June 7 - 11 Medora, North Dakota –home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Red Trail Campground
As we traversed down and around the rolling hills and smooth highway, looking forward to this bucket list visit, interesting “road signs” kept us entertained…..
Who knew there was oil in North Dakota??? Oil wells all over the place, along with the miles and miles and miles of farm land and blue skies….just gorgeous!!! The air is SO clear…..you can see forever.
As we got closer and closer to the campground,
we could see the landscape changing……..oh….we’re getting close………..and there is the first road sign……deep beautiful canyons and the Painted Canyon Visitors Center. What scenery!!!!!! The Badlands!!! After drooling over what we were seeing, we continued down the highway to the campground…..which just happened to be the same exit as the Theodore Roosevelt National Park! We’re here………………..(clap clap clap).....a beautiful view of some of the surrounding cliffs were within eye shot of where we stayed.
We spent 3 days driving through the glorious landscape, stopping wherever we could. Our necks were sore from looking back and forth – scoping the land for 4 legged creatures LOL!! What did we see??? OMG……100’s of Bison, the most adorable Prairie Dogs at their “town”, Pronghorns, coyotes, deer, and wild horses! We’ll just let all these pictures show you what we saw…. because there are no words to describe the pure wonder of this truly underrated National Park………………...
Those horses galloping thru the fields – OMG!!!!!!! And look – that is “Airy” on top of the cliff, feeling the breeze through his hair, and keeping those darn flies off!
Not many towns between “here and there”. We went through a few that might have had a few people still living there. One in particular, had the most beautiful Catholic Church and probably the most interesting we’ve ever seen.
The Enchanted Highway – what a trip! The 32-mile rolling road starts at Highway 94 exit 27. It houses a collection of the world’s largest scrap metal sculptures constructed by Gary Greff at intervals along the highway. When we reached the end at the quirky town of Regent, we discovered that Gary owns the Enchanted Highway Gift Shop. We spent a few minutes chatting and then on our way we went – to the end of the road where lies the Enchanted Castle Hotel. In front are the latest creations…. quite the funky place…..
As we say “see ya later” to North Dakota, the memories will be forever etched in our minds!!
