Day 5 - Theodore Roosevelt National Park

After spending the night camping in the north unit, we went for a short hiking in the morning to let the tent air out before packing up.  Nothing too eventful - saw some deer on the other side of the Little Missouri River.  The park seemed pretty much empty; I think we saw more rangers than people.

We talked a bit to the campground hosts who were from Florida.  They only had three more days at TRNP and then they were headed to Roswell, NM to be campground hosts - all volunteer.  I suppose that is my new retirement goal.  Have a nice camper - and travel from park to park and be campground hosts...not so bad.  There RV looked pretty darn nice.  And their dog seemed to be having a grand time.

It would be interesting to come back here in the summer to see if there are people.  Or maybe it is always this quiet - very nice.

We headed south on the two lane Route 85...otherwise known as...watch out for the oil traffic highway.  Craziness.

The first stop was the painted canyon visitor center/rest stop right off the highway.  Anyone traveling on I-94 needs to make this pit stop - what a beautiful view!

We almost walked right past the bison in front of the visitor center - he is real.  We did a short loop hike here - a bit overgrown and didn't seem to be well used - strange for it was pretty nice.

We decided we would pull into the Medora entrance to the park to visit the first of several Prairie Dog towns.  I could have watched these little creatures all day long.  It was funny when Rob walked into the field - they all screamed and warned each other - danger danger!

We then headed back out of the park for lunch in Medora...a cowboy bar that was quite good.  We then headed around to a dirt road entry that would take us to the petrified forest loop.  Originally, I had planned the 10 mile loop hike, but I was not all that confident in my knee at this point (just the week before, I was barely walking after a run).  So, we decided we would do 1.5 miles into each side of the loop to see the two petrified wood gardens.

Upon seeing two other hikers, we asked if they saw any wildlife.  They told us about a bison that was on his own on the south side of the loop (we did the more popular north side first).  When then were headed off, the man turned around and yelled back at us - "oh yeah, we saw snakes"...he then took his arms and waved them in snake-like movements.  Gee - great, you really didn't have to mention that.

Rob pulled off at the first sign of wood.  After hearing a rattle from under one of the pieces - I wanted nothing to do with that area and begged him to keep moving on the trail.

Down the way, there were many more examples of the wood.  This is the third largest concentration in North America (first and second are Petrified Forest NP in Arizona and Yellowstone NP).  This was our first  time seeing petrified wood.

It was actually much more interesting than I thought it would be.

The stumps were just there - scattered about.  It was hard to grasp that this use to be forest.

Much of the hike was grasslands...very beautiful, but I am glad we didn't do the full 10 mile loop.  It wasn't hot, but we had to wear pants because of the grasses...the sun did get warm.

We decided we had time to go back into the main area of the park to do the scenic loop road.  At this point, I was a bit disappointed that we didn't see any wildlife at the petrified forest hike.  I really wanted to see wild horses and herds of buffalo.  That wasn't a problem.  We saw three groups of wild horses.  And buffalo?   Well - hundreds of them.  On the side of the road...in the road...

There they were - everywhere.

Some a bit too close for comfort.  At one point, we were in a buffalo jamb and couldn't move forward in the car.  These two were locking horns on Rob's side.  On my side - I was looking about 5 feet into another bison sitting under a tree.  All I could say was..."TIME TO GO!".