Tick's Tricks: 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.