July 21, 2016–Day 17–Bismarck, ND to Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit

  • Jul 28, 2016
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The best way to shake off having only a few hours of interrupted sleep – a warm breakfast.  A rare moment of eating out.

10:16am - The World’s Largest Holstein Cow – New Salem Sue – 38 feet high, 50 feet long, 12,000 pounds, built in 1974 for $40,000

1pm – Arrival at Theodore Roosevelt National Park – North Unit

We were greeted to the park by an especially grumbly bison who was originally in the road, but decided to move over for us.  We found the perfect campsite and had some quesadillas.  The 97 degree temps had us shedding shirts and spraying water.

What do you do when you are camping in the middle of nowhere and its 97 degrees?  Go for a hike! After a quick trip to the visitor’s center to get the junior ranger books and watch the park video we headed out on the Prairie Dog Trail. The bison pies were bigger than Cody’s head and quite fresh.

It was at about this point that someone ran out of spray bottle water and couldn’t take the heat anymore.  Scott said, “The breeze feels good.” Cody said, “Its actually kinda hot Dad.”  I responded with, “Yeah, the breeze feels good. Kinda like sticking your head in an oven.”

Cody loved the prairie dogs.  They squeaked and stood up for Cody as he squeaked back.  We hiked for and hour and twenty minutes.  We were all fairly exhausted after the hike, not from the terrain of the time, the heat just sucked the life right out of us. The kids worked on their junior ranger books before the ranger talk.  They had to draw a picture of their hike and couldn’t stop giggling from drawing in all the bison pies.  Its quite possible the heat had pushed them to the over-giggly state.

8pm – Ranger Talk on Geology

Brooke is usually too shy to ask questions, but the other couple left and we had a personal ranger talk.  Brooke asked, “Why don’t you clean up all the poop in the park?”  The ranger smiled, “Would the park be half as much fun if we did?”  Brooke just smiled.

Cody working on one of his favorite projects – digging in the dirt.

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