Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Buffalo
I got a quick look at Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South Unit) yesterday. It was quick because we had guests coming to our RV for drinks at 5pm and because I was low on fuel. I entered the park with a plan: drive until the “low fuel” light appeared or 17 miles, whichever came first. Well, the 17 miles came first, so I turned around after driving about a third of the loop around the park.
This plan was necessitated by my belief that the nearest refueling location was 17 miles away from the RV park. So I drove to that location, got 29.4 gallons of fuel (in my 30-gallon tank) and returned to the RV park. Along the way I tried to find wine and cheese for our little party and finally found some at the one-and-only convenience store in Medora. And I was surprised to discover that they had diesel fuel. Yes, it was 17 cents per gallon more expensive than where I filled up, but it would have saved me 34 miles of driving. It would have been a wash, money-wise, and would have saved me 45 minutes of travel. More importantly, I could have done the entire park loop. Dang!
Anyway, what I saw of Teddy’s park was impressive. Not as impressive as the Badlands National Park and not quite what I was expecting (I really thought it would be more wooded), but very interesting nonetheless. Most interesting was the wildlife: besides two very large prairie dog towns, I saw a coyote romping through the prairie dog community (which they didn’t like very much) and two American bison (aka buffalo), one of which was in a location where I could get a photo.
The park has a north unit and a south unit, 68 miles apart. I visited the south unit. I also visited the “Painted Canyon” scenic overlook off of I-94. That was a small version of the Badlands.
Rugged landscape
Painted Canyon
Distant peaks