Thursday, May 8, 2014

The Amazing Teddy Roosevelt National Park


Much as we enjoyed our site last night, we decided to check out all of the other sites just in case there was something better. Found a great site that overlooked the Little Missouri River and a bunch of bluffs. We walked the camping loop and ran into a couple of male buffalo grazing away. Barb hid behind some trees and took photos. They came with in a few feet of our campsite. Boy, are those things massive.

We lounged around the campsite waiting for the buffalo to leave and then packed up the RV and headed into Teddy Roosevelt park. They have a 36 mile driving loop that encircles the park. There was nobody on the road except us. The speed limit was 25 and most of the time we were going around 10 MPH. It took us almost 4 hours to go the 36 miles. The scenery was other worldly – huge vistas, towering rock formations and lots and lots of buffalo and wild horses. We only saw one foal, no calves, it was maybe a couple of weeks too early to see the babies, although the ranger said that there were 20 foals on the ground already in the park.

We stopped several times to do some of the shorter hikes away from the road. We went to Buck Hill which is the tallest point in the park. Jaw dropping views. Camera shots just don't do it justice. The road up to the Buck Hill trailhead was probably a 45 degree incline. It felt like we were off-roading.
I guess that is something different to do in an RV. Going up wasn't too bad, going down I put the RV into 1st gear but it didn't seem to be much of a speed deterrent.

Another hike was the Wind Cave Hike. Extreme cliffs and beautiful wind sculpted rock formations.

I really hate being near an edge and this hike had lots of cliff edges and not very many railings. There was a bunch of wild sage growing along the path and it was all Barb could do not to pick any to bring home.

Got back home to our new site and pulled a couple of lawn chairs down to the Little Missouri River for Happy Hour. It was a very happy Happy Hour. Sun was finally out, nice breeze – scenery breathtaking. I wish that when you take a photo that it would do justice to what you are photographing. Tons of frogs croaking and I tried stalking a few of them, but as soon as you get close to the sound they stop so I never saw a frog.
This is our Happy Hour View:



 

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