The roads were mostly clear when we woke up, save for the occasional dead pheasant in the parking lot that had fallen out of a hunter's truck. We headed west through North Dakota, noting that like Southern drivers, North Dakotans like to drive in the left passing lane so it's impossible to get by the slow drivers. North Dakota is mostly flat with some rolling hills, at least along the interstate where we were, until the western edge where it suddenly develops into badlands like those of South Dakota. The southern section of Teddy Roosevelt National Park, our destination, is made up of these. We only had a couple hours of time before we needed to leave, so we settled for a visit to Teddy Roosevelt's former cabin, a scenic drive and a small walk/hike along a ridge with some scenic overlooks of a river and hills. I don't like being those people who go to national parks and then drive around without leaving their car, but at least we got out for a little bit. Teddy Roosevelt is known for having lots of wildlife, and we saw a bunch of deer, bison, a herd of elk, prairie dogs and wild horses. The highway monotony was broken up with a visit to Salem Sue, the world's largest Holstein cow.
We're noticing a dramatic decrease in the number of people around at all these tourist sites as we get further into fall. After the cold and snow of the past few days, we've realized it's probably a good idea to speed through the northern parts of the trip as fast as possible so we can head to warmer weather.
-M
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