INTO MY 50TH STATE! July 23rd

In the morning I left the Siesta Inn for a brisk walk around the town, which mostly consisted of one main street. The train station area seems to be the reason for the town and there was a statue of a James Hill from the 1800s who was apparently responsible for bringing the railroad to town and developing Havre (I read the town fathers wanted to be sophisticated and named it after Le Havre in France, but North Dakotans pronounce it HAV-re ). We had eaten the night before at Murphy’s Pub. There were maybe 4 or 5 other bars in town, a boot repair shop, hardware store, and several vacant storefronts.

I ate a great breakfast around the corner from the Siesta where Rod joined me. Several local farmers were in talking about, what else!, the weather and the rainstorm we’d had the day before. We had a great night’s sleep, which helped as it would be a LOOONG day before we’d find a bed that night.

We finished the long, repetitive drive across Montana. Rolling farmland that has its own kind of beauty. I was remembering as we rolled along Route 2 (used to be called the Teddy Roosevelt Highway) that Bud and 300 others had biked this all the way from Seattle back in about 1988 as a fund raiser for the American Lung Association. It took them 47 days (ending in Atlantic City). It was like a big summer camp for adults, it sounded like to me. They had support vehicles to carry their gear. But it must have been disheartening to bike all day, for several days across Montana with the same scenery!! In some of these small towns, I remember him saying, after 300 people stopped at a little grocery store, EVERYTHING edible would have been cleaned out!! Bikers would walk out chomping on heads of lettuce!!

Speaking of bikers, as I was going to breakfast I saw a grey-haired biker bringing his tandem bike out of the motel room. He had a biker shirt with all kinds of logos on it, like a racing shirt. Turns out he and his 80 year old wife (he said there was 160 years riding on this bike!) were riding from Boston to Seattle!!!! With no vehicle support!! I asked if they were riding that Going-to-the-sun highway through Glacier that was so narrow and scary in parts just to drive!  He said, yes, some friends were coming out from Seattle to meet them and would carry their panniers so they didn’t have to ride with that extra weight. Amazing!! They had ridden all over Europe, did a Trans Am ride (have to look that up, not sure where that goes), down the Pacific Coast, etc. They looked pretty amazing as the two of them rode off west!!

We crossed into North Dakota but I couldn’t take a picture as it was raining. So we’ll stop and get it as we leave North Dakota into Minnesota tomorrow. Our first big town here was Williston where the “man camps” are that Betty had been talking about. They are doing gas/oil exploration here, I think it’s fracking – where they pump water deep to get it out – lots of controversy about whether it ruins the groundwater where they do it. Anyway there were tons of RVs and trailers parked as the workers, who have flocked here because there are jobs, have nowhere to live. Since it was raining, and midday, we didn’t see any actual MEN as I’m sure they were at work. But we passed several drilling sites, with the flame burning off the extra gas, I guess. A boon to the farmers here who struggle but now get paid for drilling rights, but what does it do to our environment?

We stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch and then got turned around and spent an hour finding the right road going south to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I’d never heard of this park until planning this trip but added it to the list of stops. Turns out Teddy Roosevelt came here in 1883when he was 24 to hunt buffalo. He fell in love with the area and built a ranch in the “badlands” area that is now the park. Nothing is left now of the ranch, but he came back here many times and this area led him to his policies when he became president of conservation and environmental legislations. He started the U.S. Forest Service, signed the 1906 Antiquities Act under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments. He got Congressional approval for 5 national parks and 51 wildlife refuges and set aside land as national forests.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND

North Dakota Badlands

When he had a ranch here, he brought long horned cattle from Texas. When we visited the north unit of the park, the first animals we saw were a few long-horns. We were told by a local that the governor of ND had them brought here sort of in memory of his ranch. The ranger told me they round them up (there are 11) in the winter to feed them but otherwise they roam. There are also supposed to be 600+ buffalo in the two units of the park. We saw only a couple at a distance. We did see some wild horses in the south unit at about dusk as we were driving through.

This park had very few tourists, compared to Glacier, Yellowstone, Tetons. These badlands seemed to have more greenery on them than the ones in South Dakota that were mostly rock. The Little Missouri, back at the end of the glacial era, was probably huge and eroded over the millennia this sandstone area to form these rock formations. There are also coal streaks underground that sometime get ignited by lightning and are actually burning underground. We didn’t see any steam/smoke vents as we drove through.

Basically the park was a drive through in two areas, with stops for various overlooks. There are lots of trails through it, including the 97 mile Maah Daah Hey trail that passes through both units. We finished up our tour of the park at the western town of Medora having dinner at a bbq bar/restaurant before we headed east to find a room for the night. We tried about 5 places outside Dickinson and everything was full. So we kept driving to a little stop called Richardson and found the one motel in town that we gratefully took her second last room, with two double beds! She was accepting a phone reservation for the last room as we checked in. Within 5 minutes we were flopped on the bed at close to ll p.m.  I had visions of having to sleep in the car! The people in Dickinson said it was a combination of tourists and the oil workers who fill up the motels every night! This was our last night on the road as we’ll be at Betty’s in St. Paul tonight to complete our loop!

Beautiful full moon over the Badlands!

Our last motel, looked kind of tacky but was fine!!

This has been my view for the past 3+ weeks!