Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

 Theodore Roosevelt National Park is divided into three sections, the South Unit near Medora, the North Unit near Watford City and Elkhorn Ranch Unit which is located west of and about halfway between the other two units.  Overall the park covers about 110 square miles.  

The South Unit

We had two days to tour this part of the park and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There is a 36 scenic mile drive which is usually a loop drive but a 4 mile section of the road is closed because of bad road conditions.  At first it seemed like an inconvenience to drive the 32 miles and then return but actually the views are completely different according to the direction.  

The scenery is just gorgeous as you drive through the badlands.  The different colors are spectacular and even though the Little Missouri River is low now (they desperately need rain) it is still quite picturesque winding it's way between the buttes and mesas.  

We saw a large variety of wildlife in our two days!  Bison and prairie dogs galore, along with wild turkeys, feral horses, deer, rabbit and many beautiful birds.  We spotted hawks, red-winged black birds, magpies, doves and even white pelicans.  

The cute little western town of Medora is just across the street from the visitor's center.  We had a great hamburger for lunch one day and another day went to a fun little ice cream shop.  We both sampled huckleberry ice cream for the first time.  

The North Unit

While we enjoyed the Cottonwood Campground in the South Unit, we already had reservations at a full hook-up campground, The Crossings, about 15 miles east and on the way to the North Unit.  It is located in a small town, Belfield, which according to their website is the Crossroads of America.  Interstate 94 runs right through the town and goes from New York to Seattle.  Highway 84 runs north to south through the town and goes from Alaska to Mexico City.  We had a couple of delightful surprises while staying at The Crossings.  The local Catholic Church which is just a few blocks away has beautiful bells in the afternoons.  There are quite a few cottonwood trees on the property and we have discovered that songbirds love cottonwoods.  We also experienced one of the most spectacular sunsets of our trip. 

The drive to the North Unit from Belfield is about an hour but was lovely as we drove through the plains with grasses and grains.  We even saw two pronghorns cross the highway in front of us.  They are beautiful and fast.  Unfortunately we were not able to get any pictures of them.

The north unit looks very similar to the south unit with the badlands and the Little Missouri River.  We took a picnic lunch and enjoyed it at the highest point, Oxbow Overlook.  The scenic drive is 28 miles and is not a loop. 

We saw many bison along with deer, wild turkeys and longhorn cattle.  We were hoping to get a glimpse of some big horn sheep but did not. 

One thing we have been really impressed with in every National Park, Preserve, and Forest has been the information signs that are posted all along the roads.  They are quite informative and we have learned so much from them.  

About seven weeks ago there was a large fire in the North Unit.  Approximately 30 acres were burned and even the housing and office buildings were threatened.  We were so surprised to see that the forest is already showing recovery.  We learned that the grasses and flowers in the desert have roots about 7 to 8 inches into the ground, hence they are able to quickly recover and sprout new growth. 

 

Elkhorn Ranch Unit

We did not visit this part of the park.  It is in a very remote section of the park and no paved roads.  The park newspaper recommends 4 wheel drive and/or high clearance vehicles.  This is the location of Theodore Roosevelt's ranch.  There are no buildings left, however there is the cabin foundation. 

Traveling Montana to North Dakota

Saying goodbye to Yellowstone National Park we traveled northeast through Montana planning to stay at a Harvest Host winery in Billings, Montana the next night. We made better time driving than expected due to the forecasted rains being of the lighter and intermittent type so decided to continue on for a few more miles. In searching for a place to stop for the night we found the “Small Towne RV Park” listing on the Montana state website. The reviews for this RV park were a bit amusing and since we prefer to patronize smaller, local businesses we thought we’d give this small town campground a try. Upon arrival to the town of Terry, Montana we discovered that the area of town the campground was in had only dirt roads with lots of potholes and muddy puddles. With growing skepticism about our plan to support small local businesses we continued driving down the roads toward the campground. It was pouring rain when we finally arrived at the campground but our contact person “Mel” cheerfully greeted us and helped us get Wander parked in the proper area. Mel then put a doormat at our door, placed a trash can nearby and presented us with a notebook with information about the area. Mel’s smile, service and pleasant demeanor made the long muddy drive to his little campground seem insignificant and we thought the $25 fee was a bargain for full hookups.

The next morning we continued heading east on I-94. Stopping for fuel we came upon the town of Beach, North Dakota. Since we were not in a hurry and had never been in North Dakota before we decided to drive into the town and look around. As we drove around we saw the town’s history museum and considered stopping in for some info about the town and its past but the museum was not open. We did see a commemorative plaque placed at the site of a speech given by Clara Darrow from the North Dakota Votes for Women League in September of 1914 and decided to celebrate women finally getting to vote by getting some coffee at a coffee shop around the corner. In addition to being a coffee shop they also sold leather treatments for saddles and cowboy hat cleaning solutions. It’s easy to tell when you’re in a real cowboy town when you can pick up your saddle treatments with your espresso!

We arrived at Medora, North Dakota and the Teddy Roosevelt National Park about noon and checked on available camping inside the park. Since the campsites inside the park are on a first come first served basis and it was almost Memorial Day weekend we thought the campground would already be full. Much to our delight we were able to get a nice drive through campsite with plenty of room around us. With our America the Beautiful Pass we only paid $7 a night. There are no RV hookups in the park so we are boondock camping which is becoming our favorite way to camp.

Driving to our campsite we saw buffalo and prairie dogs galore which was quite fun. We were also reminded by several park signs that we would be camping in an area with large numbers of wild animals of different varieties. There were bear boxes to store food in and bear resistive closures on the trash cans. We also saw these in Yellowstone and were once again thankful that our travel trailer was hard sided and that we had bear spray as a deterrent.

The Teddy Roosevelt National Park is another beautiful park with interesting rock formations, buttes, mesas and cliffs. We plan to be here for a few days before traveling on to South Dakota to explore their badlands, see Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monuments.

Wonderland

 From the moment we entered Yellowstone National Park until we drove out after three days of touring, we were completely enthralled by the beauty.  We saw the park snow covered and we saw it green.  We at first thought that we were enchanted because of the beauty of the snow on the mountain tops and trees but we discovered that Yellowstone does not need snow to be Wonderland.

Some interesting facts about Yellowstone:

• 3,472 square miles
• Larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined
• 96% in Wyoming, 3% in Montana and 1% in Idaho
• Highest Point is Eagle Peak at 11, 358 ft

There are five entrances into the park:

• West Entrance (West Yellowstone, Montana)
• North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana)
• Northeast Entrance (Cooke City, Montana)
• East Entrance (Cody, Wyoming)
• South Entrance (from Grand Teton National Park)

We stayed in West Yellowstone and entered from there every morning.  We highly recommend this entry point.  The second entry we would recommend is the North at Gardiner.  We were unable to visit the Northeast and East entry as the roads were closed because of snow accumulations. We did enter thru the South entrance the afternoon we visited Grand Teton National Park.

Yellowstone has eight junctions and these serve to help navigate around the huge park.  We visited all of the junctions except Tower-Roosevelt which we couldn't because of closed roads.   

• Mammoth Hot Springs
• Tower-Roosevelt
• Canyon
• Lake Village (Lake Yellowstone)
• West Thumb
• Grant Village
• Old Faithful
• Madison
• Norris Junction

The time to travel from one area of the park to another can take large amounts of time.  While it is only about 16 miles from Madison up to Norris Junction, it took us about 1 1/2 hours on our second drive in that direction.  We encountered three "bison parades".  You begin to see brake lights and know there will be some type of wildlife causing the traffic jam.  Sometimes the bison will be grazing in meadows but on this particular drive, they were parading down the highway mostly on the southbound side but of course, traffic has to stop both ways.  They don't know about traffic protocol and they just wander wherever they want.  A couple of the parades had young calves with them.  They are so cute and are called "Big Reds" because of their red coat when they are young.  Every parade seemed to have one bison who was designated to stay between the calves and the cars.  Very interesting.  

Neither of us has a favorite section of the park.  Every section is gorgeous in it's own way.

The elk just wander around Mammoth and the old fort area

View of Mammoth Hot Springs from the Upper Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs is where the original entrance was in 1872 when Yellowstone was designated as the United States first National Park.  It is also the location of Fort Yellowstone which was established a few years later to protect the park from poachers and looters.  The army had personnel on-site until about 1915.  The fort area is in the middle of Mammoth Hot Springs and we very much enjoyed a walking tour of the area.  The upper spring area is different than any other springs we saw.  They cover huge areas and look like ice.  They are actually hot springs on a hill of travertine!

Madison is the first area that we explored and were delighted when we discovered Firehole Canyon Drive.  We did this drive a couple of times, once with snow and once without.  

Canyon is the area where the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is located.  Snow was coming down with winds of about 30 mph.  It was so cold and hard to stand upright at times as we walked the icy path to view the canyon.  

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Lake Village is the home of Lake Yellowstone, the largest high altitude lake in the lower 48 states.  This means the lake is at an altitude of over 7000 ft.  The lake is so big it looks like the ocean and was complete with white caps on our visit.  It is also over 400 ft deep in some areas.

Yellowstone Lake

Old Faithful is incredible.  We actually were able to see it erupt on two different days, again once with snow and once without.  The first impression upon seeing the viewing area is that it is too big and there are too many people but actually it was not.  They even have signs asking for viewers to silence their cell phones.   Our experience was that it was quite reverent, people were even speaking in very hushed tones.  

Old Faithful

We drove the road from Madison Junction to West Yellowstone a number of times.  One of the first times we discovered a side road, Riverside Drive.  This little one-way drive runs along the Madison River for about a mile off the main road.  We so much enjoyed this, there were seldom other travelers there and we really enjoyed just stopping, putting down the windows and listening to the river and birds. 

Riverside Drive

We took about four hours one day and made the drive down to Grand Teton National Park.  It is breathtaking especially with the peaks covered in snow.  Our drive back to Yellowstone became a bit interesting as we drove into heavy snow and the road was getting covered quickly.  We were thankful for our AWD vehicle.

Traveling to Yellowstone

Many of the routes that we have traveled on this journey have run parallel to railroad tracks.  The trains out in the west are very active.  In many locations there are two parallel tracks, one for eastbound and one for westward.  We have really enjoyed seeing the trains and guessing how long they would be based on the number of engines.  One of the books we have read on this trip is The Harvey Girls which includes a lot of history about the railroad, particularly the Santa Fe Line.  As we drove some miles east before turning to the north, we realized we were soon saying goodbye to this interesting part of western US history.

 We left Declo, Idaho early Sunday morning hoping to stay ahead of the snow and winds that were forecast for our route.  We had glorious sunshine much of our 225 mile drive.  About an hour before arriving in West Yellowstone we began to see heavy clouds on the horizon.  Once we passed through Island Park, Idaho we were in the snow.  The rest of the drive, while a bit slower, was quite lovely.  

Our "home" for three nights is Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park less than a mile from the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  This is a fairly new park and very nicely laid out with wide streets and nice, level sites.  The downside is the price!  It is the most expensive site we have ever had and we only have an electric hook-up.  No water or sewer and the site is so tiny our car and Wander barely fit.  We are choosing to call it "cozy".

Once we were set up we drove right over to the National Park.  

It was snowing like crazy inside the park and truly looked like a winter wonderland.  Within just a few minutes we saw a herd of bison.  Quite a nice introduction to what we think may be the prettiest place on earth. 

We decided to just drive an overview without stopping too many times so that we could get an idea of the layout since neither of us have ever been here before. However, the side roads and pull-outs proved too tempting. We turned down one of the side roads, Firehole Canyon Drive.  It was incredibly gorgeous!

From Firehole Canyon we continued on our way toward Old Faithful by way of Biscuit Basin where we had our first look at hot springs and fumaroles (steam vents).  Because the temperature is hovering right around freezing, the springs and fumaroles are quite showy.  You can actually see the steam from far away.  

We arrived at Old Faithful but could not find parking so we decided to drive towards the old geyser.  Old Faithful was very cooperative and was erupting as we drove up!  It erupts approximately every 94 minutes and eruptions can last up to five minutes.  We did get a picture but plan to go back later for another look.  The entire area around Old Faithful is lovely and we are looking forward to exploring it more.  

Other pictures from our first day