The 'Peg and Rough Riders, Day 12, August 18, 2024

 We were sorty to leave the Badlands and watched the scenery slowly slip away and change into the rolling and then flat prairies as we went further eastward.

East of Dickinson you can get off the Interstate and take the Enchanted HIghway, which features a series of scrap metal sculptures, all made by one man. We exited at the first sign we saw and went to this statue of leaping deer. 

On the other side of the Interstate is Geese in Flight, the world's largest scrap metal statue, and it is indeed huge. 

From there, however, we did not see any indication as to where the remaining statues were located, so back to the Interstate we went.

But this was to be the day of large sculputures! Our next stop was Salem Sue, the World's Largest Holstein Cow, near Salem, ND. She proudly stands on top of a hill. 

Before we got back on the Interstatem we stopped to fill up the tank at a place which seems to offer everything one might need. 

We had yet another McDonald's lunch in Bismarck. From there we started seeing huge fields of sunflowers, and I do mean huge! 

As I said, it was Big Statue Day, and of course we felt compelled to see the World's Largest Bison in Jamestown, ND.

He is 26 feet (7.9 meters) high. Yes, it is male, Yes, it is anatomically correct. Yes, I looked.

We had a good laugh at the person who wondered how they carved such a big statue. It is, of course, poured concrete

Right around the corner is the North American Bison Discovery Center, formerly the National Buffalo Museum. We found it quite interes

ting and informative, and were glad we visited it. 

At one point in the late 1800s, railroad companies offered "hunts". They would supply passngers with rifles, stop the train, let the passengers shoot as many as they wanted to, and then drove on.

Live like a bsion.

Afterwards we made our obligatory Walmart stop. It was a shock to see this sign at the entry 

Although I must say we did not see any weapons anywhere at all. Thank goodness,

I was also not thrilled to see these M&Ms. Is nothing sacred??

Our motel was a bit strange. We drove up to the Econo Lodge, where we had our reservation, only to see a handrwitten paper sign saying "Check in at the Super 8", on the other side of the parking lot. The young woman there basically said that she ran both of them, everything was cool, and that we could have breakfast at either one the next morning.

We went back and unloaded our suitcases and were the only ones in the building, which was a very odd feeling!

Dinner was across the road at Applebees, and when we got back to the motel there were a few more people there. The room was nice enough and the breakfast fine, but I still had a strange feeling about the whole sitatuation. 

The 'Peg and Rough Riders, Day 11, August 2024

No idea why I didn't finish the day in the previous post....

We spent the night at the Yellowstone River Inn in Glendive. It is advertised as "a hidden jewel", bu we were not impressed. The room was older rather than newer but fine. Dinner was something from the grocery store eaten in the room. Their restaurant is also praised, but we had a surprisingly mediocre breakfast.

Time to head east and back into North Dakota, for a short hour's drive to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park South Unit. There is a large campground just west of the park and we could see it full of tents and a number of Boy Scout buses. 

There was a long line to pay and enter the park. However, there was a Park Ranger on the side who called out, "If you have a pass, you can come over here." I whipped out my Senior NP Pass and ID, and we drove right in!

The Visitors Center parking lot was full, so we skipped it and headed on into the park. Despite the number of cars and people, we never felt crowded and had no problem stopping everywhere we wanted to and seeing what we wanted.

I don't have as many pictures of this park, but that doesn't mean it is any less spectacular. 

Lots of prairie dog villages, but they shy today, and very difficult to photograph.

Here you can see a few prairie dogs!

We also saw two wild horses, but they were too far away to get a picture of.

And yes, there were more bison! 

Plus, of course a video!

This video is the same herd from the first photos alongside the road. They had one large bison who was obviously the leader. At one point he just strolled to the middle of the road and stopped. Looking around and reminding everyone who was actually in charge here! Then the herd crossed the road, with one of them stopping to make a (typically large) poo right on the road. The video is from when they had crossed and walked by my window,

On our way out, the Visitors Center parking lot was nearly empty, so we went in. Then we just sat outside and enjoyed the fresh air for a while.

That is still not all of the park, though! A few miles east is still another little "outpost", the Painted Canyon Visitors Center. It was at the moment not spectacularly painted but still impressive and lovely. It features an overview of a large portion of th fascinating canyon, 

And here is proof we were actually there! Happy, indeed!

Visitors Centers do have a way of having not only greatly appreciated air conditioning and rest rooms, but also gift shops. In addition to a couple of t-shirts, I just had to have my very own bison.

HIs name is Theodore and he roams around the living room. Right now he is perched on top of the tv.

We finally left the park and headed to to Dickinson, about half an hour away. We lunched at McDonalds (according to my receipts, I don't remember it at all), and then went, of course, to Wal-Mart. They did have the rain jackets that the store in Devils Lake didn't have but with rain nowhere to be seen in the forecast, I didn't bother. I did buy a very nice (and incredibly soft) hoody sweat jacket.

Our hotel for the evening was the Roosevelt Grand Dakota (Best Western), quite a step above all our others to date. I gather it is the top hotel in Dickinson. 

We had a lot of luck earlier this year with crossing the hotel parking lot to a family-run Mexican restaurant, so we thought we would try again. And were equally successful with El Sombrero. 

Steak fajitas for Norbert, grilled chicken and peppers for me. 

It was another wonderful day, full of memories.

The 'Peg and Rough Riders, Day 10, August 2024

 We said goodbye (temporarily) to North Dakota and headed west into Montana, a new state for us. The further west we webtm the more Badlands landscape we saw, Soon it was everywhere, like here when we entered Montana.

We were stunned at how very extensive the Badlands landscape continued. As we then went south through eastern Montana there was sometimes more, sometimes less. We arrived at Glendive, and first stopped to gill up the gas tank and to make a pit stop. Casinos are not uncommon here, mainly operated by Native American tribes. 

From there we headed towards Makoshika (accent on the second syllable) State Park, said to be the scene of the most dinosaur fossils found in the US, including T Rex and Triceratops. It also of course features the incredible Badlands,

We were greatly disappointed that there are no fossils to be seen, other than a very few at the visitors center. Not even any indication of where in the park they were found.

Onward and upward, right? And here it was quite literally UP! There were some very steep sections, and at one point a sign that no RVs or trailers were allowed beyond that point. 

We may not have seen many bones but we certainly saw wonderful landscape views.

The oddest thing about the park as that you drive through the town, through a typical everyday neighborhood, turn a corner and WHAM! There are the Badlands! The contrast is mindboggling.

We wended our way back through town -- and that's no joke, as there was massive repairwork being done on the main street and there were closures, diversions and other fun things to confuse visitors. However, we struggled through, and made our way -- not coincidentally -- to the smallest Pizza Hut we have ever seen and had our highly-beloved Meatlovers Pizza. Healthy? No. So what.

As you can tell, we dived right in before taking a picture.

We still had time on our hands before we could check in to our motel. We decided we really were not interested in the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museium, with its Biblical emphasis and "advancing the Creation message". 

As cowardly pagans, we went instead to the place next door, the Frontier Gateway Museum. 

They have a large collection of old vehicles and agricultural "stuff" on the grounds.

Inside they had a variety of household articles from over the years, including of course a radio. 

I persoanlly was a bit upset to see the Brownie and Girl Scout uniforms I wore back in the 1960s in a museum. How can it possibly have been long enough ago to qualify for a museum???

The museum did actually have sone locally-found dinosaur bones, so we did get to see some!

And they had this, too, which may not actually be authentic....

It was finally time to head to our motel and put our feet up for a bit. We stayed at the Yellowstone River Inn, which was touted as a "hidden gem". Well, it was a perfectly adequate motel, if you ask me.  

We decided to eat in our room again, so we headed out to a grocery store, Albertson's I believe. WE bought some sandwiches, and had an interesting time looking at the beer selection. 

Norbert did not buy any of them but went with sonething humdrum and familiar.