The drive from Havre to Glacier NP was pretty flat & green but we could see the mountains in the distance. Whohoo! If you haven't seen Glacier, you need to. The Going- to-the-sun road was amazing. Lots of pullouts with amazing views. Wish we had time and equipment to explore more. Great campsite on the Flathead River. Fireworks all around us til after midnight.
Woke up this morning with a buffalo in the next campsite about 15 yards away munching on the tall grass. Nice. Fortunately we packed up quickly & she didn't bother us. Saw another prairiedog colony on the way out of the N.P. Headed NW through MT til we hit hwy 2 & then headed W. More little towns than yesterday but still LOTS of grass. Not very interesting. Wimped out today when it was 95 degrees and opted for our 1st motel in Havre. Looking forward to mountains tomorrow.
Today was the day of recogning. We both looked at each other, thought about the bugs, miles, weather, grandkids, greenhouse, etc. and decided to head home and fly to Florida to visit our friends. With that decided we headed North in western N.D. Very surprised to see mile after mile of green rollers that look like the Palouse in spring. Not many farmhouses, just lots of grass and hay. The most unusual thing we saw this morning was the Petrified Wood Park in Lemon, SD. Amazing amount of petrified wood gathered within 20 miles made into buildings & art formations. Soon we were in N.Dakota. Still very green, but there were many more farmhouses, crops other than grass, and a few oil wells! Before too long we entered the Teddy Roosevelt National Park about a third of the way up the state about 25 miles from the border with MT. I haven't ever heard of this park but it is very cool. Lots of hiking opportunities and a fine 30 mile loop drive. On the drive we saw prairie dog villages, a wild turkey, a herd of wild horses, & two huge herds of buffalo. Nice cg on the little Missouri River. The bug bracelets I bought in Sunriver make sitting outside tolerable.
Parted with Mark & Cora who were heading N into Wyoming. Both Pete and I grew up seeing "Wall Drug" bumper stickers on cars so we couldn't resist checking it out in Wall,SD. Advertising pays.OMG. What started out as a drug store in the 30's has grown to almost a block long enterprise consisting of soda fountains, western wear shops, drug store, restaurant, souvenir shop + more not explored. The lady in front of me was on a tour bus from Las Vegas. Wow! And we are talking about the middle of nowhere..
Later on we arrived at Badlands NM where we had a nice pleasantly breezy camp space. The Badlands were crazy white erosions in the middle of National Grasslands. Quite the contrast.
Another beautiful day on our trip. Went to Jewel Cave NM in the morning. Fantastic adventure deep into the earth first by 27 stories down an elevator & then up &down & around 700+ stairs. 168 miles have been mapped & they figure by airflow patterns there are 3000-5000 miles to be charted. After kicking back in the Horsethief CG we went to Mt.Rushmore in the late afternoon. Liked it more than we thought we would. Quite impressive but small in relation to Crazy Horse. Spent second night in the same CG studying maps to see where we head next....
