Two Miles and Four Feet from Home: Theodore Roosevelt National Park Day 1 & 2

As usual we slept great and it was awesome having a bathroom close by for a midnight run. :) If you ever wondered what time cows get up I can tell you that at our campsite it is 5:20 am! Anyway we ended up sleeping on and off until about 7 which is super late for us. Today we are going to try to drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. It would be about 7.5 hours to get there and we hoped to get a campsite but knew we would not get there til around 5. Anyway most of the drive was 80 MPH and not too busy so we were making good time. We wanted to stop at a Wal-mart on the way but every time we saw one we had already passed it. Because we are in the middle of nowhere we have no Data so we cannot lookup anything. Lyn text my daughter Chelsea and she found out that Miles City was our next stop that we could find a Wal-mart at. How appropriate. We stopped at walmart and did a quick grocery and ice run. Tomorrow was Lyn's Birthday and we would not be by a store where we were camping so I got a few birthday items as well. Lyn requested that I make her french toast for breakfast and fried chicken for dinner so i bought the appropriate supplies. After driving another two hours we arrived at the gate at about 5:15. The ranger said the campground was full and that we could camp in the town of Medora and try in the morning for a site. I asked if we could just look at the campground and of course he said sure. The campground was about 5 miles into the park which would mean a 10 mile round trip if we were unsuccessful. We did have great scenery all the way there and even passed a large prairie dog town. Finally we arrived at the campground at about 5:40 and the sign said full. Dang it! Anyway I decided to talk to the camp host just for fun. He said if we could wait until 6:30 he may have a site available. He had one handicap site left and he had to leave it open until 6:30 before he could rent it out just in case a disabled person showed up. We were excited to take a chance and went to a beautiful picnic area to wait. We were in a super shady spot sitting at a picnic table when a three foot snake crawled slowly across the path. It did not have a rattle so we were thankful for that but it was unnerving to say the least. Anyway at 6:30 we went back and as luck would have it we got the site. He said we could only have it one night but we could easily get another site in the morning when people started leaving. No problem Mr. camp host guy….we will take it! We drove to the site and it was huge with its own water and trash can. It happened to be right next to the site that we stayed at 3 years ago. We set up camp and Lyn fixed dinner. Cheeseburgers baked beans and salad. Yum yum! Even Jasper had a small hamburger. While we were cleaning up our next door neighbor came over and introduced himself. He looked like a skinny Santa Claus with a big white beard and flowing white hair. He had noticed our NC sign. (Thanks Rheagan!) As it turns out he and his wife were from Raleigh NC and had started living in an RV full time about 3 years ago with Raleigh as their home base. He called his wife over to meet us and we found out that he was 86 and was retired but did mission work in Haiti. His wife was a retired school teacher and also did mission work in Haiti. They met online and on this day were celebrating their 6th wedding anniversary! How cool! While we were talking to them a big suburban drove buy and yelled out “Hey NC you made it! You remember us from San Francisco?!?! They were our next door neighbors at the campground way back when we camped back at the KOA north of San Francisco. It was two moms and 4 kids doing the same thing we were doing just a different route. I love it out here can you tell! Anyway after that we went to the Ranger show at the amphitheatre and learned all about how the National Parks got started and their history to date. Very interesting. We are very lucky that people had the foresight to save these lands for future generations. After the show we hit the bed about 10. It was a little warm but by 11 it had cooled off just right. Tomorrow we plan to snag a new site and then tour the park and the town of Medora!

Day 2

We woke up at 5 AM and it was already light outside. We laid around and decided to get up at 6. Today was Lyn’s Birthday. As you probably know by now this woman means the world to me and I wanted this day to be special. While she slept in a little longer I went out and got a few presents for her from the car and wrapped them up with supplies I got from Walmart. I had managed to hide them from her the entire trip which was not exactly easy to do in a Prius that you have lived in for 4 weeks. Anyway I set up the presents in a festive manner complete with a birthday balloon and started to fix breakfast. Today's menu would be coffee, french toast and sausage. I had our part of the campground smelling great in a matter of minutes! Lyn got up just in time to eat breakfast and see her presents. I told her she could wait til dinner to open the presents but she would have none of that. She opened them right after breakfast. Ha Ha! Just about that time we heard a loud sound from the campsite across from us. A family of Bison was wandering right through their camp site. It was awesome to see these creatures close up. After breakfast we walked the entire campsite to see if any sites had opened up. We ran across a site that had shade but also had great views looking over the park. It was also site number 72 which is Lyn’s birth year! We quickly filed out the paperwork and put our $14 dollars in the box. We went back to our campsite and broke camp and moved to the new site in about 30 minutes. After that we headed to the Visitor center so Lyn could get her Park Passport stamped. Then we headed to Medora which is literally right outside the gate. The ranger said they had WiFi in the town and we wanted to walk around the town as well. We were there in about 3 minutes. We found a bench in the shade and caught up on the Internet. I walked around town while Lyn replied to birthday messages. This town is very small and unique and I enjoyed just walking around. Jasper enjoyed all of the attention. By now it was noon and we found a place to have lunch that Jasper could join us. After lunch the clouds rolled in and it looked like rain so we headed back to camp to close the windows on the camper. As we drove back the storm got worse and the temperature dropped from 90 to 70 degrees. It was raining lightly when we arrived so we zipped the windows up about half way and took advantage of the 70 degree temperature and took a nap. I think all three of us needed the downtime and we slept a full two hours before any one of us moved. After our nap we did the 38 mile park loop which takes several hours because of the speed and the fact that you stop every now and then just to take it all in. We saw wild horses, bison and Lyn’s favorite prairie dogs! By the time we got home it was time to start dinner. I cooked baked beans and fried chicken and Lyn made slaw. It was delicious and we even had blueberry pie for dessert. After that we just sat in our chairs and looked out over the park. We could see a lone bison on a hilltop in the distance. While we were relaxing a ranger came by and reminded us about the program at 9 in the amphitheater. It was going to be about bison. Alright count us in. We were camped just two sites from the amphitheater and we went about 9 to see the show. It was very informative and we really enjoyed it. Finally we went to bed around 10:30. Tomorrow we have no destination in mind. we just plan to drive about 7 hours and see what happens. We have officially been on the road for 4 weeks and a day. Greensboro is starting to have a pull on us. We are about 29 hrs away and heading in that direction every day. Still enjoying the trip but looking forward to being home as well.