20th June - Theodore Roosevelt NP North and South Units, ND

Overlook in the North Unit. 

This morning we drove the loop of the North Unit through the national park. It was 14-miles return and was pretty cool. We saw some more prairie dogs, which we obligingly yipped at and I believe they yipped back. We were kind of following the river as we drove – though it was down at the bottom of a canyon, snaking its way around. We were driving along the rim of the canyon. The geological formations were pretty cool and we saw lots of different layers of rock in the hills. We stopped at a few different places for photos, including one spot where there was a hut – I can’t remember the significance of it though! It was full of puddles so we didn’t stay long at it. Quite an overcast day, but fortunately it didn’t rain while we were walking around. 

The puddle-filled hut and overlook view. 

On the way out of the park we stopped at the visitor centre. It was interesting reading the board about the different types of plants that can be seen in the park as quite a few are sold by my dad in Australia! Like the columbines we saw in California that just grow wild, there were pictures of sisyrinchium (Spelling? blue-eyed grass) and other familiar plants. Funny how they grow wild on this side of the world, but are bought and put into people’s gardens on the other side! We checked out their stuffed toy collection, but it wasn’t that great. The bison didn’t really look like a real bison. They had noses like koalas!! A lady did comment on us looking in that section – I was taking my search seriously so didn’t really take much notice of her. I think she was looking for something in particular too. We just laughed politely and moved away from her…

Prairie Dog!

We continued on our drive, heading for the South Unit of the park, about 80 miles south of the North Unit. It’s the bigger part of the park and you can’t drive through the park to the South Unit, you can only walk. So we had to leave the park to get down to the South Unit. It was a pretty straight and uninteresting drive down there. We stopped for gas in Bellfield then continued on to Medora where the entrance to the national park was. We showed our parks pass and drove to the campground. When we got to the entrance of it a lady stopped us and told us that most of the campsites had been flooded and to stay in the right-hand loop rather than the left-hand one. So we took her advice and found ourselves a spot not far from a toilet block. It looked like it was quite a muddy spot when it was wet, but it was pretty dry when we got there. We walked around a bit and paid for our site, admiring the more permanent summer vacationers’ sites with their citronella candles and mosquito-proof net tents over the picnic tables! Then we spent the afternoon relaxing and tidying up Betsey. After a dinner of improvised baked potatoes (rather than putting them in an oven after adding ham and cheese, I put them back in the hot pot so that the heat can melt the cheese – it works ok!) we played a little bit of cards, then Will continued on his quest to watch all of Season 1 of Deadwood before we went to Deadwood. I played iPod Sudoku and half-listened to it; there is a lot of swearing! And a lot of the male characters look the same as they all had dark hair and big bushy moustaches. It seems like quite an exciting show though. A couple of episodes and then it was time for sleep.