Teddy Roosevelt National Park

Badlands, it is a matter of perspective

And for the first time, we crossed into Central Time Zone.

Teddy Roosevelt National Park is broken into three areas.  The south unit is most visited, the north unit comes in second and Elkhorn ranch (Roosevelt’s most loved ranch site) comes in a distant third. All are in the badlands of western North Dakota.  We also visited the Badlands National Park in South Dakota when staying in Rapid City.  After loving these places for the last week I have come to the conclusion that the name “Badlands” was given to the areas to compare the locations to all the farmlands.  As far as I can tell, farmland nearly covers North and South Dakota. Summer is hot, winter, however, has all the evidence of being very harsh.

Medora

Medora is the nearest town to Teddy Roosevelt National Park, south unit and has a year-round population of just over one hundred. They do have hotel rooms for many times more guests than residents.   The boardwalk is in front of the main street and had typical tourist shops. The only gas station doubled as the only place for groceries.  Business is booming in the summer — not so much in the winter. 

Elkhorn Ranch

While we were staying at the south unit, we drove to Elkhorn Ranch.   We were treated to thirty miles of dirt roads (good grading) and three miles of rutted road down to the parking spot. Only remains of the ranch are some large stones, presumably foundation stones for his house.  The meadow and cottonwood trees line the Little Missouri River which connects all three parts of the park. August was just as Roosevelt described, hot and lacking a breeze.  The location is desolate to this day, which is as Roosevelt described it.  “Dee-lightful” would have been the word he used. 

On the trip to Elkhorn we saw a badger crossing the road, first one I have seen since I was about 12 years old.  The body is about the size of a coyote but the legs are very stubby. This time we only had a glimpse of him. When I was younger, I had one cornered in a partially dug den, which for anyone who knows about badgers, understands this was very poor decision making on my part. Badgers rank high in the grumpy department.

Buffalo

American Buffalo dominate the large animal population. While here, on our first day we also saw deer, wild horses, and a very bold coyote – gunning for a meal at a prairie dog town. (yes we also saw prairie dogs but I am not fond of prairie dogs and don’t think them to be cute – ok they are cute unless your horse or cow steps in the hole)  We saw more antelope than deer but no sheep or elk.  One buffalo was in camp last night as evidenced by a steaming buffalo track (too hot outside to be steaming at this time of year), but we didn’t see him. We heard stories about a moose that wandered through the campground.

Unlike the good farmlands that are so abundant, the dominant feature in the badlands is very rough terrain. When the ice cap from the last ice age melted, the badlands were the drainage ditches for all that water that made it to the rivers. The badlands thus lost huge amounts of topsoil due to water and wind erosion and thus were not farmable.  The farms stop abruptly at the edge of the badlands. By the time Roosevelt got here most of the farmland was occupied, which was fine by him because Roosevelt was more interested in a cattle ranch with plenty of grass. The grass is everywhere this year.  Roosevelt didn’t have it so lucky, first, a hard winter killed most of his cattle and then drought killed the grass.  After this defeat, Roosevelt went back to New York City and eventually ran for President.  

The Dakotas

The Dakotas are divided by the Missouri River; locals refer it at east-river and west-river, to determine which side of the river you live on.  East is flatter with fewer cows – still way more cows than people. Both sides have more dirt roads than paved roads.  Seems that everyone has at least one truck – cars are not often seen.  So far lots of water in the Dakotas — falling from the sky, again more in east-river than west-river.

Minot is our next stop and host to the biggest RV rally we will ever attend. It should be interesting and we should meet lots of people. The only bigger RV rally in the country is every January in Quartzite Arizona… I don’t see the attraction, perhaps we might see it someday but it is not in the plans.   

The photo is a risk for me. It was taken in panoramic mode. If you download it you can pan the view. For cell phone viewers, I have no idea how that will work.   

Here is a link to the google map for the area.

Link to our 2019 Route.

Link to our route Colorado to Minot North Dakota

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