JOURNEYS: Theodore Roosevelt National Park

August 9, 2017 - Wednesday

This is the first part of a 6 week trip Mike and I are taking to national parks in the west. We left home at about 8:45 this morning. We drove a lot of different 2 lane highways in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. We went through Noel, Missouri; Joplin, Missouri,and Leavenworth, Kansas before ending up at Rock Port RiversEdge Campground in Rock Port, Missouri. After passing Kansas City, we followed the Missouri River until we got to our campsite. Rivers Edge Campground had been flooded 5 years ago, and the owners still had not finished the repairs. We didn't even use their restrooms because they were damaged. The park was next to some soybean fields; not sure where the river was. This was okay for overnight, but wouldn't recommend it.

Sunrise behind the soybean field next to our campsite

August 10, 2017 - Thursday

Got up and got on the road by 7:45. We took I29 north out of Missouri, through Iowa and into South Dakota. As we drove through Iowa and South Dakota, we passed many corn and soybean fields. We stayed overnight at Oakwood Lakes State Park in South Dakota. It was a clean, nice park between lakes and sloughs. We did a 1-1/2 mile hike in the park past an old cabin, a slough, and some Indian burial mounds. On our hike we saw a lot of white pelicans and other waterfowl.

Our Campsite at Oakwood Lakes

Ol' Spot Mortimer's Cabin - built in 1870

A slough on our hike

A white pelican

Indian burial mounds

August 11, 2017 - Friday

Got another early start this morning. Before we got out of the park we had to pull over so Mike could put his hearing aids in. While we were stopped, I saw an extremely large owl, not sure what kind. It was extremely foggy this morning for a while. We did see one deer in a soybean field. We went back to driving state highways west and north into North Dakota. They were good roads and we made good time since the speed limit was 65 mph on them. We saw more soybean and corn fields in addition to lots of wheat and sunflowers. We were really disappointed that we didn't see any pronghorn in South Dakota. We spent the night at a KOA in Bismarck, North Dakota. It was a really nice facility with lots of shade.

August 12, 2017 - Saturday

We got woken up about 4:00 am with a thunderstorm. I got up by 6:30, made coffee, and fixed breakfast so we could take showers before the next round of storms. We got our showers taken and were starting to break camp when it started raining again. At least it did not storm. We stopped on the way out of Bismarck at a Wal-Mart to get supplies and groceries. We drove I94 west until we got to Medora, ND, which is at the edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. While on I94 we saw 6 pronghorn and saw a large herd of bison just in the edge of TRNP. We stopped at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center and overlook where we saw a small group of ferrell horses.

Painted Canyon

We got to our campsite at Cottonwood Campground of the South Unit of TRNP at about 2:00 pm. We got unhooked and everything set up just before a thunderstorm started. We had to stay in our trailer for over 2 hours waiting for it to end. The night before there was a hail storm, that ruined some camper's rain shelters and knocked a lot of leaves off of the surrounding trees. It finally stopped raining about 5:00 and we were able to cook hamburgers and potatoes for dinner. We had to cook on the propane camp stove because no charcoal or wood fires are allowed in TRNP due to dry conditions.

Our campsite

Behind the campsite

View of mountains behind camp

We are camped in site #9, a nice level pull-through site. It is next to a meadow that has the Little Missouri River on the other side of it. We also have lots of shade. There are no hookups, but the water is good and the bathrooms are nice. We are staying here for 4 nights.

Sunset our first night

August 13, 2017 - Sunday

I woke up at 6:00 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I finally got up and turned on the coffee and layed back down until coffee was ready 30 minutes later. That is one great thing about having a trailer. After we got up, had coffee and breakfast and got everything cleaned up, we drove to the Medora Visitor Center. On the way there we saw 3 mule deer by the side of the road. At the visitor's center we looked at the displays, watched a short video about the park, and got hiking information. After that we drove about 1/2 of the 35 mile loop in the south unit. We stopped at the Talkington Creek trailhead. We had lunch in the car then hiked about 1-1/2 miles out on the Upper Talkington Creek Trail. It is a nice fairly flat trail. We were the only ones on the trail and really got a sense of the isolation of the area. We saw a prairie dog town (there are lots of prairie dogs in TRNP) and lots of bison poop, but no bison.

Talkington Creek Trail

Mike on the trail

Mike is looking for wild life

Mary on the trail

Talkington Creek

One more view of the trail

After hiking, on our way back to camp we stopped at Buck Hill (the 2nd highest peak in TRNP) and hiked up a steep 0.1 mile paved trail to the top. There were some very nice views from the top. We saw some horses and a large herd of bison, probably the ones that left poop and tracks on the trail we hiked.

Mike at Buck Hill

Mary at the top. It was very windy

Next we stopped at the Badlands Overlook. The day started cool and cloudy, but ended up sunny and warm.

Badlands

After dinner, we sat behind camp looking toward the Little Missouri River. We watched the sun glistening off the cottonwoods looking like glitter on the leaves. We saw lots of birds, even one oriole, and later lots of bats. After it got really dark, I woke Mike up to see the stars. It was so clear and dark that we were able to see stars we have not seen in a long time. We could see the Milky Way and I even saw 3 meteors from the Perseid Meteor Shower. This was a very nice day. A good way to start our trip.

Little Missouri River behind camp

View of cottonwoods behind camp

August 14, 2017 - Monday

We got up fairly early, had breakfast, then drove 68 miles to the north unit of TRNP. We stopped at some rock formations called concretions then ate lunch at the Juniper Campground picnic area.

View on the way to the north unit

Concretions

After lunch we drove the 14 mile out and back scenic tour. The first stop we made was the Capstone Nature trail, which had a brochure for stops on the trail. Shortly after getting on the trail we saw a bull bison not too far off the trail. Also on this trail we saw a lot of petrified wood. This trail was 0.8 miles; a total of 1.6 miles out and back.

Bison beside the trail

A petrified log

Mike beside a petrified root system

Formations along the trail

Mike with the bison behind him

On the drive we stopped at the Oxbow and River Bend Overlooks. Very pretty views.

Mary at the Oxbow Overlook

A view at the Oxbow Overlook

River Bend Overlook

At the River Bend Overlook

We also saw 9 wild turkeys and a pheasant while on the drive. When we stopped at the picnic area to use the restroom there was a herd of about 50 bison moving through the area grazing.

Wild Turkeys in the middle of a field

Bison in Juniper Campground picnic area

We stopped in Medora on the way back to camp and got a really good pizza at the Badlands Pizza Parlour and Saloon. We didn't sit out very late because it was cloudy and the birds and bats didn't come out like last night.

Oxbow Overlook

August 15, 2017 - Tuesday

We decided to get up early, eat a quick breakfast, and drive the South Unit scenic loop looking for wildlife. We left camp at 6:30. It was raining most of the time so we weren't able to to any hiking like we had planned. We did see about 13 turkeys, around 20 mule deer, 1 white tailed deer, 1 pheasant, raven, hawks, and 2 bison.

Wild turkeys

White tailed deer

We got back to camp around 9:00 and rested for a while before heading to Medora. We walked around Medora reading placards telling about the town's history. We got a buffalo burger for lunch at the Little Missouri Saloon.