Theodore Roosevelt National Park - My First Evening

After my visit with Dollyn, I made my way due north into Dickinson as planned.  I found the Dakota Cafe and enjoyed a good hot meal.  Part of my gameplan was to also connect and check email before going "into the wild" and off the grid for the next couple of days.  There was quite the buzz throughout the diner, people talking about the "twister in Fargo" just a short time earlier.

 (c)Lauren Knapp of the Daily Journal

I immediately thought "DRAT - I missed it" as I've been intrigued about doing a storm chasing trip either with a university or a professional meteorologist.  I'm pretty sure I will be doing such a trip next June . . . but again, I digress.

Turns out that there was a funnel cloud spotted in the sky in Fargo, and that it touched down across the river in Morehouse, MN.  Too bad I missed it by about eight hours.

After supper, I continued my final leg of the drive to Medora, ND which is the entrance to the "Southern Unit" of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  A little cowboy tourist town, I didn't spend much time there as the wildlife inside the park was really my interest.  For those interested, however, Medora does have quite a bit to offer folks visiting and interested in more than primitive camping, bizarre land formations and wildlife.

I had made campsite reservations for the Cottonwood Campground.  Nestled along the Little Missouri River, it was early enough in the season that mosquitoes were not yet a problem.  I would imagine that was the weather got warmer, a good dose of OFF would be necessary to enjoy camping there.

My site was a "tent" site since I'd be car camping (i.e., sleeping inside my van).  The choice I had made for my spot in paradise was chosen to be near the toilets (there were no showers), but unfortunately, it didn't work out so well for me.  There was a lot of tall grass between my spot and the bathroom and at night, we had several bison that roamed throughout that area.  There was NO WAY I was going to venture out in the middle of the night to go pee.

Once I knew where my site was, I wanted to make the most of the late afternoon daylight; the weather was nice with clear skies.  The park's "southern unit" has a 36 mile scenic loop road, but I didn't want to venture that far that late in the day, so I just did a short jaunt over to the Prairie Dog Town and back (about 10 miles and an hour's drive roundtrip).

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park is known for their feral horses, and I was very hopeful to be able to see them.  On my way into the park, I did drive through a small band of horses that included several very young foals.  But my exciting experience with the horses would come the next morning!

As I made my way over to the Prairie Dog Town, I found myself in the middle of a very large herd of bison.  Most were still sporting their winter fur and itching to scrape off the matted tufts.  Some were rubbing on just about anything stationary that they could find.  I'm sure it felt really good to them too.

I was surprised to not see more young calves in the herd and that it seemed the male bulls were mixed throughout the herd with the females and their young.  My prior experience with bison was that the bulls leave the herd once the calves arrive and generally wander around as singles until it's time for mating.   That said, there were some single bulls that provided some excitement in the campground later that night!

In Prairie Dog Town, I saw something moving on the hillside.  With binoculars, I could make out that it was a coyote hunting.  As night fell, photography was a challenge, but I was able to capture a few images from about 300 yards away.  This was the only coyote I would see during my two days in the park.  I was glad I had the opportunity to watch it hunt and get its fill of critters for supper!

I got back to camp around 9:00pm and pretty much went straight to bed.  As I laid in my sleeping bag, I heard quite the raucous near my van.  When I sat up, imagine my surprise to see several people out walking their dogs and scattering as two large bulls came charging down the road.

Apparently, one bull was startled by a barking dog and ducked into a campsite.  In that area was another bull who didn't appreciate the intruder, so he charged.  They were huffing and puffing, making all sorts of noise as they made their way deeper into the campground.  With the excitement over, the people and dogs returned to their RVs and campers, I laid down for the night.

Today's total mileage driven was 504.