, which was truly impressive.
We got to Medora, North Dakota, late in the afternoon, so we decided to stop in at the South Unit Visitor Center before it closed. Of course, that led to us seeing a poster on the wall that we wanted and they didn't have, so we ended up driving about 10 miles down the interstate to the Painted Canyon Visitor Center, which had what we were looking for, plus some incredible views, so we spent a little time exploring.
We headed into town after that to check into our hotel room and find some dinner. Friends, this was by far the worst dining experience of the whole trip. We went to some Old West-style saloon, and we immediately got stuck there, waiting over an hour for our (really unappetizing) dinner to be served. We were super impatient because we wanted to go back into the park, and the restaurant was (according to our beleaguered server) understaffed and blah blah ... let's just say it was a bad combination. But we managed to get out of there with a little bit of daylight left, so we took full advantage of it.
The plan was to drive the South Unit Loop Road, but part of the road was closed, so we ended up just going partway around and then coming back. But the way the light was changing made everything look different on the way back, and there were different animals doing different things, so it was kind of like exploring two different areas. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves now.
turkey
owl on the horizon
deer and prairie dog pals
herd
big coyote
magpie in flight
western meadowlark
traffic jam
dusty
golden hour
wild horses
silhouette
"Hey LADIES!"
See, you want to go too now, right? Maybe you can join us on our next visit, because if we get our way, there will definitely be another!
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